Bates Carnival 2020

Back-to-back carnivals in Maine - great stuff!  Back-to-back third place finishes - even better!  The Bates Carnival started off with some exciting weather - mixed precipitation for the drive up that kept things interesting.  Luckily we had a beautiful house to relax in, thanks to some generous friends of Leslie's, Ann and Peter LeBourdais.  This place was an amazing ski house - tons of space plus a sauna and an indoor basketball hoop - very Bowdoin Nordic.  After a restful night, we woke up to find that the snow/rain was now coming down as ice.  This left the course with a lot of fresh snow mixed with loose ice pellets - perfect for classic waxing.  It was one of those days where every team came up with a different solution - hard wax, klister, or some combination of the two.  We opted for klister, with everyone giving different feedback and getting different adjustments - pure chaos, which we barely managed with much help from our new ace wax tech Rachel.  Gabby and Renae jumped in with the lead pack and stayed there for most of the race until things splintered in the final kilometers.  Gabby ended up 7th and Renae 9th, with Lily completing the scoring in 32nd and Tri grabbing a PR in 43rd.  The men's race played out quite different from usual, with the top 2 guys breaking away early and the rest of the group fragmenting into smaller packs.  Christian and Elliot went back and forth with a chase pack, with Christian ending up with a career-best 6th.  Elliot finished 9th and Peter 21st.  The women were 3rd on the day, with the men in 4th.  That night we enjoyed a great dinner hosted by a big crew of parents, led by Bobbie Gostout.

Next morning was cold and sunny and perfect for ski racing.  This was another combined carnival/Eastern Cup, so there was a big crowd on hand and tons of energy.  We ripped through a bunch of testing with help from Rachel, Noah, and long-lost alumna Ellie Hands '18 and got the skis out with plenty of time to get out on course and cheer.  The women put 3 in the top 20 - Renae 16th, Lily tying her skate PR in 18th, and Gabby 20th - for a solid 5th place finish.  The men must have gotten fired up from indoor basketball or something, because they laid down the most complete team performance I've ever seen from Bowdoin Nordic - seven men in the top 30!  Elliot 8th, Peter with a breakout race in 10th, Christian 12th, Cirque 19th (a PR), Russell 24th, Zach 28th, and Ayden 29th - plus James scored a big PR in 50th.  I have no idea what got into them, but this was so so much fun to watch - I don't know if I've ever seen the whole team so happy after a race.  The men were 2nd on the day to lock up an overall nordic finish of 3rd for the second straight week - fantastic!

The weekend wasn't over yet, though - we had some bonus racing on Sunday with Luke and Orion in the Eastern Cup classic sprint.  Leslie nailed the wax and the boys nailed the qualifier, with Orion 5th and Luke 21st.  Luke finished a close 5th in his quarterfinal to end the day 21st; Orion won his quarter and then settled for 5th in the semis to end in 9th for the day - a great showing and fun time for both of them.  A fine ending to another great weekend.  Many thanks to Ann and Peter for hosting us, to the parents for feeding us, and to Rachel, Ellie, and Noah for helping us get fast skis.  Can't wait for next weekend!

Colby Carnival 2020

Wow that was fun!  The Colby Carnival was fantastic - we set a new team-best with a 3rd place finish in the nordic scoring, and there were almost too many team and individual highlights to count.  Here's how it happened:

We always seem to get a big thaw or rainstorm before the Colby Carnival, and we kept that tradition going this year with a big meltdown just a few days before the races.  Fortunately, Quarry Road's amazing season-long snowmaking efforts allowed us to race on a good hard 2.7k race loop with excellent coverage.  The morning was cold but sunny, and it warmed up quickly.  The men set the tone early with Christian in 7th, Elliot 9th, and Peter 18th, good for 2nd place!  Cirque set a skate PR in 26th, and Zach came close to his first top 30 finish in 32nd.  The women followed up with a batch of PRs of their own, with Gabby 15th and Lily 18th - both skate PRs.  Renae completed the scoring in 23rd, and Greta grabbed her first ever top 30 in 27th.  Rachel came up big once again with wax testing and application, helping us get competitive skis.  All these heroics put us in 4th place by the end of the day, just one point out of 3rd!

We were pretty thrilled with all this, but somehow the classic day was even better.  The race was 10/15k - 4 and 6 laps of a very challenging course with a huge climb to start each lap.  We had a superstar tech crew - Luca and Rachel helped with testing and troubleshooting, and volunteer assistant John Eldredge and Leslie crushed the klister application.  We also had a flood of Bowdoin students came up to cheer, along with a big crew of parents.  They were all over the trails, making a wall of noise every time our skiers came through.  The energy was amazing, and it definitely got the team going.  Elliot was the first starter out of the gate - at first his race looked solid but unremarkable, but as the laps wore on and the course broke down, he stayed steady and started picking up places, ending the day on the podium in 3rd!  Christian matched his skate race with a career-best classic finish of 7th, and Peter had a fantastic race of his own in 18th.  By the time with women raced, the course was pretty beat up, with tracks obliterated on a number of steep sections, and it was clear that this was going to be a grit and grind type of race.  Fortunately, our crew was up to the task.  Gabby went out on fire as one of the earlier starters.  Renae was a couple bibs back and looked good as well, but I couldn't understand why she was losing time to Gabby, and I didn't expect much of a result.  Turns out they were both having an amazing day - Gabby in 4th and Renae 8th!  Lily followed up in 23rd to complete the scoring.  Every one of our other women crushed it as well, finishing with a PR or close - Greta 30th, Fiona 39th, Meredith 43rd, and Triana 50th.  This put the cap on a great day and a great weekend - Bowdoin Nordic's first ever 3rd place carnival finish!  It's been an incredible first month of the season, and I can't wait to see what comes next.  Thanks so much to all the parents and fans who made this such a great carnival, and special thanks to John, Rachel, and Luca for their waxing help - we definitely could not have pulled off these results without them.

Photos courtesy of Traci Ennis, Regina Sohn, and Cirque - thanks to all of you!

Harvard and UVM 2020

What a start to the season!  Two carnivals done and our skiers are on fire.  Things looked a bit rough going into the Harvard Carnival.  One week out, a ridiculous warm spell blasted the East and wiped out all the snow at the original race venue - the carnival was moved to Craftsbury, which set all of us scrambling to change lodging and travel plans.  Then several of our skiers got a nasty stomach virus that knocked them flat for a couple days.  Just as this group started to recover, a new batch got sick.  Meanwhile, a big storm was brewing for our travel day - at the last minute we decided to send most of the group off early, which necessitated another round of logistical adjustments.  So when we finally got to the racing part, everything seemed easy and low stress.  The skiers came out ripping in the 5/10k skate, led by Elliot in 9th and Renae in 12th.  Cirque (30th) and Lily (23rd) set skate PRs, and Greta and Peter scored their first NCAA points.  That was a nice start, but the next day's 15/20k classic was even better.  It was kind of a magical day - seemed like everyone was touched by this crazy confidence.  Elliot and Christian jumped right into the lead pack and stayed there until the final kilometer, ending up in 5th and 10th.  Cirque stayed close behind and ended in 20th for another career-best finish, and Zach grabbed his first NCAA points in 37th.  Not to be outdone, the women basically repeated this playbook.  Gabby and Renae skied in the lead group for most of the race - when things finally splintered, Gabby went with the top chasers and locked up 5th, with Renae close behind in 10th.  Huge breakthrough for Gabby and a tremendous validation of all her hard work over the past year.  Lily finished 26th to nail down a 3rd place team finish to go along with the men's 2nd - undoubtedly the best single day performance in the history of Bowdoin Nordic.  For the carnival, we were the 4th place nordic team.  One big part of our success was some clutch waxing help from Jim Ahearne - with a mass start and nearly the full team racing, we had a big workload to accomplish in a short time frame.  Fortunately, Jim proved to have a nice light touch with the kick wax and did an amazing job helping us get skis out on time.  Thanks to Jim and all the parents who showed up to cheer, take photos, and set up an amazing food table!

We came back to reality with the start of classes - fortunately, we had great skiing at Pineland to ease the shock.  A few days later we were right back in Craftsbury for the combined UVM Carnival/Eastern Cup/SuperTour.  First day was a classic sprint - not an easy task to qualify for the heats against a SuperTour field, but Gabby, Renae, and Elliot all managed it.  None of them made it out of the quarterfinals, but all of them hung in there.  In the carnival placing Gabby was 10th, Renae 12th, and Elliot 15th for a respectable team showing.

Saturday's 5/10k skate got off to a rough start - I got wrapped up in testing and didn't get Renae her skis on time, and she missed her start by almost 2 minutes.  I've had a few bad coaching failures over the years, and this one is right up there near the top.  Renae did a great job staying focused and skiing hard nonetheless - judging by her actual skiing time she would have a very good finish in the 10-15 range for the carnival (not sure if this makes it better or worse).  The rest of the team stepped up nicely to help us stay competitive - Gabby 23, Lily 29, and Greta 35.  The men's race was where we saw our big fireworks - Christian blew it up for a career-best 6th place finish!  He's been putting in the work for years and steadily improving for his whole college career, and it feels very right to see him have such a huge breakthrough at last.  Elliot backed him up in 8th, and Peter had a breakthrough of his own in 14th - a fantastic showing for a first-year in just his second college carnival.  The men ended up 3rd on the day to help secure another 4th place overall nordic finish for the carnival.  It's pretty exciting to see that our previous best ever finish seems to be turning into the norm, but of course we're not settling for that - in the next few weeks we'll be pushing hard to take it even further.

There was still some racing left to do on Sunday - Meredith, Noah, and James stuck around for the 10/15k classic mass start.  Warmer temps and a few showers had left us with slightly variable snow, and we had to scramble to find a klister combination that would glide on the slush and kick on the glaze.  We managed fairly well, and the skiers took it from there.  It was a mixed day - some with good energy and some without - but solid racing overall, and a nice way to cash in on one more day of skiing in the fine Craftsbury conditions.  Once again we had great support from the parents, highlighted by a wonderful team dinner at the legendary Derby Cow Palace hosted by Chris and Bobbie Gostout.  We also had superstar alumna Rachel Zafren doing great work in the wax trailer on Saturday and Sunday - above and beyond what we could possibly hope for from any alum.  Thanks to all of our supporters for helping us get off to a great start, and special thanks to Steve Fuller of Flying Point Road and Todd Anderson for the great photos.  Can't wait till next weekend!

Jan Camp 2020

We're back!  Jan Camp has been rolling along for the past several days - now that we're on the verge of another carnival season, here's a quick look back at what we've been doing:

Jan Camp started with everyone converging on Jackson for a joyful reunion.  We enjoyed a couple big training days, some quality Thai takeout, and the fine hospitality of the Eagle Mountain House.  Aside from some reckless downhilling, it was a fine mini-camp.  We wrapped up the weekend with the Gunstock Freestyle.  It was a great little pre-season tuneup with some good competition - fun times.  Elliot and Gabby ended up on the podium, each in 3rd place.  On the way home, we stopped for a delicious lunch courtesy of Zach's family - many thanks to Chris and Traci for both lunch and photos!

The following week found us with plenty of snow and great skiing at Pineland, and we loaded up the training once again - one last push before backing off for carnivals.  We had originally planned to close out the week with the Ephs Challenge at Prospect, but with rain and a major heat wave anticipated the race was canceled.  Instead, we headed back to Jackson for a time trial with Colby, Bates, and UNH.  The warm moist weather gave it a weird tropical vibe, and the snow was super slow, but it was another good race effort to send us into the season.  At this point we've raced most of the league at one time or another, so carnivals shouldn't feel too intimidating to anyone.  The season starts up this Friday with the first-ever Harvard Carnival!

Fall Semester Wrap

Exams are winding down and campus is emptying out - time for break!  As always, the last couple weeks of the semester kept us on our toes.  We had a pretty good run for the first several days after Thanksgiving Camp - a nice storm set us up for great skiing at Pineland.  It's rare that we're on snow in December (not counting an occasional Quarry Road trip), so this was a wonderful gift.  We took it easy for a few days after camp and then came back strong with a couple good speed/intensity sessions.  After that it was time for another pre-season test at the Quarry Road Opener.  The team looked pretty solid despite the mounting academic load weighing everyone down.  Elliot took the men's win, with Christian 3rd and Peter 4th.  Gabby was 4th for women and Lily was 5th.  So great to get another early season race under our belts!

Sadly, the weather turned on us a couple days later - two downpours in one week wiped out all of our beautiful snow.  Refusing to come back to rollerskiing, we patched together a solid training week with a mix of run, erg, and strength - it was actually kind of nice to get back to a little dryland after weeks of skiing.  We made one more trip up to Quarry Road for a 15/20k threshold workout, a workout that's become a Bowdoin Nordic staple.  It's a dry run for the upcoming 15/20k races, but it's not a race - just a chance to get a feel for the pacing and duration of the long races.  Conditions were a bit dodgy after all the rain, and we had some impressive crashes and some ragged skiing as wax wore off, but grinding it out is always a good experience.  I'm confident that we'll be ready when the time comes to go long in carnivals.

For the last few days the skiers have been on their own - easy workouts and lots of studying.  Everyone's going home with an individual plan to make the most of the break and patch up any areas of need.  Overall, it's been a fun and productive semester, and the team looks strong - don't want to get carried away, but if we can stay on this trajectory we're going to have a really good year.  We'll be starting up again in just a couple weeks - can't wait!