more pictures

Since I have a busy, 2 class and 2 independent study schedule back at school, I figured I would put up some pictures my dad took at races over the past couple weeks. The first album is a long over due set of pictures from the US nationals classic distance races and skate sprint. The second is from both days of the colby carnival.

US Nationals

Colby

Enjoy!

SLU and Colby Carnivals

Some pictures from the SLU and Colby Carnivals

(Click to see album)

Two breakthrough races for Leah and Adam

The opening carnival weekend was highlighted by two breakthrough races by Leah Hart and Adam Terko, both juniors on the team. The first day (5/10K classic) went okay, cold temps made for easy kick waxing and although or team result wasn't great I was not all that dissapointed because I had a feeling the skate day was going to go much better, and it certainly did.

I was able to give good splits to Leah who had an opening split at the 4K point in the top 6 which was exciting and then bumped that up to 4th by 9K. She didn't seem to really believe it until the results were actually posted and she was 9th in the Supertour result with only 3EISA women ahead of her, truly awesome and the best individual female performance in over 10years.

I was able to give Adam pretty good info as well and saw him steadily improve in the splits. At 4K he was around 25th, 9K 22nd and then with 1K left to go in the race he stood at 21st. Really great to see him finally get into the top 20 as he finished 19th in the EISA result.

A long drive awaits us to tomorrow on the road to Augusta, ME for Colby Carnival. I am interested to see these new trails there though.

US Nationals recap and Carnival Season Begins

US Nationals was okay I think as far as results go. Highlight was certainly Leah's 29th place finish in the womens 20K freestyle race. It was also great to have someone in the rounds of the sprint freestyle race at the end of the week with Eric Lustgarten snapping up the final jr slot. All in all a decent week but we should have more to get excited over as we hit the carnival race season.

It starts of this year with SLU hosting the first weekend in LP and it is combined event with a Supertour race similar to what was done at UVM a couple years ago. It make for a rather big event but not all that much larger than our usual open collegiate carnival.

It is great we were able to draw in the APU team for the supertour, not sure if many other pro teams stayed but certainly lots of junior racers will be here as it is a JOQ for both Mid A and NENSA kids.

Staying at the OTC this week has been great. It really helps having food and waxroom right on site and allows everyone to focus on getting ready to race with ample time to relax and recover from last week, including the coaches.

I am keeping my expectations measured as always but the start of every year always brings the excitement of someone coming into the spotlight, should be interesting to see who that is.

Remember you can always check eisaskiing.org for updates and I try to do a twitter feed to the facebook account and twitter page.http://www.facebook.com/pages/St-Lawrence-University-Ski-Team/134918268394

http://twitter.com/SLUNordic

Photos from The Balsams

It's too bad we were only skiing here for an hour or so because it would've been great to explore. By far the best skiing in the east right now; midwinter conditions and trails that reminded us a lot of Mount St. Anne. Ethan might have a report of the races up soon but for now here are some pictures of the other side of skiing:

The Balsams

While it probably would have fit a little better with the training/racing plan to have hit it yesterday. We set off in search of decent classics tracks and most certainly found them. Balsams was about an hour drive from Bethel and well worth it. When we arrived to this fiefdom in Northern NH they had just finished grooming and setting new tracks resulting in a somewhat loose granular that firmed up in about 30minutes and as we went higher up. I had not been to Balsams before only driven through in the dark. It is quite the place. I would say they had about 25K groomed while we were there but if they decided to keep at it could have easily doubled that by the days end. Conditions just fine for your best skis, just had to watch for the random pulled up rock or two but truly superb conditions especially considering how bleak it is elsewhere.

I am sure Adam has posted some pictures by now on his blog.

10/15K classic tomorrow, 2.7K loop, should be fun.

Jericho eastern cup

Here's a link to pictures that my dad took of the Jericho eastern cup: http://picasaweb.google.com/Marvinney/JerichoDecember2010?feat=email#
I think it should work.

nationals 15k classic up next, sounds like its going to be many laps.

US Splashionals 2011?

Conditions

More

Rain, slush, dirt and puddles. Classic sprint today for Eric and Amanda. Gonna be sweet to cheer them on and watch some top notch racing...but the future of the week is in completely unknown...