Skating on the Ottawa Canal

On Sunday some members of the team participated in the 2nd annual SLUSKI skating trip on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa. Canton's location places us at about a 90 minute drive from Ottawa, which makes for a nice day trip. The girls were sporting our lovely 1980s-style hats courtesy of Wally World in Bennington. Needless to say we were some of the most stylish people on the canal. We were all pretty happy campers, especially after Zach got his poutin and Sophie stood in a long line to get her delicious Beaver Tail. yum yum. Pepper and Zach also got high fives from a certain "Papa Bear", while Robin and got our pictures taken with him. Very exciting.

On another note, we have one week left in the carnival season which means one week left of my collegiate skiing career! It is all very surreal and and can't believe my 10 years of team competition will be coming to an end. But before I get really sappy I want to say that I've has a really great year with the team and am looking forward to skiing our best carnival this season at Middlebury. We have trained very hard to get to this point and the team deserves to do well to show these efforts. Everyone has worked really hard, and we've had a lot of fun on the way. So hopefully we will see a lot of parents there this weekend - Robin's mother will be making her first appearance all the way from Seattle! - and thanks to everyone for all of the food, support, and good memories.

There is always hope

Well nothing to dramatic at Williams for SLUSKI. For this season I would consider it an average weekend. Some seem to be feeling as though they are racing better even if the results aren't great still so I think there is still hope for an exciting end to the season.
As for NCAAs well that is going to be tough. For the women to get into the last quota spot right now Kalie would need a 5th or better in Freestyle or a 6th in Classic while Kristen would need an 8th in Freestyle or a 6th in Classic. For Ben an 8th or better in classic would get him into the last spot while a 3rd would put him in the second to last spot. I think these results are certainly possible but it is going to take a tremendous effort on their part. Of course this is partly what makes the final weekend so exciting as we are not the only ones still vying for those last couple of NCAA quota spots. Keep in mind what I have figured out here is what they would need so long as no one else bettered their point total.
We have some classic ski intervals on the agenda for today, conditions at Higley sound okay but not great.

Season nearing its end

Well I really didn't want to write to much about Dartmouth. This isn't very fair to the women's team however since their season has gone pretty well so far. Unfortunately for those that pay attention the men's team had, for lack of a kinder way of putting it, an embarrassing day on Friday last week and really only an okay day on Saturday. For us to be tenth says this for sure. The EISA is a very talented league. This year as compared to even a couple years ago, no team is fielding racers who don't know how to ski. It used to be that toward the back of the field there was always a few who were really just beginners, not anymore. While I am not sure that the top of the field (top 5-10) is significantly more competitive on a National level it certainly is the case that even through the top 30 or 40 racers in both the men's and women's field there are very well prepared and skilled athletes. This is probably in large part due to the hard work of so many junior racing programs that have started and expanded in the past 10 years or so.
Well anyway enough on that. The guys are certainly looking forward to tomorrow and trying to put last Friday behind us, way behind us.

Back to the women, we had a great Valentines day driving down to Bennington, Kalie provided the music. I think our goal tomorrow would be 5th or better as a team and to put someone in the top 10 which we haven't done on the women's side this year. Last week on Saturday saw a breakthrough performance for Johannah with 24th place and Kalie after suffering a rather harsh crash just 1/2K in moved up from last place to 22nd on one of the most difficult courses you will see, Oak Hill did not disappoint. Kristen was in the top 20 (12/18) both days and Robin is still having her best season yet in her senior year.

UVM weekend and looking toward Dartmouth

Given how things have been going this was a reasonably successful weekend. Ben Knowles posted the best individual classic result in my tenure as head coach thus far with a 5th place. I wish could have seen the finish as he had to outsprint Patrick OBrien from Dartmouth in the final stretch. I was watching on the final uphill about .25K from the finish. The women continued to post solid results and Kalie had perhaps her best classic race result of her career with a 15th place finish. The sprints went about how sprints tend to go for us, not great but they are sprints so whatever. Not to say I wouldn't like to do well but I would rather see the team do well in the distance events. Isaac qualified 8th which was quite impressive, he is now on his yearly shot of antibiotics for a bacterial sinus infection that finally got diagnosed on Friday, hoping he can kick that out of his system and start posting the results that would reflect the level of effort he put into his dryland training this summer and fall over the second half of the season. Kalie and Kristen also qualified which was a solid showing.
After the sprint races I headed over to Old Forge with Bryan and Sophie to meet up with rest of the team that wasn't on the roster for the UVM carnival. It was a good time, not a lot of competition but they all did well enough to earn a spot on the Mid A team for Junior Nationals should they decide to go.
Dartmouth races are being held at Trapps again 5th year in a row now, kind of a bummer for Dartmouth but it doesn't really matter so much to me.
The competition for the very few NCAA spots is going to come down to the wire for certain, this weekend will be really big for that.