2nd Carnival of the 2017 Season~
Thursday:
A group of us left at 9am and the others left around 2:30, after classes. Upon arriving to Jackson, it was kind of gray outside, but quite warm. We classic skied the course for an hour on wax-less skis and zeros's; I found it kind of hard to kick on waxless, thus my skiing up hills resulted in some duck walking. The course was fun and very wavy; I started to get pretty excited for the races.
After struggling to find our condos in Bartlett, NH, we settled in quickly and started making pasta and lasagna. Peanut butter in your pasta is actually pretty good, by the way; it tastes a little like Pad Thai. The girls condo was a really nice place, with a full kitchen, 2 bathrooms, a living area, 2 bedrooms on the first floor and a loft upstairs with multiple bunkbeds. The rest of the gang arrived around 9:30pm. We caught them up on race details and went to bed.
Cooking dinner featuring: Emily, Jordan and Jackie (Taken by Dana)
Emily checking out the Condo (Taken by Dana)
Friday:
Men raced first at 11am and women raced late at 12pm. Everyone's trailers and vans were parked above, while tents and skis were carried down to the stadium across the street. It was less than ideal, but it worked well nonetheless. It was neat to see only tents and wax benches gathered around the stadium. Men did a 10k and women did a 5k Classic 15 second interval start. It warmed up as the day went along, staying in the mid to high thirties all weekend. The snow was very sugary and the tracks had been sort of cleared away by the time the women raced. It made it more challenging to kick up the hills, but it wasn't something us Saint's didn't know how to do. The first day was a disappointment for a lot of us. It wasn't where we wanted the results to be, but we continued to spread the positivity with our teammates. That night, the coaches waxed their hearts out for us staying at the venue until 5pm. They did a fine job too, because our skis for the Skate race were phenomenal (more on that later).
The girls were all sitting around the table in the condo before dinner, chatting and hanging out, when all of sudden, I just happen to look at my watch and say, "Guys, we're late!!" and everyone bolts out of their seats screaming and laughing. You had to be there, but it was pretty funny. I wish it was on film, but actually we all grabbed our jackets and were outside right as the boys were showing up.
We dined out at Matty B's, a quaint little restaurant in a hotel near Attitash, which was only 5 minutes from our condos. I personally love when we don't have to go far for dinner and when it doesn't take long! It was relatively quick and good. People ate burgers, (GF) pizza, burritos, chicken, some salads were shared, and fish tacos. Simple, yet tasty. We convened back at the girls condo, where we had some nice bonding time as a team. We definitely needed to do this because we are often segregated in two separate vans and houses a lot of the time. You could say this might have improved our results on Saturday too, who knows, maybe it's the secret. We played "Heads Up" which is a charade type game where a person puts the phone (in this case) or card, with some kind of noun on their forehead while the rest of the players act it out or describe it to the person to guess..it can get pretty dramatic and entertaining! We ended the night with a pep talk from Coach Townsend sending us positive vibes about what we should be trying to do for Saturday.
CL Results
Women
Men
Saturday:
Men raced at 10 and women at 11:30. They were both mass starts, which our team tends to do well in. We like to chase those around us and we get excited to work off people. Women skied 3 laps around the 5k loop and the men skied 4 laps, phew! It was a long race for us all, but I heard a lot of "that was actually really fun". We should hear that more often! The women decided to go for the Lucy and Jackie approach and put sparkles on our faces! I should say that again..we put GOLD sparkles on our faces! We were going for the gold! I think it helped, because the girls had a more successful day than Friday as a whole;) I can't speak for the guys what they did in the morning, but I know they didn't have sparkles on their faces. We were spreading the happiness that morning and getting into the race day zone. A lot of the girls had never done a 15k skate race so they knew they had nothing to lose! We were just going go out there and racing! It's just skiing.. The mass start for the women was kind of a mess per usual. It didn't take long before a UVM skier fell literally right in front of me and there was nothing to do. I was actually going pretty fast too and I went head over heals over her, while my skis stayed under me. It happened way too fast for me to really remember and now I know, I have a lot of bruises on my leg. I definitely twisted my neck funny because there was some slight pain as I boosted myself back onto my feet, as the whole collegiate field skied by me...I felt like I was in dead last. After that came the hill that was a wall that lead into the woods, and it was like my Eastern High School Championships at Mountain Top in Vermont my senior year of High School (shoutout to Lizzy Landry) re-lived all over again. The field had come to a complete stop..there was nothing you could do, but wait for the skiers to get up the hill. The snow was way more sugary and it was like mush, which made the hills really hard to get up, especially after three loops of it; my legs felt like lead. I know some others had trouble on the downhill turns; they were very skied off and you had to skid around them. After the race, while talking to the team, we all came to an agreement that our skis were wicked fast on the downhills. We were making up time on other skiers and passing them! Thanks Coaches~
SK Results
Women
Men
Check out race photos from flyingpointroad!
It was another great weekend, filled with memories we will have forever. We are excited to have snow here on campus and at Higley to get some good skiing in before we head to Stowe, Vermont for the UVM Carnival!!
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| Girls Team Picture taken by Erin Perryman Back L-R: Dana, Jordan, Emily, Lucy and Kate Front L- R: Jackie and India Missing from photo: Dani, Waters, and Madi |
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| Silly Photo featuring India, Dana, and Jackie taken by Erin Perryman |
Check out India Harvey's Carnival videos from the weekend. Expect one from each day, every weekend! Subscribe to her YouTube channel for updates quicker! She even made it onto Fasterskier! They are awesome clips and we are happy to have her joining us each weekend to film. Even though she isn't racing this season, she adds a lot of positivity and fun to the team that would make the environment seem different if she weren't with us.
Day 1
Day 2
Thanks to the parents for making us grilled cheeses and putting out a range of food! We love seeing you guys and having the support.
I know there was a slight request for a rap or poem, so maybe you'll be fortunate to see one next time:)
See you at Stowe,
Dana and SLUSKI
PS. This is our team Mascot; his name is Lawrence, but you haven't seen him yet on the trails because he is still in need of some SLU wear and skis...maybe he'll make an appearance soon.
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