The Not-So-Off Weekend

Hi everyone!

This is Tim and Lucy. This weekend we decided to venture to Craftsbury on Saturday for the distance Supertour races on Sunday. 

We drove up pretty uneventfully. Thankfully we did not get lost, though, the drive does not take 3 hours like we thought... So, our pre-race workout was a little bit in the dark, but we got to preview the new course (which is sweet) and we did not fall and die. Though, Tim broke a binding and almost did. Thankfully, Etown's dad, Bob, was kind enough to wait for us at Craftsbury to show us the way to his house, so that we would not get lost. While we did not get lost, we did get held up by a very macho deer crossing the road in full style and swag, in no hurry to go anywhere. There were a lot of deer! 

Once we were at the Townsend's we had a fabulous dinner. Thank you to the Townsend's for hosting us, making wonderful food, and being our best cheering squad! They are so generous for hosting us and the team time and time again over the years. At dinner, we had incredible bread. This is always my favorite part of the meal. That night and morning, Tim and I had approximately 7-8 rolls in total. In the words of Tim, "They were breader than ever." We also had gelato, which closed out the night well. After trying (not quite so successfully) to do homework, we went to bed. 

We left early the next morning for the race. We got there in plenty of time, mainly, because Lucy remembered how to get there, but also, because the race was delayed 30 min due to ice. However, once it started, the conditions for the women's race were fast and not sketchy. Perfect! The race was a blast, and it was very short with fast times all around. 

Lucy in the starting gate (Bob Townsend)

Unfortunately, Tim raced 3 hours after I did... It warmed up considerably. What was an incredible course, complete with a 1km climb into the stadium (actually the best part of the course) and sweeping S turns (more on those soon), turned into an incredible course, covered with mashed potatoes. Tim ended up skiing off the trail on the S-turn, (actually the worst part of the course according to Tim). A great day was had by all, though, especially because Lucy gave Tim some bomb glitter.

Crushing the V2 (Bob Townsend)

Hanging around after the race was really fun, because it was sunny and warm. It felt a little like the beach (or Spring skiing according to Tim, probably because he spends more time skiing than he does at the beach... though, that is true for me too). I got to talk with a former Saint, which was exciting. It is cool to see how invested people stay in the team even years after they leave. We also got to meet up with old friends, and new, which is always one of the best parts of the race.

Tim going for the line (Bob Townsend)

All in all, there was some good racing, fabulous hosts, and it was a great tune up to get ready for the carnival this weekend (which is now at Craftsbury!). Thanks for reading and check back soon.

-Lucy and Tim 

Champ! AKA our best friend

Carnival Off Weekend- JNQ

By Nathaniel Perkins

Junior National Qualifier Races in Rochester, NY-

SLU girls in the SPRINTS

On Saturday, twelve of us, along with two coaches, made the over three hour trek to Bristol Mountain to participate in the Rochester JNQ races. Upon arriving and unloading the trailer, we began to tour the 1.1Km course that organizers had prepared for Saturday’s sprint. It was soon clear to us that spring conditions had already arrived in upstate New York. The 40 degree temperatures made for a slushy, but fast course. Even with the subpar weather, our team had some amazing results. In the qualifier, the women were able to snag seven of the top ten spots and capture all of the top five positions. The men also put on a good show, taking two of the top five and putting all, but one athlete in the top 15. As the daylight began to fade and the rain began to fall, the Saints were still able to excel in their heats. The men put two athletes, and the women put five in the 6-person A-final. It was a tremendous day of racing for the women, which was led by Dottie Anderson '21, who captured 1st and Jackie Garso '20, who got 2nd on Saturday's sprint podium. Upon the conclusion of Saturdays events, we were hosted at Gabby Wangler’s '21 house for the night, where we were spoiled with an amazing dinner. That night we also discovered that Sunday's race had been changed from a 10/5 Km Classic race to a Freestyle competition.

GH and George ready for their sprint

Gabby pushing over the hill

Upon arriving back at Bristol Mountain, we toured the new 2.5 Km course, which incorporated part of the alpine area in order to add more climbs. The course had frozen overnight making for a fast and enjoyable race.

Jordan and Kate racing hard

The woman were able to capture 1st and 2nd in the 5 Km led by Dottie Anderson '21 and Kate Andy '20, with Eliza Thomas '21 and Emily Siegel '20 in hot pursuit placing sixth and seventh positions.

Dottie and Kate on the podium!

The men also had an outstanding day, putting three in the top five led by all first years, GH Werowinski and George Jarvinen in second and third, followed by Nathaniel Perkins and Ben Carnahan in fifth and 13th positions. Overall, it was a fantastic weekend, which was highlighted by some excellent results all around. Now we need to rest up for the upcoming UVM Carnival at Trapp Family Lodge this coming weekend.

GH and George on the Podium!

JNQ
Sprint Results

Skate Results

Here We Go Saints!
-Nathaniel

SMC Carnival Day Two!

By Jackie Garso

Saint Michael's Carnival: Day Two

As you probably read earlier, Saturday wasn’t SLUSKI’s best day, but the team stuck together and stayed positive about our chances for Sunday. After a delicious dinner of wood-fired pizza, we headed back to the hotel, where we got a nice surprise – new hats/headbands! Getting new swag is always exciting, and it made us even more excited to race. After all, how can you have a bad race when you’re wearing something so snazzy?

Ryland '21, #2 out of the start
PC: India Harvey '18 (Blazing Pines Productions)

The course from Saturday was expanded onto trails that didn’t have enough cover to set track, but were snowy enough to skate on. This meant that Saturday’s double-pole heavy course turned into a course featuring a lot of up and a lot of down. Without any icy sections, and no really technical downhills, the course rewarded hard work, and we were sure we were ready for it. Also, on Saturday after the race, Kyle told us that a few other coaches had told him that they were scared of us, going into Sunday’s skate race.

They were right to be.

Tim '21 finishing hard
PC: India Harvey '18 (Blazing Pines Productions)

The girls team was led to a tie for fourth place by Lucy Hochschartner ’20 in 12th and Jackie in 14th!  WE GOT Fourth!! It also featured a couple of breakthrough races for Kate Andy ’20 and Gabby Wangler ’21. Even with some girls racing sick/injured, and some people not having their best day, the team was still able to top the performance at Colby, which says some great things for the future!

Tim '21 double poling his way through the course
PC: Nanice Battaglia

On the guys’ side, the team was pretty depleted – between a Mid-A JNQ and illness, only four boys raced, but we still got to see some good performances! First year Tim's dedication is shining through in his races. 

SLU athletics Day Two recap here

SLU athletics Day One recap here

We’d also like to extend a huge thank you to Kyle and former SLUSKIer and assistant coach Adam Terko – with the departure of part of the team to the JNQ, we only had one van. Adam was kind enough to help ETown wax, so that Kyle could drive half an hour back to the hotel to pick up the girls and drive all of us back, so that we didn’t have to leave with the boys at 7:30am for our race at 11:30. Our coaches do a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff so that we have the opportunity to race our fastest every single time we’re on the starting line, and we really couldn’t do it without them!

Women's Results

Men's Results

Video Coming soon!

We look forward to the UVM Carnival two weekends from now! Until then, some of us are heading to Rochester for JN Qualifying races, Craftsbury for Supertour Races or Lake Placid for some good ole quality training!  

SMC Carnival Day One

By Lucy Hochschartner

St. Michael's Carnival

DAY ONE

Women's Results
Men's Results
EISA Blog  (scroll down for nordic race recaps)

Vacation time again! After settling into classes and going over many a syllabus, the SLU skiers headed to Vermont for another carnival. These weekends always feel a bit like a mini-vacation to me (albeit one where you race your heart out and have to do homework). Good food, cozy hotels, and hilarious people have a way of making everything awesome.

On Friday night, thanks to the Carnahans’, we had a wonderful dinner after our pre-race ski. Their house was absolutely beautiful, with large windows and natural wood. Ryland seems to be pretty sure that it is oak, but we are pretty sure that he has no idea what he is talking about. The house may have been nice, but the food was even nicer. Ben’s parents were also incredibly welcoming, helpful, and kind. We would all like to give a huge thank you to them!

Team at Ben's house for dinner Friday night! Thanks Carnahan's~
PC: Molly Carnahan

 The St. Mike’s course is very flat, and the snow cover was a bit thin in places, but St. Mike’s knows how to run an event! There were people cheering all over the course, enthusiastic announcers, and music. I was so happy to be able to cheer the boys on. Thank you to St. Mike’s for fostering such a fun atmosphere and putting on a great race.

Jordan, Dottie, Eliza poppin' goldfish and enjoying the fire!
PC: Dana

Sleepy Hollow Friday morning
 PC: Molly Carnahan

The boys were feeling a bit better, though, there is still some sickness going around, unfortunately. They are definitely hoping for more, but we know it will come. It warmed up before the girls’ race, and conditions changed. The girls had a bit of a tougher day, but we kept our cool amidst hard waxing conditions. Thank you so much to the coaches for working hard as always.

Matt looking strong in the classic race Friday
PC: Molly Carnahan

Ben passing Williams on Friday
PC: Molly Carnahan

This may not go down as the team’s greatest race, but we had beautiful weather, a great cheering squad, a yummy food table, and I am so thankful that our team has such wonderful people. Those who weren’t happy with their race weren’t happy because they have such a drive to succeed, but some people on the team still had great races! Moreover, everyone was ready to console someone else and smile about it. Some days are just tough and bad all around. There is no excuse, and the teams that did well deserve it. These days shake our confidence and hurt after devoting so much of ourselves to this sport. Today was one of those days, but we handled it well, and I have no doubt that we are capable of so much more. The mood is determined and optimistic, not defeated, which makes all the difference.

Some headed to Lake Placid for Mid-A Junior National Qualifiers on Saturday, and the rest of us stayed for the 10/15k skate at St. Mike’s. We were very excited! Thank you all for reading and supporting us as always. Stay tuned for the blog on Day Two!

Flyingpointroad photos from Colby Carnival
Skinny Ski Women's Photos from Colby
Skinny Ski Men's Photos from Colby

First Carnival!!

Colby Carnival

What a rollercoaster weekend it was!

We arrived to Quarry Road in Waterville on Thursday the 11th with warm weather and beautiful conditions! It felt balmy compared to the below zero weather at MSA that week- some of us were wearing t-shirts, only long-sleeves and or no hats or gloves! After about an hour ski, we headed to the hotel in Augusta and then back out to the Riverfront Barbecue and Grille, where we feasted on lots of meat!

The next day we ventured out to bowling in our spare time, where we learned who had talent and those who didn't.. Kate had quite the showing! It was raining all day and the race course was closed. It unfortunately wiped out most of the snow, so we went for a pre-race run. After we ate at Colby's Dana Dining hall and hit the hay dreaming fast thoughts. 

ETown even went bowling!

Kate, and Matt, featuring Ryland psyched about his throw

Dana and Jordan excited to be out bowling!

Eliza and Lucy throwing down

Team bonding! And more bowling below!

More disappointment came when the first race was canceled due to the rain wiping out snow and making the course an ice skating rink! The girls had already gotten so ready as you can see from our team selfie together below, as well as the coaches who had already waxed all of our skis! We were able to get to the trails that afternoon for a sneak peak of what was to come.

The second day, Sunday, turned out to be really nice and we can't thank the Colby crew enough for the tremendous efforts they put into pulling the race off.  Sunday's race was originally supposed to be a 10k/15k mass start skate, but the course ended up being on the first loop of the normal 5k, which was about 1.7k.  Girls did it three times and guys six times for a total of a 5k and 10k race.

SLU had an awesome showing with a superb finish by Jackie Garso '20 in 7th place!!! The girls team also placed in 5th, which may have been the best team finish in seven years. I think a lot of us felt we could do better and I know we can, so having finished in 5th makes me really excited for the rest of this season! 

The guys are a young team and they are skiing well, and they will continue to grow and learn from racing on the circuit.  Unfortunately, Ryland didn't feel well and had to stop midway through his race and Ben was recovering from some kind of illness, but we give him props for racing still! 

Women's Results
Men's Results

India's Blog for EISA
VIDEO

The First Carnival Scene in Waterville, ME.

We are excited for this coming weekend at Sleepy Hollow hosted by St. Michaels!  Watch out because the Saints are ready to march in!

Thanks for your continued support! We hope to see you on the trails,
SLUSKI

MSA 2k18

By: Timothy Cunningham

Mont-Sainte-Anne

The week of sharpening

Team at top of Trail #24 at MSA

            Hello Saints fans and/or parents and/or alums, it’s Timothy again! I’m the guy that enjoys that running and hiking (AKA running) uphill stuff. Also food, but I think that’s just me. In any case, I just spent the better part of last week up in Quebec, Canada skiing with the nordic team in the balmy weather (right around 0*F most days..except more like -10) on the beautiful uphill trails of Mount Saint Anne (MSA). Now I know I said earlier this year that I liked skate skiing a little more on some beautiful corduroy, but I took several days after biathlon trials and learned that classic skiing isn’t totally a horrible thing, just occasionally really sticky, but more on that later. Hopefully much later.

Dottie and Jordan chilling at our team house 

            Our week at MSA (from the 5th-10th) was primarily a preparatory week for our first carnival this past weekend (the 13^th and 14^th) at Colby College.  Also known as a sharpening week, we focus on preparing our minds and bodies for peak fruit ninja season. Not really though, that would just be tomfoolery. We ski instead. 

Lucy and Dana's adventures in the van ride

Jackie and Gabby relaxing after a ski

More team downtime

One of the many bedrooms in our house at MSA!

Dani and Waters watching 'Bill Nye' while Matt maintains his fire and TV

Bob focusing on the tough driving conditions to MSA

The drive from school to MSA was a long 8 hours!  It was practically a whiteout with heavy winds. Day one comprised of an easy ski tour of the trails at MSA where I opted to ski the less hilly green trails, so that I could really enjoy the very hilly black diamond trails immediately after! Post-workout the group drove back to the house we were staying in at the base of the alpine mountain (at night they turn the trail lights on all over the mountain, which is beautiful if you’re into light pollution). I however, was loving the special green conditions, so I ended up skiing back to the house on the river trail. Unfortunately, that trail is almost all downhill. This is bad because that means its DOWNHILL and not UPHILL, which just isn’t as fun. It was also -5*F not including the downhill wind-chill, but in a sport that exists solely because of the cold, the temperature was more of an exciting challenge and thrill than a detractor, unlike the lack of uphill, which really was a downer.  Ha. Haha…. Moving on.

Lucy, Dana, Jackie and Tim back seating in the transit for the drive to MSA

            Understanding that most readers at this moment have something more important to be doing, like skiing, or applying to SLU, both of which are exceedingly good choices, I will sum up the rest of the week with a few of the highlights.

Monday, we had a Classical 10Km Time Trial! This was obviously the best workout of the week because we got to ski our minds out for 30+ minutes. But also because it helped us get into race mode for the 10Km opener race at Colby this past weekend, which was the same format for men.

Wednesday, we did a specific strength (Double Pole, Single Stick, and Herringboning quickly) workout in the above zero temperatures! This was delightfully difficult but was made even better by some downhill agility on the “S-turns.” A short day as far as volume is concerned but also great prep for Colby.

Top of Trail 24 looking at the Alpine Mountain PC: Emily

 '

Going back in time a little bit, but Tuesday was the best day in my opinion. The team ended up doing a group ski up trail #24, the longest and most scenic black diamond trail. It was a nearly clear day on good hard packed snow, so we just had to send it on the downhills, hitting top speeds of 39.2 MPH! I clocked that using a GPS watch. Nifty little thing. We stopped for a picture at the top to capture the fun.

That’s all I have to say about SLU’s awesome week at MSA! We look forward to going for it this carnival season, follow our progress at… Somewhere, probably BART TIMING? On that note I think I’ll probably go for a ski.  

(Check out our next blog about our first Carnival at Colby soon!)

-Tim

Coach Liz and the Frozen Tundra.

Hi everyone! This is Lucy, back from the frozen tundra of Grand Rapids, MN (though Lake Placid and Mt. Ste. Anne are due to be pretty cold too). Anyway, I thought I would just give a little more behind the scenes run down of the week, but thank you to Dana for taking care of the blog in a more timely fashion!

We left Lake Placid Tuesday night, and flew out uneventfully early Wednesday morning (except for some reshuffling of bags so that I wouldn't need to pay extra...) After waiting for an hour in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport for a rental car, we got on our way. It was cold. As my first real winter biathlon experience aside from the shooting Jackie and I had done on Tuesday, it was quite the introduction. Cold is one thing when you are skiing, but when you need to stop and shoot, lie on the ground, and wear gloves and not lobster claws, it is undoubtedly colder.

The next day was race day (moved to the afternoon due to cold and a day earlier, again, due to the cold). It was fun! Jackie had a great race, and Tim and I skied well, but didn't put the shooting quite together. It is worth noting that I had the worst shooting of anyone in both the men's and the women's field. Perhaps more perplexingly, after some disappointment, I would say this became a point of pride. It isn't everyday that you miss 8/10 targets, or at least, I hope not.

The second day was once again a mixed bag. The real highlight and important part of the day, though, was that we got to see...

This wonderful person (from India Harvey '17)

That's right. Liz. This is an old photo, because we were too cold and forgetful to take any new ones, but that's ok. Thank you to Liz and her friend for coming to watch us race almost 3 hours away in miserable cold (people raced in vests underneath their bibs). It cannot have been fun, but it was fun to see Liz!

The race the next day was cancelled due to even colder temps. Although the high was a balmy -10ºF, when we woke up it was -23º, -44º with windchill. So, we stayed inside and adventured in the local Target. 

The last day, we got to ski with Liz again! This time in the slightly less frozen tundra of Minneapolis. It was still cold enough that we forgot to take pictures, though.

Thank you for everyone who cheered for us from afar, who reads the blog, and especially to Liz for braving the cold to deal with our usual nonsense. Check back soon, as the team is heading to Mt. Ste. Anne for our training camp and then to Maine for the Colby Carnival. Winter is upon us!