Lots of Firsts, and Photos Galore! - The Harvard Carnival (and JNQ results)

Performance of the week right here

We're catching up here, guys :) A couple weeks ago, we had our first carnival. EXCITING! As Kai would say, "Not gonna lie", I was a bit sad it was my last first carnival. However, that was totally made up for by the joy it brought me to see Charlie, Robyn, Meg, and Jaden race their first first carnival (Cam and Natalie had to wait until the next week, because they were too busy working on qualifying for JNs)! I was so impressed with all of them. The EISA circuit is a truly special time, and I love that everyone is at their own spot in the journey. It was also Harvard's first carnival!

Emily having fun skating!

Ben gliding it out

On the whole, the carnival weekend could be summed up as about on par. There were highlights, there were low-lights, and we know we can do better, but we also should be happy with ourselves for dusting off the cobwebs and throwing down a solid set of performances! Also, it was really cold. So, that just made life tough.

Matt crushing it

Meg hauling it up Screaming Mimi

Jaden sending

Brian working the open skate

Graham looking speedy

Gabby, our V1 queen

On Friday, we had a 5/10k skate. It was MAYBE race legal temperatures for the men. However, it wasn't as slow as I thought it might be, which was a welcome surprise. Tim was the star of the day, having a totally breakthrough day and scoring his first NCAA points! I was happy to hear for possibly the first time that Emily had fun in the skate race. Charlie scored for the team in the start of what I'm sure will be an illustrious EISA career. And Robbie made that top 6 in her first race back from a year off. Full results, team scores, splits etc. will be linked below.

Charlie having a stellar start to his college career

Princess Steffi, looking strong

Robyn's back at it and SO strong!

Kate getting the groove

Jordan's back from France YAYYYY!

Jackie, the best climber/closer in the EISA :)

Brian looking strong

On Saturday, we had a 15k/20k classic mass start. It was perhaps the most aggressive mass start I've ever been in, but everyone survived. A few falls on the team, but nothing major. It was nice to see that a lot of the girls worked together to move up through the pack. Kate rebounded from a tough skate race to an awesome classic race. Charlie had another great one, and Graham also crushed it (getting exactly the same place as the day before despite not being a fan of distance skiing). I was pleased to even out my skate and classic skiing, (just trust me, it used to be really rough), getting a whole weekend in the top 20 of the NCAA scoring for the first time.

Mass starts are crazy things.

Brian in the pack

Graham fighting for it

Jackie and Kate working together!

Jordan looking soooo smooth and speedy (and cool red hair!!)

Ian powering up the hill

Tim's ice beard remains

Goober's flying!

Charlie modeling a proper skate push in a classic race, and ETown reminds us IS legal

Me, hoping the finish is realllllly soon

RESULTS - everything you could ever want

Also, results from the Gore JNQ. We're so proud of Cam and Natalie for working toward JN's in Truckee - my favorite place in the world! Also, thank you to Jordi for coaching!
JNQ Men's Classic
JNQ Women's Classic
JNQ Older Men's Skate
JNQ Older Women's Skate

Ben and Matt working together!

Meg, the endurance machine

Jaden crushing it

Emily loving that it's a hard wax day

Steph, doing what she does best (it's a seriously killer double pole)

Robbie is Rossi royalty, so she gets cool stuff and goes really fast

On the whole, I think we were all happy to hang out at the food table, but also happy to get back to our overly hot dorm rooms. Definitely chilly. Thank you so much to the Townsends and Gwen for hosting us, especially on such short notice. It was lovely as always. The parents put together one of the best food tables I have ever seen, so thank you to them as well. A HUGE thank you to Charlie's mom, Sarah, as well for traveling a long way and braving the cold to support us and take wonderful photos (all of the ones in the blog are from her). She is clearly amazing, because she managed to take a race photo of me that won't scare away potential recruits. Stay tuned for news about the UVM Carnival, aka Craftsbury Round 2. The women had a breakout day!

I've been told I take the worst race photos of anyone on the team - so I was so impressed and happy that Charlie's mom caught me looking like I know what I'm doing :)

Usually I do weird things like close my eyes and stick my tongue out...

More photos available here. There were so many photographers; thank you to all!

Sarah Reinhardt
Men's 10k Skate
Women's 5k Skate
Men's 20k Classic
Women's 15k Classic

Flying Point Road
Men's 20k Classic
Women's 15k Classic

Gil Talbot Photography
Skate Day
More Skate Day

Skiing Fast and Shooting Sorta? Straight

As ETown would say, pictured is our mid race break (Bob photo)

Hey guys!

It's Tim, the hand shaker here. It’s a bit overdue since the carnival season has already started, but we on the team thought it would be a good idea to give some shout-outs to the athletes who competed over winter break this year. In mid-December, Lucy and I went to Craftsbury to give some biathlon races a shot. After having come off of a pretty mild snow fall and moderately cold temperatures at SLU, it was a shock to have to race at below zero temperatures in a sport that requires athletes to lay down on the cold ground and practice the art of denying your screaming muscles their right to oxygen.

Nevertheless, Lucy put on some hair ribbons (sparkles were not in attendance) and had a great couple of race at IBU trials, coming in third in two of the three races, missing only 4/20 between the two! On the middle day though, Lucy decided to challenge herself by skiing 15/20 penalty laps, only 2.25 Km further than her competition. Despite all of that, Lucy did ski very fast, and came away with a really great weekend of racing. Tim (me in the third person?) had only two races due to finals, and had two bouts of really good shooting, missing only 6/30 shots over two races. Skiing went well too, but Tim had other races coming up in the next week. All in all, spending the first weekend of break with a fast skiing friend with serious guns and a biathlon rifle (haha…muscle joke), was a pretty great way to start out. See results below.

Same pain cave, different accessories (Bob photo)

First Sprint
Mass Start
Second Sprint
(Note - biathlon sprints are not sprints)

Skiing smooth (Bob photo)

That beard, though (Bob photo)

The following week, Tim (again, I apologize for Tim’s egregious third person typing style) and Jackie went to Junior World Trials in Jericho, Vermont. What a fun week that was! Between watching the entire first season of the Mandalorian and skiing in the rain (which is apparently the way these days), Jackie and Tim had some awesome fun at trials. Jackie had some great shooting, most of the time, mixed with some incredibly fast skiing all of the time, and came away with a second and third place finish in her age group! Tim had some races, with mixed skiing and shooting, but managed to finish the weekend with four 25% off deli coupons at the Jericho Country store for being a patient and persistent customer. Neither Jackie nor Tim qualified unfortunately, but both were eagerly awaiting the start of the EISA carnival circuit in just a few short weeks. Soon would be their chance to escape the penalty loop for the next 7 weeks!

Full Results

Dave Priganc photos!, and more here! - Thank you to Dave Priganc for braving the rain to take some great shots of the sprint and pursuit.

Thank you so much to Tim for writing this blog. He did great all of break, and it was honestly so impressive that he raced both weekends. One weekend of tough weather was enough for me. Also, thank you to Bob Townsend for the great photos! Finally, carnival recaps are coming up very soon. It has been an exciting start to the ski season that I can't wait to share, but it has been combined with lots of Senior thesis work and a temporarily broken computer... Thanks to Dana and Tim for picking up the slack! - Lucy

Mont Sainte Anne Recap told in Photos

Winter Jan Camp 6th-13th at Mont Sainte Anne

Beautiful Skiing

Superb grooming

Kate, Jackie, Robyn, Steph and...TIM!

Could it get much better than this?

Classic 5k with Skate 5k Pursuit!

Up Up Charlie!

Classic Jackie, Classic!

Natalie powering through that Skate Climb!

Charlie and Matt after the pursuit!

Getting amped for that -2deg run pre strength!

Downhills!

Natalie Jelley

Kate Andy

Em Siegel

Charlie and Ian

Ian- tongues out, funs out!

Wouldn't be a ski camp without some playing in the snow...

Rail Jam 

Graham...what have I told you?

Last day in the pow, featuring Charlie!

And this is what happens when you combine snow, jumps and boys...

Would you just look at that?

We had a successful camp despite some crazy weather- major winds, pouring rain, extreme cold, and blowing snow. We got some long distance classic skiing in, did a classic and skate pursuit among each other, dialed in our race ski kick zones, practiced some downhill turns and quick "duck walk" running, ran and did strength, went hot tubbing, did a sprint simulation with other Canadian teams in the pouring rain, had some delicious meals, did some extreme Go Karting..Mario Kart style, had some great team bonding, and made it to and from Canada without breaking down or driving in crazy snow conditions. We stayed an extra night due to a snow and ice storm on Sunday.

Thanks for following and stay tuned for more updates!
Coach Hatton

Racing & Other Holiday Pizazz

Hey everyone and happy new year! It’s been a couple weeks, but we are feverishly catching up on races and events from the last decade. A few daring individuals made the choice to subtract a couple days from our already short break and race at the North Creek Ski Bowl (Gore Mtn) for junior national spots, or just a little friendly competition. On Friday while the team drove from campus, I decided the Freshman HQ in Queensbury needed to have a little bit more holiday pizazz. I recruited some local laborers and we ventured into the wilderness to find them a gorgeous Christmas tree in hopes of inspiring some stellar performances. After lugging the best tree in the forest back to my house we shoveled feed for a couple hours and awaited their arrival.

Final Product

Saturday’s races included a 5/10k classic individual start. Gore did not have a ton of natural snow to work with, almost all the snow was man made and the racecourse was a 1.7k loop that we raced 3 and 6 times respectively (things got a little dizzy). The race atmosphere was definitely more like a high school meet which brought some of us back to the glory days. It was great for me to reunite with a bunch of my NY friends, and it seemed like everybody was in high spirits after some solid performances on the snow. Natalie and Jaden were 1-2 for U20 women, and Cam was 6th place for U20 with some really solid competition on the men’s side. All (to my knowledge) were under points standards for qualifying for junior nationals. Kai wisely was held out of competition due to a head injury which he suffered not too long ago :(

After a good morning of racing the team took a much-needed afternoon nap, then hit the town for some winter sightseeing and general ruckus causing (featuring Ian who came for Sunday's race and special guest Frago)

Sunday’s race was a mass start 10k skate, one I think many of us were excited for (especially me). Mass starts are generally much more exciting, and these races lived up to the hype. Even the u16 races were battles to the finish with just fractions of a second between first and second. The men started first at 10:00 and the race quickly separated into a front pack of four with a larger chase pack not too far behind. It was definitely fun to ski with some fast guys, and once again SLU had some solid results with Ian 5th place for U20, Cam 8th for U20, and myself performing as expected. On the women’s side we had an absolute cracker right from the gun. Some of the speedy high school girls instantly began laying down a strong pace with Jaden and Nat skiing strong in the pack. After the first lap there was a collision going around the backside of the timing booth, and to my unfortunate surprise I saw poor Nat laying in the cold snow. After a thundering howl of encouragement from the tumultuous, engaged band of spectators and parents, Nat sprung up (bloody knee and all) and kept pushing through the race. A true warrior. A model human. An example for all. The rest of the race was somewhat uneventful except a tight race for the W. Nat finished the day 1st for U20 with Jaden 2nd.

Just want to give a big thanks to Dana and ETown who came down Saturday and Sunday respectively to help with waxing and to Santa for putting Ian on the ‘Nice’ list this year. Also, good luck to everyone racing at the end of break (if not then enjoy your free time) I’m really excited to get back with the team and kill it this year.

- Brian

Find photos here! There are some great ones of the men's mass start.

I also want to thank the Beyerbachs for hosting the team all weekend! Also, Brian won't write about himself, so I'll add that he did very well, coming in 2nd for the U20s both days. He has also been racing at Senior Nationals this week, and we're all glad he's reppin' the team well. Other than that, I hope you keep an eye out for an update from the Christmas break biathlon races Tim, Jackie, and I went to. We're also about to head up to Mt. Ste. Anne, which should be awesome! Hopefully, by the end of this week we'll be caught up on the blog, caught up on rest/training, and be ready for race season to start! (and school of course... haha)

-Lucy