C2C 2013

Every fall we are lucky enough to be located in close proximity to one of the biggest training camps of the year for the US Ski Team. This year we were able to reap the benefits of such a high-level group on multiple occasions: the Fast and Female event and USST Technique clinic one weekend, and the Climb to the Castle rollerski race the next.

The C2C race is an annual race up the 5 miles of pavement leading up the back of Whiteface mountain, ending at a very real castle at the summit. At least, the outside is castle-like...the inside features a gift shop, cafeteria and even an elevator to the very top summit of the mountain. 

We've had increasing numbers of participants in this race every year, and increasingly better results each year as well. 

The Subaru caravan rolled out at 5:30am and we were warming up aroung 7 at the toll house. 3 minutes into the warmup Will managed to scrape the bottom plastic of his rollerski off on a frost heave, leaving the honeycomb core exposed. Each time Will applied weight to that ski, the shaft would bottom-out on the pavement with a painful grinding noise. 

Will at the finish with his broken ski. This photo gives away the suspense, but the end-result was that Will completed the entire race on the busted shaft!

Though I tried to re-attach the base as best I could with some athletic tape (a pretty important thing you learn quickly as a ski coach: always have tape on hand) it was a hopeless situation.

Which leads to the race itself. 

Erin and Taren took off first with the women's group. Erin skied a large portion of the race with Julia Kern and Elizabeth Izzo, before dropping back a little at the end. I think large portions of the women's field ended up skiing alone because there were far fewer women in attendance this year for whatever reason. Thanks to the staggered start format, the guys team managed to finish all within a few minutes of both Erin and Taren. 

The fog rolled in only once racers reached the top. Here's Erin in the last 100m

Kyle "Gramps" Curry took the lead for the SLU men off the line, with coach Terko in hot pursuit. Eventually (you had to know it would happen) the pace was a little much for me, and I backed off to regain some composure. If nothing else, this gave me a great view of what was going on with much of our men's team.

About halfway up the hill I heard a familiar noise scrape-scrape-scraping its way up behind me: Will was moving fast taking off time from the leaders! He worked his way right up to Kyle's group and they skied together much of the race. I was also passed by first-year Calvin Swomley, whose smooth technique was easy to pace behind. We ended up skiing much of the race right near each other. 

In the end Will continued picking off racers until he ended up 18th, the best finish of any SLU skier in this event's 7-year history. Gramps and Swomley were close behind in 20th and 21st. 

2 great performances: Calvin (top) and Will (bottom)

First-year Blaine Ayotte and sophomore Morgan Holland were also across the line shortly thereafter...a really good showing by the whole team at this tough event. 

The crew at the summit

Thanks to Marge and NYSEF for putting together such a logistically-challenging event! Results at the NYSEF Blog

Busy week(end)!

Lots of events in the past 7 days for the SLUSKI team!

First up was the Alumni race last weekend, which featured a bunch of SLU skiers both past and present. This is not a race we put a lot of pressure on, but it is nice to compete and see times change from year to year. There were certainly some impressive finishes from the Nordic team, however, and this may have been our strongest year in some time in terms of competing against the running crew.

Meng and Will led the way for the men, both knocking over a minute off their times from last year...that's a big chunk of time to improve considering they are arguably already the two strongest runners on the men's team. They went neck-and-neck, finishing 1st and 2nd in both the 3k and St. Regis last year, each taking a victory (Will in the 3k and Meng in St. Regis). First-year Blaine Ayotte finished closely behind the two Juniors.

In fact, nearly the entire men's team was faster than last year, despite the rain and soggy conditions experienced last Saturday!

On the women's side Erin took a huge step forward not only in her time (about 2 minutes faster!) but her approach to the race itself. When we sat down last spring we decided to make a major shift in Erin's training and focus, particularly in the area of race mentality and finishing strong. Not only did Erin have her characteristic fast start in this race, she held her spot and was sprinting at full speed at the finish line. It was impressive to see and I knew the time would be faster before I even looked at last year's results.

Some of the guys and gals warming up before the Alumni run. The rain began right as everyone was on the starting line.

On Thursday the team size on campus was depleted due to the ADK 90-miler canoe race, a multi-day boat race through the mountains. SLUSKI was represented by two teams: Will, Reed, Kyle and Middlebury skier Nick Underwood raced in a 4-man boat, and Etown and Jennie in the 2-person category. Overall the weather was great and I bet there will be some sore arms during specific-strength practice tomorrow!

From the front: Nick, Kyle, Reed, Will

Etown and Jenny give chase

While the 90-miler crew was on the water Sunday Kate, Erin and I took a drive down to Lake Placid. Kate and Erin checked out the Fast and Female event, featuring most of the women on the US Ski Team and a bunch of excited junior skiers, while I took part in the USSA Technique clinic hosted by Bryan Fish. Ethan and I were both at this clinic in the fall of 2011 and it's good to know that a lot of what we learned and have been incorporating in training is still used. Plus there were some new drills and concepts which will certainly be applied this year!

Erin and Kate, center in red, at the Fast and Female event