Reunion BBQ!

We hosted a ski team alumni barbecue at the Schwartz Outdoor Leadership Center last Saturday. We had a decent turnout of alumni, ex-coaches, and family members - almost 40 people all told. It was great to reconnect with old friends and meet a few new folks, and it was especially fun to hear people share their experiences with the team. It's actually a bit humbling to learn more about team history - over the years a lot of people have worked really hard to keep the team alive and build the program, and we wouldn't be where we are today without their efforts. As importantly, it's clear that Bowdoin Skiing was an important part of many people's college experience - this event was a chance to rekindle some of that energy. Over the past few years, we've been gradually working to reconnect with ski team alumni, and I think we're off to a good start. In the months and years to come, we'll be looking for more ways to get the alumni together - keep an eye on this blog and the Friends of Bowdoin Skiing Facebook page.

Thanks to all of the folks who turned out for the get-together! Thanks also to Andy and Betsey Shepard for helping to get the ball rolling on the event, to Outing Club Director Mike Woodruff for use of the Schwartz Center, to Alumni Relations for helping get the word out, and to Dining Service for a fine spread.

(photo courtesy of Hannah Shepard)

Finley's New Best Friend

Back before school ended, several skiers generously offered to babysit the kids while Shannon and I went out one evening. The next day, Finley remarked, "Spencer is my best friend." When I asked him why, he said, "He is kind and sweet." So there you have it - Spencer really is a good guy. Thanks to all of the skiers for their thoughtfulness!

Graduation 2011!

Last Saturday was Graduation Day - we sent Grace and Walt off into the world. Graduation is always a happy and sad day, and this one was no exception. Grace joined the team at the same time I arrived - she's the first Bowdoin skier I've coached through a full 4 years. During that time, she's been an integral part of the team - the character and leadership she brought to the team won't be easily replaced. It's been a pleasure watching her develop as an athlete and a person. As for Walter, it's been a long road - for him, this day was many years in the making. He's done as much as anyone to put our program on the map these last few years, and he's set a high bar for future Bowdoin skiers to strive for. It was a real privilege to have him rejoin the team this year as a volunteer assistant as well. Both of them will be dearly missed, but I suspect that we'll be seeing them both around in the not-too-distant future. Congratulations Grace and Walt!

Thoughts on This Season and Next

Earlier this week I sent the team the outline of our 2011-12 training plan. As usual, before finalizing this plan I did a lot of thinking about last season and had a lot of good conversations with athletes about what worked and what didn't. Here are a few thoughts:

I'm pretty pleased with the season. Our fall training was excellent - definitely the best fall we've had in my 4 years. People were focused and positive, team chemistry was good (aside from a few bumps), and most people stayed pretty healthy. Our results continued to improve - I would say that this was perhaps our best overall team performance ever. We've had some great individual performances over the years, and occasionally one half of the team or another has been outstanding, but this year we got very solid skiing on the men's and women's side alike. We improved our classic skiing in particular - in fact, I felt that our classic results were actually a bit stronger than our skate, if anything. We haven't been anywhere close to even in the 2 techniques since I've been here, so this feels good. So, a very good season.

But, of course, there are lots of things we can improve on - although we're taking baby steps forward, there's still a long way to go before we can be consistently competitive with the rest of EISA. Here are a few of the things we'll be tweaking for next year:

1. More hills! How does one train on hills in Brunswick? I don't have a good answer yet, but I'm going to spend the summer figuring this out. I've known for a long time that our lack of hills was a disadvantage, but this year it really hit me when almost every skier noted a clear disparity between their ability to be competitive on flats versus climbs. An occasional trip to Pineland or Bradbury for bounding isn't enough. Next year we'll be headed to these places more frequently, as well as Gloucester Hill, Penny Rd, and Ridge Rd for rollerskiing. We may also try to do more with the short hills that we have in the area - I just need to get creative and break out of the "3-minute hill" mindset. I'm also not above using artificial hills once in a while - ie, stadium steps, treadmill, etc. We won't be caught dead running up the Tower stairs, though - ugh.

2. Quicker start to the carnival season. This has varied over the years, but our team often seems to be a bit flat to start the carnival season. It's been nice to improve throughout the season, and we consistently put up our best results at Regionals, but I think we can have it both ways - be more competitive in January without peaking early. One of our skiers pointed out that we don't time trial much, and this is certainly true. In fact, we don't do much high intensity training of any sort until late fall. I think this is generally a good thing, but recent patterns would seem to indicate that we can be a bit more aggressive. Specifically, we'll have a more even sprinkling of high-intensity training added to our threshold work throughout the summer and fall, as well as a few more time trials. Some skiers will also need to be more assertive about finding race opportunities over Winter Break - this is a critical link between fall training and the carnival season.

3. Modified strength program. Nothing new here - I tweak the strength plan every year. Truthfully, I don't think anyone really knows the best way to do strength training for cross-country skiing - there are a million different approaches out there, and lots of highly successful skiers use very different programs. So I'll keep playing around with different ideas - one of these years I'll find the perfect plan and win a Nobel Prize for Nordic Skiing. For next year, I think we can make some small but productive changes. I may end up recycling some old ideas that perhaps I gave up on too soon and patching these together with some of the stuff we already do. Not sure how/if I can make it all fit together smoothly, but that's what the summer is for.

We'll mix up a few other things as well - more "unpredictable" training, an adjusted speed workout, and a really awesome treadmill test - but in general, we have a good training framework that seems to be effective. We also have a really motivated group of skiers coming back and some fired-up newcomers - next season should be fun!

Tuckerman's Trip

Spencer sends this post about a classic spring ski trip:

Each year there is a narrow window when the race season ends and there is still some lingering snow to be exploited. Over the last few years some of have used this time to get in our fix of the other type of skiing. Last Saturday, Maren, Riley, and I went and skied Mt. Washington for what turned out to be one of the best days of skiing I've ever had. First off the weather and conditions were amazing, which brought people in the thousands - one of the Rangers there guessed about 2500 people made the hike up that day. The combination of a high number of people there and the pretty technical level of skiing led to a ton of spectacular wipeouts in which people would slide up to several hundred yards down the bowl, almost always followed by cheers and applause from a very sizable peanut gallery, including a few Colby skiers.

After the 3ish mile hike into Tuckerman's Ravine where most of the skiing takes place, we first hiked up the main headwall into the upper snowfield and skied back down to the bottom of the bowl. Maren pretty solidly proved that she was a far better skier than Riley and I and ripped down the headwall leaving us to more cautiously make our way down. Next we hiked up almost to the summit for an awesome view of Wildcat and the Northern Presidentials. It was a great day, way cooler than I can give justice to, so here are some awesome photos we took along the way. . .

A view above the top of the headwall.

Riley and Spencer (below) climbing up the headwall.


Maren and Riley near the summit.

The three of us with the mountain in the background.

Ski Team Reunion - Date Change

For those who haven't heard, we're planning a ski team reunion for this summer. Unfortunately, we've had to change the date - it is now June 25th instead of June 11th. We'll have a barbecue from 5-8pm - it should be a fun chance to reconnect with old teammates and share stories and classic photos like this one:


Family members are welcome, of course, including parents - we'd love to have anyone who's a fan of Bowdoin Skiing in attendance. I'll be sending out registration info to alumni shortly - anyone who's not on the alumni list should contact me for more information. Also, Andy Shepard has started a Facebook page with photos and updates. Hope to see you there!

Jeff Bush - Pro Ski Racer

I got an email from Jeff Bush '10 last week, who's been out in Colorado working for an outdoor education program. I'm happy to report that not only has he stayed in touch with xc ski racing, he's winning cash money. Here's the story:

I've been very tempted by the dark side (telemark skiing) here in Colorado and not nordic skiing as much as I should have. However, I got motivated enough to do two races and train a tiny bit for them. This entails one threshold workout and three or four skis total, but it was better than nothing. The first race was the Leadville Loppet, where I entered the 22k. It was a great day for racing and I got off to a solid start, in the lead pack. I skied smart for the beginning and drafted a bunch of different master blasters. Then I would race ahead on the downhills and catch someone else. My tragic error came in the last 3k where I took a wrong turn and lost sight of the skier I was about to pass. I pulled myself together and managed to finish 5th (6th if you count the classic winner), which I was happy about - 1st place in my age group, too, although I was the only one. Other than the turn though it was a very strong performance for me - I skied smart, and even though I was racing at 10,000 ft I used my knowledge of the sport rather than fitness to gain an advantage.

The second race was even more fun - a 600m sprint down Harrison Ave, the main street in Leadville. It was a small event, organized by the HS coach. There were head to head sprints on the snow they trucked in and I got to race in my favorite discipline, the super short sprint. I generally am very modest and try very hard not to sound pompous or arrogant, but there really wasn't any competition for me; there is no other accurate way to describe it. I won every race without contention. It was a fun experience for me, though, because I have actually never won a ski race before, and I also won $50! Not bad for a retired college skier.

It's always fun to hear about alumni racing success. One of these years we'll have to organize an alumni race...