Maine vs. World 2013

Maine vs World 2013 has begun (for the purpose of this year's competition, New Hampshire is considered a colony of Maine).  Three events are in the books so far - World 2, Maine 1.  Here's a recap:

Skate agility course - Team World uses their innate fearlessness and superior cornering skills to dominate the agility event, despite an early crash by the only converted alpine racer on the team.

Classic sprint relay - Once again, Team World steadily pulls away, despite the head-first lunging heroics of Maine's leadoff skier.  Team Maine is left shaking its collective head and wondering if they belong in the same competition as Team World.

Water polo - This event, on the schedule against the better judgement of the organizer, yields a spirited contest.  Maine's normally inferior colony to the west proves its worth, as the three NH residents delight and amaze their teammates with the grace and power of their fish-like swimming.  At last, a win for Team Maine.  Is this a turning point, or merely a speed bump in the path of the World juggernaut?  Only time will tell.  Stay tuned.

PS - We're also doing some ski racing.  Off to Rutland for the Eastern Cups this weekend.

Nationals 2013

We've had a small crew out in Utah for Nationals these past couple weeks:  James, Tyler, and Riley.  They've been living the dream - enjoying great skiing every day and also hanging out with various alumni (Spencer, Maren, Wilson, Scott, Chris, and Nick Crawford '09).  Unfortunately, they passed around a nasty cold last week, which curtailed the racing quite a bit.  Henry also was able to make it down from Wyoming to do the skate sprint yesterday, finally healthy after weeks of illness and fatigue - he posted a remarkably solid result in his first hard effort in over a month.  Despite the various health troubles, everyone's pretty fired up about the Nationals experience - eager to get the season started, and already looking ahead to next year at Soldier Hollow.

Here's a video by Riley and some photos from Tyler:

Jackson Jaunt & Harry Eldridge Race

We took a quick trip to Jackson over the weekend.  We did a classic OD ski on Saturday - it was great to explore some new trails.  Hannah and Emma even ran into Marty Hall, who accused them of doing an OT (over-talking) instead of an OD - classic Marty.

The next day we headed up to the Eagle Mountain House for the Jackson Jaunt, a 5/10k mass start skate race.  There was a good crowd of college skiers, juniors, and masters on hand - a very competitive field for both races, basically a mini-carnival.  Our skiers survived the chaos at the start and acquitted themselves well.  From where I was standing, it looked like a pretty fun race - lots of twists and turns and transitions, and plenty of people to battle with.  I was pretty happy with how everyone skied - it seems like we're a bit ahead of where we usually are at this time of year.  A good start.

Men's Results
Women's Results

Shelby and Tess did a road trip of their own - they headed over to Lake Placid for the Harry Eldridge Memorial skate race.  They both skied solid races, especially considering the challenging circumstances - a 7 hour drive the day before, and no coach to help with fluoro testing or other logisitics.

Results

Back to Work, and Thanksgiving Video

Bowdoin Nordic is back in session.  We started up practices a couple days ago - about half the team is back on campus, with the rest trickling in gradually.  Pineland got a couple good storms over break - everything's open and the skiing is excellent.  We're going to be busy over the next few weeks - all sorts of comings and goings, with race trips every weekend.  Should be fun.

For now, here's Shelby's video from Thanksgiving Camp.  I finally figured out how to post it - I discovered this great new website called "YouTube" where you can post videos and stuff.  Enjoy!

First Eastern Cups

A small but fearless crew made the trip over to Craftsbury for the Eastern Cup openers last weekend:  James, Shelby, Alec, Emma, Riley, and Kaitlynn (who was already at home in Elmore).  At that point, Craftsbury had pretty much the only skiing in New England, with a 1.75k man-made loop, so things were pretty tight for an event with several hundred racers.  An unfortunate timing malfunction temporarily wiped out the results of Saturday's classic sprint qualifier, so the skiers ended up doing a second qualifying round in the afternoon instead of heats - this was a bummer, but at least everyone got two race starts out of the deal.  Sunday's 8.75/11.25k skate went as planned despite heavy crowding and falling snow that made things tough for the late starters.  Our skiers did well - solid performances punctuated by a few great races, most notably James's sprint and Kaitlynn's skate race.  Kaitlynn's skate was easily the best skate result I've ever seen from her - she finished among several strong EISA skiers, including some of last year's NCAA qualifiers.  Overall, an encouraging start to the season.  Now we'll look forward to a couple weeks of hard training and relaxation before getting back together after New Year's.

Results (scroll down)

Penny Rd Time Trial & Exams

We wrapped up fall semester practices with a classic time trial on Penny Rd to close out our intensity week - 4.5k of rolling climbs to the top of Gloucester Hill.  It was a messy day - temps in the 30s with intermittent cold rain.  The roads were covered with fresh sand - a pre-emptive strike against snow and ice that never materialized.  So, not the greatest conditions for fast skiing, but a good chance to practice racing in tough conditions.  The skiers did a nice job - no complaints, just focused warmup and a solid race effort.  Kaitlynn had arrived in town the day before, having just gotten off the plane from Svalbard - she crushed the time trial with an impressive performance under tough conditions.  She's clearly in great shape despite her somewhat unorthodox training situation in Svalbard (eg, skiing in a roadside ditch, training with a shotgun on her back, occasional week-long research cruises, not seeing the sun for 2 months, etc).  Kevin was the top man - even though he's done minimal rollerskiing this summer and fall, his fitness is outstanding after a season of XC racing.  I should also mention that Coach Mike posted a faster time than any of the athletes - he's at that nice point in his coaching career where experience and residual fitness allow him to compete with the athletes despite sporadic training.  I miss those days...  Overall, a solid workout despite the nasty, nasty conditions (the skiers were little icicles by the time they finished their cool down - luckily no one came down with pneumonia in the days following).

After a pleasant recovery run at Bradbury on Sunday, team training for 2012 was over.  Now the skiers are working their way through exams and trying to get as much rest as possible.  We'll get back together on January 2nd to start our final push before the carnival season starts - until then, hopefully everyone will have a couple restful weeks with some good training at home.  I'll post a few updates with race results from the Craftsbury Eastern Cups, US Nationals, and any other races that people can dig up.

Sandy Skiing and Broken Ratchets

We're into that special time of year when the roads are covered with sand after a fleeting mini snowstorm, but there's still no skiing.  So far we're muddling through.  Last week we took it easy to bounce back from the heavy load of camp - now we're going for one final intensity week before we wrap up organized practices for the semester.  We're doing different things for different people this week.  It's the time of year when we put a bit more focus on polishing the top end race gears with shorter, faster intervals; however, several of our skiers are feeling OK in the high end department and are looking to build more endurance in the form of long, sustained threshold intervals.  A few others are battling illness, injury, or fatigue, and are easing back into harder training.  One unexpected challenge that's cropped up is rollerski malfunction - it seems like half the team has had the ratchets stop working on their classic rollerskis.  Obviously ratchets wear out, but it's a bit uncanny to see it happening to so many people all at once.  My two guesses about the cause are road grit (although this was happening before the snowstorm and heavy sanding) and/or cold temps (the worst of the slippage took place on Saturday, when it was really cold).  Who knows - maybe a little of both, maybe just coincidence.  Anyway, we're passing around skis and making it work.  With any luck, we're right around the corner from snow skiing and a nice long vacation for our hard-working rollerskis.

Here's a team photo from our last day in Foret, courtesy of Shelby: