Hello from near and... France!

Hello from France! My name is Kate Andy and I’m a junior on the ski team. This fall, I decided to take a semester abroad to Rennes, France, and I am having a great time so far. My primary focus here is intensive language and cultural immersion. It has definitely been a challenge, but I’ve had the privilege to explore some pretty amazing places too.

Me in Paris on my second day!

Medieval towns and enchanted forests? This can’t be real! 

I’ve been able to continue my training while in France, although I miss training with the team at SLU! My training has mostly been running and doing body weight strength on a local playground I found not too far from my house. Running has been a great opportunity to really discover the area and also meet some new people.

Last weekend I escaped from the city and took a weekend to Chamonix, a small town located at the base of Mont-Blanc, right in the midst of the French Alps! I went for a long hike in the mountains, which was an incredible adventure. It was my first solo hike, and despite not having a trail map, I didn’t get lost (which for those who know me is a true feat in itself)!

(caption) Views from the two peaks I hiked. I summited the second peak at 2525m=8284ft!

I’ll be in France until winter break, and hopefully as the weather becomes chillier I’ll be able to go snow-skiing! Until then, it’s back to the university and struggling through broken conversations with strangers. I hope everyone at SLU is having an awesome fall and I can’t wait to see you all at winter camp!

Views from the two peaks I hiked. I summited the second peak at 2525m=8284ft!    

-Kate

The rest of the juniors, myself (Lucy), Jackie, and Emily are doing well too! Classes are a little harder for sure, but we’re still loving SLU just like we did when we wrote our introductions way back when. Reading back through them, what stands out is how excited we all were to be joining such a big group of awesome, talented, and dedicated girls. We aren't quite so star struck anymore, but we've only come to love the team more and more!

L:R Jordan, Dottie, Nathaniel, and Graham 

Coach Kyle and Steph!

In other news, we got on snow this week! We headed down to Van Ho in Lake Placid, which has 0.5km. Talk about laps on laps. I think everyone thought it was fun and worthwhile, though! Skiing > rollerskiing. It was a recovery week, so there wasn’t too much going on otherwise. Keep an eye out for an update from the seniors, and news from THANKSGIVING CAMP! We can’t believe it’s that time of year again but are so thankful it is.

Jackie cruising on the home turf

Laps on laps :) But hey, it's snow! ***

 -Lucy

Trail Day and other news from the sophomores!

Hey people!

Gabby here, representing the ever-hardy sophomores on the team. This year on the boys’ side we have: Tim “Timmith” Cunningham, Matt “Mattahawko” Manwaring, George Jarvinen, Nathaniel Perkins, GH Werowinski, and Ben Carnaham. And on the girls’ side, we have: Dottie Anderson, Eliza Thomas, Jordan Schuster…and me!

First year done, and onto the next. Our classes are harder than last years’ and there’s a LOT more going on on campus. It’s so exciting to be more involved with SLU and its extracurriculars, but as our schedules fill, Nordic and the team remain a priority.

These past two weeks have been colder and rainy, but none the less we are out there getting it done. This past week alone, we’ve done some good intensity with skate skiing, early morning circuits and VOLT, and still more bounding intervals and distance workouts coming up.

Saturday marks the legendary “Higley Trail Day” where we get together with other volunteers at Higley Flow State Park and pick up the trails for the upcoming season. The weather forecast calls for typical North Country weather: high of 41*F and rain…but as they say, only badasses train in the rain. This will be followed by either a distance run or ski. There is also a chance that Lake Placid will have some snow and it would be exciting to be able to take advantage of that as well.

Post trail-day Narnia run! (L-R: Lauchie, Jordi, Steph, Graham, Lucy, Jackie, Tim)

Stay tuned to hear about our adventures this winter on snow! But as for now, we’ll be taking on the roads, trails, and skiergs. Get ‘er done!

Best,

Gabby Wangler ‘21

Hey People! (Tim edition)

Like Gabby said, things have been getting a little harder: class work and late-night essays keep our day dreams of Etown’s next interval set at bay, while AM circuits remind us why most people ski downhill. In case you were wondering, it’s because most people haven’t experienced the overwhelming joy of waking up at 6:00 AM to slam a medball into the ground while listening to Kyle’s circuit playlist: 8.9/10 would recommend to a reasonably close acquaintance/distant friend.

While we’re on the note of “things that make us happy,” we got a great surprise last Sunday! It was Kyle’s weekly training sched…. No. No it wasn’t. As exciting as it is to see how much training we get to do on a week, nothing beats waking up to see the group covered with a fine, but definite, layer of cloud dandruff! Also known in layman’s terms as snow! With more precipitation scheduled for the future, the team is getting excited to break out the real skis in the coming weeks.

All the best,

Timothy Cunningham ‘21