U-32 Meet

Just a quick report from our last race. Things are busy now as we prepare for our home meet on Saturday and the annual ski team ball Saturday evening.

The weather was great for a skate race at U-32, bright and sunny, and fairly warm. The snow stayed relatively dry, but the up hills turned to mash potatoes and the downhills were scary fast (Charlie was our worst victim with ending up with an injured shoulder and skiing most of the race using only one pole).

Britta had a great result skiing to 6th in the girls varsity race, which was really exciting to see. She excelled on the short and steep uphills which abounded on the course. Her quick tempo was crucial for the day and exciting to watch, especially into the finish. Our girls varsity team was a little small due to All-State Auditions, but three brand new skate skiers stepped up in a big way to fill out our scoring spots. Hannah Krauss, Emma Ryan and Haley Olson all had great performances, especially considering their limited experience (this was Hannah's fourth day skate skiing, first time racing, Haley and Emma don't have much more experience than that either). They all finished the long race well, and looked great while they were skiing. I'm going out on a limb a little here, but I think they'd all say they had a good time. They did ask to return to JV racing for a little while, though.

On the guys side, our skiers skied well, but some results were not quite what we hoped. I think that our technique work has been good, but we can continue to improve, especially in practicing our new technique at race type speeds. Be on the lookout for some more intervals soon.

One final note. In an effort to push our team well into the blogosphere, Dubbs attempted to provide some multimedia in the form of a stomach cam perspective on the race. Turning his race suit from orange to silver with duct tape, he had a securely mounted video cam for the entire race. Next challenge: pressing the record button. Look for exciting footage from our home race, maybe.