The last two

We depart for Middlebury today and I am certainly wondering which team will be in the van.  The healthy one we had at the beginning of the season or the "decimated" as Knut put it, one that we have been taking the past couple of weekends.  Certainly every other team struggles to stay health just as we do.  Our best season a couple of years ago was largely the result of most everyone staying healthy I believe.  Currently the SLU health center aka the trauma unit is seeing record numbers of sick students.  So the team is exposed  to this whether they want to be or not, it is unavoidable.  You can wash your hands raw but everywhere you turn is another sick person. 

Well anyway I think the team knows that we are capable of better results and we are determined to finish off the season with higher team scores. 

Kristen is looking good for NCAA qualification but there are several other girls looming that could change things with just one race.  Ben's chances of qualifying I think are better than they look right now as he just needs to race like he is capable of.  The 10K mass start should be very exciting for both the men and the women.   The relay was an event that everyone missed not having on the schedule last year.  I think this is the event where you can see some of the most impressive efforts by racers.  The men have their eye on a podium finish but everything will need to be clicking for that to happen.  I think the women are capable of a 5th place finish even though our better races have been in classic.

Gatineau 10K, ouch!

Our Dartmouth Carnival results were rather unremarkable, not terrible but nothing to be all that excited about aside from Kristen posting 10th place finishes both days which helped move her up another spot on the NCAA qualification list.

Sunday presented three options, easy distance at Higley, skating on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa (see earlier post) or a 10K freestyle which I also raced in at Gatineau Park.  This is the second time I have raced this event the 1pm start time sort of throws off the morning preparation but it also makes it easy to get to while leaving from campus in the morning.  Adam, Sam, and Emma opted to join me for the event which has a field of around 175 racers most of which are under 17 years old.  I was able to once again dominate my age group of course the real races of the weekend are the 50K loppet events which start earlier in the morning.  The real comical part of the 10K is the start which is en masse and non seeded.  So basically all the little kids get the line about 30 minutes prior and take up the first few rows.  I managed to squeeze myself in on the second row behind some older Chelsea and Nakkertok Nordic skiers who looked reasonably fast.  The only hassel I had was getting by a middleaged guy who for some reason thought he needed to be in the front row, between that and the multitude of really fast little kids it made the start rather intense.

Note:  I rejected the comment made regarding the preceding statement.  The comment does rightly point out that my attitude here is rather elitist, sorry about that you are right, point taken.

Yes it is great that this skier was in the race, I certainly do not fault him for participating.  However when I attend triathlons for example I make a concerted to start somewhere in the middle of the pack, because I lack swimming skill.  When I play hockey on Sunday nights, I don't demand to play center or get passed the puck on every play, I lack skill.  In the same way I don't understand why it would not be obvious to this guy that maybe he would be better off starting  few rows back rather than lining up with the fastest racers.  I am quite certain that his race experience would be better had he done this.

As for the race itself the girls started a little further back and I think did well or at least seemed to enjoy the event but I didn't see them during the race.  Adam who started a few rows behind came storming past around 1K, nocked over a kid who was maybe 13 or 14 years old, and then proceeded to bridge up to the Nakkertok Nordic team boys who I think weren't planning to race that hard until they saw Adam (aka the kid from the States).  I got to watch the whole thing from a healthy distance of about 500 meters and was never able to close on them.  Around 7k is a rather long uphill which I really struggled on toward the end but thankfully made it to the downhill finish and put on a clinic for those that had closed on me during the climb, it was a lot fun after that uphill.

It was certainly good for me to feel what racing is like at least once or twice a season just to remind me how hard it really is, I still have the post race hack.

Skating in Ottawa

While we only managed to knock down a few small children (despite their best efforts to collide with us,) a few SLU SKI-ers had an awesome skate on the Rideau Canal instead of an OD ski today. As mentioned, the weather was amazing, car travel thankfully uneventful, and the poutine and beaver tails as delicious as we remembered…Just for the record, Sophie was the best skater…hands down (sorry Matty and Pepper!)

Higley holdin' out

With the rest of the team either racing at Dartmouth or bed-ridden with the horrible sickness that's ransacked the school lately (The Slubonic plague?), I headed off solo to check out the skiing at Higley. Like the rest of New England, our fair village of Canton was also struck by a late-March type thaw, and the end of the week was spent running. The campus was a mix of dirt, sludge, and random piles of snow covered in dirt and sludge. I couldn't take the running after only 2 days of it, so when we got a fresh inch or so Thursday night I hopped in Big Red (my faithful old Subaru) and ventured to Higley. Lo and behold, the trees were white and the snow plentiful. It was a completely different scene than campus only a few miles away. I just cruised easy for an hour and had the whole place to myself. It wasn't groomed, but the snow wasn't deep enough to make skating difficult. The skiing out on the lake turned out to be the best spot (the tracks told me the snowmobilers agreed). The snow was thin and packed out on the ice, so under bluebird skies and sun I coasted around the open lake and called it a day. Looks like the skiing survived and everything will be back to normal next week. Good luck to the Dartmouth crew this morning!

Leadership, our team Captains

This weekend at UVM/Supertour saw some excellent individual performances.  Kristen finally cracked into the top ten for the first time this season with 7th place finish on Sunday after her 12th place finish on Saturday.  She has remained remarkably consistent so far this season as a result of some very dedicated training and preparation.  Johannah did the hometown (Morrisville close enough) fans proud finishing 11th on Sunday in the classic race.  Zach has continued to be on a roll with 17th and 13th place finishes.  Beano finished just out of the top ten in the free in 12th place but unforturnately had some difficulty getting to the line on time for the classic race.   Bryan Pepper worked hard to fill the gap in the team score with Wolcott out sick.

So as for my title "Leadership."  Well it was great to have Beano and Kristen take charge with the help of some others and get cleaning skis and packing away equipment so we could get on the road. Before I even had a chance to start cleaning up myself at the wax tables they had the cleaning and travel waxing assembly line humming.  Its not what you say, it is what you do.  It was a small gesture of thanks to the coaches who worked hard, although with mild success I think, to get the wax right and an example to the rest of the team that we can all do little things to help each other.  

Another great leadership example came from Ben Knowles in the 15K classic race.  Yes missing your start by 45sec is a rather poor example.  However he went after it anyway, never complained or blamed anyone else where I think many others might have.  I could have had a table at the start but we didn't, this probably would have helped and it was mistake on my part.  He also broke a pole during the race, you would think at this point most would call it day and tour the rest of the race or throw in the towel all together.  Ben raced even harder, he moved up through the entire race and still managed to score for the team (second finisher) amid some very difficult classic skiing conditions.  Watching the race you would think he was charging for a top 5 at the finish rather than 27th, hardly a banner day for him and one he would probably like to forget.  I don't think I will though.

The Medal

In team van number 8 there is a tiny plastic medal strapped around the back of the passenger seat. Though it's not real gold, not from an Olympic games and not heavy around your neck, it's still valuable. Every time I get in that van and see that medal, I ask myself if I've earned it. The medal has seen SLUSKI at it's best and worst. It's followed us on OD skis at River Road. It's gotten stopped at the border to another country. It's waited for Lanky to get his boots, and for AAA to break in and retrieve locked keys. No matter how I did, and no matter how we performed as a team, that tiny medal dangles from that seat. After some days I feel like could be a noose, but more often than not I'm happy to imagine it hanging from my neck instead; a validation, I guess. It's a medal that doesn't have to be earned just by winning a race. My roommate lived in Norway in 1995 while his father taught classes for a year abroad. It was the year after the Lillehammer Olympics, and when Professor Pekins let the class off for the day without homework, they would chant “Daeh-lie, Daeh-lie, Daeh-lie”. The power of Olympic gold had transformed one Norwegian into a modern day diety. A god who commanded not hammers or thunder, but a pair of yellow skis, and lungs that could suck in twice as much air as any mortal. A skiety, whose speed on snow made him inhuman. Everyone would like to go that fast, but that kind of speed isn't all the medal in van 8 is about. It's about persistance, exertion and mentality, too. We're two carnivals down in a season that's seen a lot of success. The medal has been there both weekends. It's going to be there for the rest of the season, too, and we've got to keep earning it.

Some shots from UNH

Racing good, weather ridiculously good

The stay at Eagle Mountain House, and the fantastic weather all weekend made the long drive well worth it.  And also we have continued to perform really well as a team, certainly meeting many goals and expectations.  I can feel everyone wanting more though.  

We finally did somewhat well in a sprint race, no real breakthroughs but at least we had some racers get past the qualification prologue (4 guys, 1 girl).  As a coach I need to give some more thought as to how they should prepare as they wait for the heats to begin.

Mostly right now I feel like a good season could easily start to become great or start to get bad due to sickness.  The Collegiate schedule doesn't allow much if any time for recovery, if you get sick at this point it is pretty much over by the time you are 100% again.  Last year this really hurt us but the year before we managed to stay fairly healthy.  Its part luck, part hygiene, and part training.

For those that might read this regularly, of which there are probably few.  I am trying to not be sports information here and write a whole story for the weekend but rather just what I am thinking from the coaches perspective.  If others post, all the better.

Stars of the week were Libby Hayden who scored for the team both days and just missed out on making the sprint heats.  Zach Wetherell had a decent day in the sprint making the first round but really turned it on in the 10K free to post a career best 13th place, just behind Wolcott in 12th.