Beano breaks team 3K record

I am fairly certain that Beano broke the 3K record for testing with a 9:31. I am only able to look back to 2000-2001 season. Granted we probably have had some xc runners who joined the team later in the fall who can and have run faster than that. However Ben now holds the record for team testing at least in recent history. Truly impressive for someone who has not been able to race the past two years with back injuries and then mono last year. Zach also had a PR with 10:07 to finish tied for third with first year Kyle Marvinney. The biggest improvement was Jake Birchard who took over a minute off of last years PR.

While there were not any record times on the women's side I am very pleased to have everyone finish under 13:30 with first years Libby Hayden and Sophie Allen winning in a time of 12:07 just one second ahead of Kalie. All in all it was a tight finish all around which made it difficult to keep track of who finished in what place exactly although I know I have the times correct within a second.

90 in September

We decided to postpone the 3K till Wednesday in light of 90 degree temps and 80% humidity on Tuesday. It certainly felt more like July out there, but it was a good ski anyway.

Hot box testing and Official training begins

Testing the hotbox has been going really well. Although we haven't been able to ski on the skis that have been treated and these are really bad skis anyway. I think it would be difficult to make them worse than they are. I am still a bit apprehensive about putting new skis in the box. We have now had what would appear to be successful treatments at 120F. The key in my mind would be to find waxes that will be absorbed at the lowest possible temperatures. The other factor aside from the wax would be the ski base in question since different manufacturers use different mixes to create their bases, one would expect some skis to absorb wax better at lower temps than others. I am really hoping we can get some early snow (right, good luck) so I can try some older race skis in the box and see the results before we subject any new skis to them. In fact maybe I should try to get an insurance policy first.

Official training starts up this week, 3K tomorrow on the track.

Hotbox testing

I finally got around to running some tests with the hotbox. So far so good. It heated up to 160F in about an hour yesterday and then I put some junky skis in for about 2 hours at that temp. The wax stayed warm but not as hot as wax is right after you iron it. I was using Toko LF yellow, not for any other reason than it was handy at the time and certainly a very soft wax. Today Knut is going to run some tests at lower temperatures with some other waxes including Solda's thermobox wax. Essentially right now we are trying to see how low we can run box temperature wise and how consistent that temp is throughout the box. The processing unit shown in the picture is really a key part of the operation as it has a high end temperature sensor that turns the heating strips on and off as need to regulate the temperature within 1 degree. I can set it up for a lower variance but I don't think that is necessary. The fans appear to be circulating air well but I need to keep testing this. Eventually I will probably paint it and have Ben Knowles lay some carbon fiber on it since everything is better with carbon fiber.

Kristen Bednar '09

Hope all is well...sounds like you guys are off to a busy start!

on a training note I've been doing some exploring around here and once a get my ski poles in the mail...hopefully this week, I'll be able to start rollerskiing. I found a good spenst hill though and also signed up for a ski training program over here that does 1.5 hours of spenst/fartlek/jumping/running and then rollerskis for an hour after it..which is great! (I'm still sore from thursday!) While it only meets 1 day a week this will be really helpful!...Anyway just wanted to give you an update on that.

I'm jealous about the West Yellowstone trip!!!