Name This Skier

Slow times here on the Bowdoin Nordic blog lately - the calm before the storm. Here's something to keep our loyal readers busy - a gold star for anyone who can name this current Bowdoin skier:

Photo courtesy of Flying Point Road.

TUNA Race

Wilson capped off a great week by coming home to Utah and jumping into a 10k classic race on Saturday. The Salt Lake/Park City area has a thriving ski community, and there are a lot of good racers in the area, so this was a great opportunity to get some on-snow race prep. Some travel and baggage hassles left him arriving at the venue with barely enough time for waxing and warmup, but he pulled off a strong performance nonetheless, finishing a close second in a competitive field. More importantly, he felt good throughout the race - very encouraging considering that he missed a lot of training while rehabbing a back injury this fall. Unlike most of the team, he'll have regular access to training on snow these next few weeks - in lean snow years like this one, it's good to be a Westerner.

Wilson's Secret Training

Wilson is in Montana right now, ostensibly to do some research for his honors project. It turns out that his schedule is flexible enough to allow for a little exploration - these last couple days, he's been able to do some great skiing on a quiet road out in the wilderness somewhere. Got to love the Mountain West - there's always snow somewhere if you're willing to go high enough to find it.

Merepoint Time Trial

One of my big goals this fall was to add more competition to the training plan - time trials and mini-races within workouts. We've certainly accomplished this, with 4 time trials in the last 4 weeks, among other competitions. Our latest effort was a 5k skate time trial with Bates on Merepoint Rd - a new time trial venue for us and a nice change of pace. We had originally planned to repeat our bike path TT from earlier this fall to measure our improvements, but unfortunately the Thanksgiving snowstorm left the path pretty sandy - not so good for a time trial. Anyway, the time trial went well, and several people - most notably Steph, Dan, Wilson, and Riley - put up impressive performances. Overall, though, our team is clearly feeling several weeks of hard training combined with increasing school stress. Lots of tired faces out there on Saturday. Still, this was not unexpected, and we should bounce back quickly once we start getting some extra rest. For now, we have one more week of training as a team before the skiers are on their own for exams and Winter Break.

Oh yeah - one other point of interest from Saturday. After the TT, Bates invited us to join them in a team tradition - a plank contest, in which everyone held the plank position for as long as possible. There were a lot of stubbon people planking on the grass outside of Farley - some pretty impressive efforts. Ultimately, it came down to Wilson against Hallie Grossman of Bates - they both planked for around 15 minutes before agreeing to settle for a draw.

Here are results from the time trial:

Men

Buetow	Jordan	Bates	11:15.0
Dippo	Wilson	Bowdoin	11:24.3
Milliken	Lucas	Bates	11:28.0
Michaud	Nick	Bates	11:46.2
Hamilton	Alex	Bates	12:04.3
Woods	Sean	Bates	12:11.4
Eusden	Riley	Bowdoin	12:23.5
Deangelis	Tyler	Bowdoin	12:30.1
Regan	Connor	Bates	12:39.6
Polasky	Dan	Bowdoin	12:42.7
Longwell	Scott	Bowdoin	12:48.7
Eusden	Spencer	Bowdoin	12:50.3
Burnham	Jimmy	Bates	12:53.8
Hoose	Kevin	Bowdoin	13:20.3
McGovern	Alec	Bowdoin	13:23.2
Sanville	Chris	Bowdoin	13:51.4
Bloch	Jackson	Bowdoin	13:57.3
Kuzio	Dan	Bates	14:03.0
Women
Dion	Kelsey	Bates	13:03.7
Taylor	Beth	Bates	13:34.9
Grossman	Hallie	Bates	13:35.0
Sellegren	Gretchen	Bates	14:17.2
Lynn	Stephanie	Bowdoin	14:32.8
Aseltine	Shelby	Bowdoin	15:11.7
Daniels	Caroline	Bates	15:11.9
Miller	Kaitlynn	Bowdoin	15:23.9
Forrest	Sam	Bates	16:06.0
Askins	Maren	Bowdoin	16:21.0
Frisbie	Sierra	Bowdoin	16:24.6

Camp Wrap-Up

Back home now after finishing camp with a great OD ski on Sunday morning - everyone scattered and explored various logging roads with just enough snow for skiing and came back tired and happy. We had a quick and uneventful trip home (aside from being briefly detained at the border - should have shaved before the trip), and another Thanksgiving Camp was in the books. This was perhaps our most productive Thanksgiving Camp ever - the limited snow kept people confined to a limited space for much of the time, which allowed the coaches to see a lot of each athlete and do some good technique work with everyone. However, there was enough snow so that when people started to go crazy skiing the same trails over and over, they were able to push the boundaries and find some good adventure skiing deep in the woods. As bonus points, we got to do a quality race effort against EISA competition. All in all, a really productive camp that should set us up well for good training in December.

Here are some photos, courtesy of Maren (who also happens to be the Skier of the Week for Thanksgiving Camp 2011, due not only to her photography, but also her expert driving, outstanding conbread, and all-around excellence):

Sierra and Erin

Kaitlynn
Kevin
Jackson
Chris
Maren
Scott, Kevin, and Riley
Shelby
Steph
Spencer carving the turkey.

Nate and Sierra
Men dressed up for Thanksgiving Dinner. In case any Bowdoin administrators are reading this post, I'd like to state that the empty wine bottle that Riley is brandishing did not make its appearance at dinner. Rather, it's a makeshift foam roller belonging to Spencer (it's covered with several layers of plastic wrap).

Women at Lac Bedard, deep in the woods of Foret Montmorency.

Drew
Alec
Spencer

Thanksgiving, Time Trial, etc

All sorts of good stuff happening over the last few days. The snow has held up quite well in spite of warm temps today and yesterday - we've been skiing only a little on the 1k loop and doing a lot of exploring on the various ungroomed roads and trails - not bad skiing out there in spite of thin snow. We've put in a lot of hours and done some good productive technique work. I've seen some notable improvements in a short time - hopefully we can maintain these when we start up with rollerskiing again back home. We've had some outstanding meals, highlighted by a stellar Thanksgiving spread - green bean casserole, broccoli and cheese casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potato fries, stuffing, pies, and of course turkey, masterminded by Spencer.

Today we teamed up with St. Lawrence, UMPI, and Colby for a 5.5k classic time trial on the 1k loop - klister waxing and lots of people in a small space made for a chaotic morning, but everything went quite well. I was really pleased with how everyone looked. People were really pushing hard - a good quality race effort. As importantly, most people I talked to enjoyed the race and were happy with how they'd skied. The results weren't anything special - we clearly have some work to do before we're race ready - but this was expected. I feel good about where we are right now, and I think we're on track to see some good results in the carnival season.

I'll get pictures up as soon as I can. For now, here are the results from today's time trial:

Men

Last Name	First Name	Team	Time
Barton	Jake	Colby	17:10.3
Jackson	Teo	SLU	17:55.1
Supple	Jared	Colby	17:59.6
Terko	Adam	SLU	18:06.3
Meng	Austin	SLU	18:06.4
Fereshetian	Justin	UMPI	18:11.3
Eusden	Spencer	Bowdoin	18:12.9
DeFrancis	Paco	Colby	18:14.5
Lustgarten	Eric	SLU	18:22.4
Bard	Joey	UMPI	18:25.0
Zars	Levin	Colby	18:30.5
Spencer	Kody	Colby	18:41.5
Likly	Reed	SLU	18:50.4
Niles	Nate	Bowdoin	18:55.5
Hoose	Kevin	Bowdoin	18:59.5
Ogden	Ben	SLU	19:05.5
Frielinghaus	Will	SLU	19:05.8
McGovern	Alec	Bowdoin	19:07.7
Prescott	Bill	SLU	19:11.5
Eusden	Riley	Bowdoin	19:39.5
Burnham	Chris	Colby	19:41.6
Hart	Austin	SLU	19:43.3
Sanville	Chris	Bowdoin	19:45.8
Dermody	Dan	UMPI	19:52.7
Longwell	Scott	Bowdoin	20:09.7
Bloch	Jackson	Bowdoin	20:13.8
Nesbitt	Andrew	UMPI	20:47.0
Gustafson	Drew	Bowdoin	21:05.8

Women

Last Name	First Name	Team	Time
Anderson	Lizzie	Colby	21:48.1
Moreland	Amanda	SLU	22:05.6
Susla	Molly	Colby	22:15.7
Miller	Kaitlynn	Bowdoin	22:16.4
Brockett	Sarah	Colby	22:20.5
Krause	Missy	Colby	22:29.2
Donohoe	Emma	Colby	22:47.5
Carpenter	Caroline	SLU	22:53.3
Christoffel	Kati	UMPI	22:53.9
Aseltine	Shelby	Bowdoin	22:59.1
Mulcahy	Kate	SLU	23:00.3
Hotopp	Alice	Colby	23:19.6
Lones	Amy	Colby	23:40.5
Lynn	Stephanie	Bowdoin	23:49.1
Askins	Maren	Bowdoin	23:56.3
Hatten	Erin	Bowdoin	24:29.5
Olson	Lauren	SLU	25:35.6
Frisbie	Sierra	Bowdoin	25:45.5

Camp - Day 1

First day of camp was a big success. We weren't sure what we'd find when we got up to Foret this morning, but things worked out really well. The 1k loop is in very good shape - rock solid tracks, and good kick with hard wax. The road is also surprisingly good - some rocks poking through, but pretty decent skating, and not bad for classic outside the tracks. All told, it was enough for us to put in 3 or 4 hours of skiing without getting too crazy. The advantage of the limited space was that coaches were able to see each skier frequently, so Zach and I were able to pull people aside one after another to work on technique - not possible when there are several kilometers of good skiing and everyone just scatters. I'm really pleased with today - a great start to the camp. We might run into some difficulties as the weekend approaches and the trails get more crowded, but for now we'll just enjoy the skiing and make the most of what we have.