Hello again friends, family, and followers!
The Saints were extremely lucky to be able to toss on a bib again this past Friday, this time in Woodstock, VT! While the EISA schedule had originally planned for us to host our St. Lawrence carnival on the new trail system at Mt. Van Hoevenberg in Lake Placid, the county decided that it just wasn’t safe at the moment to have out-of-state teams come in for the day without a rigorous testing and quarantine protocol. As much fun as it is to just race ourselves, we thought it’d probably be better experience to go up against two of the strongest teams in the EISA and meet UNH and UVM in Vermont for a one-day event on Friday. Thank you to the Woodstock venue for pulling this race off for us on such short notice with a beautifully set course and crystal-clear tracks!
After the entire team received their negative PCR tests, we loaded up our vans (at 50% capacity per COVID protocols) and trailer and took off around noon on Thursday, making it to Woodstock just around sunset. While a lot of our team is from the northeast, no one had actually skied at Woodstock before, so we were all curious to see what the racecourse had in store for us. And everyone was pleasantly surprised! Our course preview may have been in the dark, but there was good energy all around and people were excited for a speedy 10k/5k classic race the next day. We spent the evening relaxing in our rooms and chowing down on some great take-out food from the restaurant next door, fueling the body for a fast and furious race day.
The individual-start races started at 11am for the men’s 10k classic, and a leisurely 12:15pm for the women’s 5k classic. And is it really EISA race day if the temperatures aren’t sub-zero? Absolutely not, so Woodstock was sure to deliver on that front. While the weather was frigid, we did see the sun for a bit, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as the -15-degree windchills we suffered in New Hampshire two weekends prior. Spirits were high nonetheless!
The course is a pretty quick one, but as any racer will tell you, quick doesn’t mean easy. The first 3k is pretty much all up, but with a gentle grade for classic striding and a mix of flats in there to work the arms on some double pole as well. After three switchbacks, you get a nice, minute-long downhill recovery into an exciting hairpin turn! If you took the wrong line there was a little river you could find yourself flying into, but thankfully I think all racers escaped that potential hazard. The course then heads back towards the stadium with a bit of rolling terrain and some short, punchy, and steep hills. A high-speed downhill then shoots you back into the stadium for a quick loop and sprint into the finish. One lap for the girls, and two laps for the guys. Personally, this was definitely one of my favorite courses for classic skiing, so I’m so glad we got the opportunity to race here! The trails are a bit too narrow to accommodate our usual 85-person EISA races, so this was probably the only time the Saints would be in Woodstock.
Overall, I think most of the team enjoyed their race and was happy with their effort, but we are definitely hungry for more! Going up against only UNH and UVM (historically two of the top four teams in the EISA) is a mental and physical challenge for sure, but racing fast people makes you faster as well! Steph was our top-placing woman in 9th, and Charlie our top guy in 11th. Full race results can be found here: https://bullitttiming.com/events/EISA-Woodstock-Nordic-2021. Photos can be found here: https://reesebrown.smugmug.com/Cross-Country-Skiing/UVMUNHSLU-Carnival-21221/
After the races, Coach Dana picked up some fantastic sandwiches, and the girls devoured cookies while our wonderful men’s team put a layer of travel wax on all our race skis to protect them on the trip home. Thank you, guys :) While normally our Valentine’s weekend carnival would be buzzing with the excitement of Carni Crush (our annual give-a-valentine, get-a-valentine with all the teams), it was definitely a much quieter weekend (although I think a poem or two were still shared from a safe, masked distance ;). We loaded everything up again and were back in Canton around 7pm. It’s crazy how quickly Thursday and Friday go, but how long it feels as well when we have two travel days right in a row. It seems like a lot of travel for just one race, but we are ecstatic that we get to race and feel so lucky that we have an outside sport which is easily socially distanced and safe. It's all worth the trouble in my book.
Now hopefully back to Jackson again next weekend! Thanks for following along!
Jordan
