Regionals 2017

It happens every year - all of a sudden it's Regionals, and we're left wondering where the season went.  Six weeks, six carnivals - it goes by so fast!  This year Bates and Black Mountain were the hosts for our regular season finale.  After the massive snows of mid-February, we got an equally massive thaw - super warm temps all week leading up to the carnival.  Friday brought blazing sun and temps in the 50s for the 5/10k classic race.  The men's race was first - sadly, it just wasn't their day.  Most of our guys were a little off, and it didn't help that the skis dragged a bit.  Very disappointing after a season full of great classic performances.  The women were sharper and their skis ran well, and they put up some strong results.  Hannah posted her best distance result ever in 5th - one of Bowdoin Nordic's very best performances ever!  Lily also tied her distance PR, finishing 39th.  This race also served as the Chummy Broomhall Cup, or the Maine State Championship.  We finished 3rd - Lily and Sean earned Second Team All-State honors, while Hannah made the First Team.  Congratulations to Bates for a great showing to win the Cup, highlighted by an impressive victory in the overall carnival by Sadie James (sister of Bowdoin Nordic legend Emma James '13)!  UMPI also had an amazing day - their men came out of nowhere to finish 3rd overall and 1st for the Maine teams.  Obviously we're disappointed that we weren't able to put up a better showing in a race that's been a major target for us all season, but at the same time we're happy for all of these guys.  It's good for the league when new teams and individuals rise to the top - plus, all of us Maine teams have to stick together!

Clouds and rain replaced the sun the next morning, and the track was wet and slushy for the 15/20k skate.  The men's race featured a pileup right out of the gate - someone caught a ski in the slush and went down, and several skiers got tangled up, including Christian and Sam.  They both recovered nicely and skied calmly to make up for lost time.  Christian was able to catch up to the pack remarkably quickly, and pretty soon he, Jake, Mac, and Orion were skiing together, with Sean slightly ahead.  This has been the standard pattern for our men in the mass start races this year, and as usual they moved up gradually as the race went on.  Going into the final lap, Jake found an extra gear and surged ahead - Christian went with him and they picked off several more skiers before finishing in 23rd and 27th, respectively, with Mac and Sean close behind.  This was a PR for Jake - a strong and encouraging performance to finish the carnival season.  The start of the women's race was much cleaner - no major mishaps except for one unlucky person who lost a basket when her pole got stepped on.  Sadly for us, that person was Hannah.  She had just passed a crowd of people with replacement poles and was about to head into the woods, so she actually had to stop and ski backward for a couple strides.  Fortunately, Middlebury coach Andrew Johnson made a heroic effort to throw her a new pole, and she was able to get back on track.  Amazingly, she made up a ton of ground in a hurry - by the time I saw her at 3 1/2 k, she had moved to the front of the chase pack and was close behind the leaders.  By the start of the second lap, she had bridged the gap and was skiing in the top 10!  As the lead pack dwindled, she stayed right with them until it was down to 5.  They finally dropped her going up High School Hill for the third and final time, but she was able to stay clear of the chasing skiers and lock up another 5th place finish to put the cap on a fantastic weekend.  Meanwhile, the rest of the women were skiing strongly as well.  Apparently Lily fell 3 times and managed to take Fiona out during one of those falls, so that wasn't amazing, but she made up for it with an incredible third lap - she made such a huge jump that I almost missed her coming through on her final lap much earlier than I'd expected.  She finished 43rd - definitely her best 15k of the year.  Katja also skied a nice steady race, starting conservatively and skiing smoothly to pick up several places and finish in 54th - her best performance of the season.  Overall, it was a good day to end on.  Hannah's stellar finishes clinched an NCAA berth, so she's headed to Jackson next week for one last blaze of glory before her college careers winds up.  Mac has skied his final college race, sadly - "out to pasture", as he puts it.  These two have been such an integral part of our team over the last 4 years - they both played a huge role into shaping the team into what it is today, and they'll be impossible to replace.  We'll miss them both so much!

Many thanks to all of the team parents for their hard work and support all year long.  We had a great turnout of supporters for this carnival - family members, friends, alumni, and teammates showed up in great numbers and gave the whole weekend a fun and friendly feel.  In particular, thanks to Deb Miller, Meg Groves, Jim Ahearne, and Steve Fuller of Flying Point Road for the great photos in this post!

Middlebury Carnival 2017

Middlebury Carnival was one of our best so far!  Our team always really enjoys this carnival - nice venue, fun course, great lodging at the Midd Inn, and of course wonderful team dinners at the Groves house.  So all this positive energy must have added up to give us a boost last weekend.  The women were sharp in the 15k skate.  Hannah hung onto the lead pack until the final couple kilometers when things broke up, ending in 8th.  Ellie eased into the first couple k and then something clicked - she got a look on her face that I've seen in a few of her best races, and from there on she started passing people left and right to finish in 36th.  Rachel scored a big PR in 53rd, including a great finishing push to pick up one more place in the final few hundred meters.  It was particularly great to see these two put up great races, because this was their last race of the season - they're both headed to New Zealand for a semester abroad.  Very satisfying way to finish.  The men followed up with a great 20k performance.  Just like our last mass start in Jackson, they started out fairly conservatively.  Mac and Christian started in the middle of the pack - around halfway they caught up to Sean, with Orion close behind, and they worked their way up in a little cluster to finish with 3 in the top 25 - Mac 20th, Christian 23rd, and Sean 24th, with Orion not far back in 34th.  Christian has been really consistent all season, with several finishes in the 30s, but I knew he had a bigger race waiting to come out, and it was great to see him smash the top 30 barrier so decisively.  We now have 9 skiers who have posted top 30 finishes this season!  I think our previous best was 5, so this is a level of depth that we've never seen before - exciting stuff.

After the usual goofy team activities in the Porter Mansion that evening, the team woke up energized and ready to crush the classic sprint relay on a beautiful sunny morning.  Hannah got off to a hot start for our first team, and we were all super stoked to see her burst out of the woods with a gap on the pack - first time we've ever led a relay!  Asking a first-year to take over in the lead with all the top teams chasing is a tall order, but Lily is a tough customer.  She battled hard and stayed in contact with the skiers who passed her - only Dartmouth's first team got away.  The next four legs played out in a similar fashion - a blistering leg from Hannah to jump us up into second and then gritty skiing from Lily to keep us in contention.  UNH and the second Dartmouth team were able to slip past Lily in the last few hundred meters, but she finished right on their heels and held off the other teams to lock up a 4th place finish!  This was our second best relay finish ever - a real thrill to see our team contending with the best in the league.  Fiona and Katja were solid as well and hung in there with several of the other second and third teams - good skiing by the whole group.  Temps warmed up quickly for the men's race, which made for a bit of a mess - the snow became too warm and wet for hard wax, but not transformed enough for klister.  We ran out of time to test (things were changing too fast to keep up with anyway), so we threw out our best guess and hoped for good luck.  Sean's skis weren't great, but he was right in the thick of it when he came out of the woods - until his klister caught.  He crashed, broke a pole, and got tangled up with another skier - by the time he got free and tagged off to Mac, we'd lost a ton of time.  Double poling on skate skis, Mac put up some fast times, and Sean kept fighting despite variable skis - they were able to hold off Colby's top team and finish a solid 12th.  Meanwhile, Jake and Sam were skiing well and staying right with our first team, until Sam broke a pole on his final lap.  A broken pole is never a good thing, but when you're double poling on skate skis it's a rather huge problem.  Sam showed good fire grinding it out with one pole, but this bit of misfortune dropped them way back.  By the time Christian and Orion went out in the second heat, we'd had time to identify a more workable klister, but not enough time to actually put it on anyone's skis, so we ended up putting Orion on my test skis (Christian was double poling anyway).  They weren't super fast, but they kicked well and stayed free, and these guys were able to have a solid race with no crashes.  Overall a good day despite frustrations with the men's waxing situation - I took some small comfort from seeing that the other coaches were having similar challenges.

Many thanks to Meg and Laurie Groves for hosting us for dinner two nights in a row (and for some of these great photos)!  Thanks also to Deb Miller for tons of photos, and to all the parents who came out to support us.  Looking forward to finishing the regular season strong this weekend at Black Mountain.  It's not only the Regional Championships, but also the 11th Annual Broomhall Cup - can't wait!

UVM and Dartmouth Carnivals (plus Snowmageddon)

I've been slacking - it's almost time for the Midd Carnival and I still haven't posted anything about UVM or Dartmouth!  It's not because these were uneventful carnivals - lots of good stuff going on these last couple weeks.  Here's a brief rundown:

Stowe got a nice refresher just before the UVM Carnival, and we had nice conditions for the skate sprint.  Lily was the top women in 52nd and Mac led the team with an impressive 15th in the qualifier, but the big story of the day was Sam - he's always been more of a distance grinder type guy, but on this day he found an extra gear and qualified in 24th!  Sean just missed it in 32nd - with 2 open skiers in the heats, he still achieved a top 30 finish.  The heats didn't go our way, unfortunately - Sam crashed and Mac's skis were a bit slow, and they ended up in 26th and 24th, respectively.  Still quite a good day with all of our men's scorers in the top 30 - something that's becoming a regular event!  That night we had our traditional dinner at the Miller house, with a great turnout of team parents in attendance.

Next day was beautiful and crisp - perfect for a classic race.  The women got it started with a good solid day, with Hannah leading the way in 17th (for college skiers).  Kaitlynn and a few other elite skiers competed as guests, and Kaitlynn won the overall race by a solid margin - good day for the Miller sisters!  The men followed up with an absolutely stellar performance.  Ian was taking splits - we've never done much with splits in our program, but this year we decided to give it a shot, and this was our first day trying out Racesplitter.  When the early splits started coming in, we didn't dare to give them to the athletes - they were so good we were afraid to believe them!  Turns out that they were real.  Mac caught a ride from Williams' top skier and hung on all the way to the finish to take 8th place (for college skiers), and Sean was right behind in 10th.  Orion and Jake were separated by less than a second in 25th and 26th, respectively.  Two men in the top 10 and four in the top 30!  We've accomplished each of those feats once before, but not on the same day, so this was quite possibly the best day we've ever had on the men's side.  Just a great, great day and a lot of fun to watch.  Happily, we had a lot of parents there to witness it and also some enthusiastic alumni!

At home between carnivals we enjoyed some great skiing at Pineland, including a nice OD with some beautiful crust cruising.

Just as we were gearing up to leave for Craftsbury and the Dartmouth Carnival, a big storm came in and just kept getting bigger.  With some last minute scrambling and some help from supportive professors, we were able to get out of town just before things blew up.  Driving wasn't great going across New England, but with the worst of it confined to the south and the coast, it wasn't too bad.  Temps dropped quickly after the storm, and we woke up to a nice cold day for our 3x5k skate relay.  Our top men's team of Sam, Sean, and Mac battled to a 9th place finish - our second best relay finish ever.  Hannah, Ellie, and Lily put up the top finish for the women - a very respectable 14th.  After the races, the teams got together for their usual Carni Crush activities.  As usual, I stayed clear of the festivities, but I'm told that our team's crushing was more or less tasteful and not too embarrassing.  I understand that ice cream and dancing with wolves were involved.

The next day was a combined carnival/Eastern Cup, so there was a huge crowd of juniors, as well as a few masters and a handful of elite skiers - quite a scene.  Sean was our top performer for the men in 19th, and Jake found his form to post his best finish ever in 24th.  The women followed and skied one of their best overall races of the season.  Hannah was 10th, with Lily in 37th and Ellie 52nd.  Fiona, Rachel, and Katja all had PRs - really solid skiing by everyone and a good finish to a rather hectic weekend.  Many thanks to all the parents for their support, particularly Deb Miller for hosting the team for two weekends in a row!  With Hannah wrapping up her college career, this looks like the end of a great 7-year run - very sad but also very grateful to Deb for all that she's done for the team over the years.

There's one final note to this long post:  after a great OD workout on Sunday, the snow started coming down again.  This storm was even bigger than Thursday's - big enough to cancel classes for the first time in 10 years.  No idea how much actually fell, but it was a lot - I'd guess at least 18 inches and possibly more.  The skiers enjoyed their day off and had quite a romp around campus!  Nice way to recharge after a carnival - should be enough to see us through the season with great skiing the rest of the way.