Here's the week's plan

The shuttle leaves Adirondak circle at 11:40 everyday this week. If you drive up to Rikert meet there at 12:15pm. Lisa, Mia, Will and Britta will be alternating leading the group and each workout will start with 15-20 min of technique work. lots of no poles skiing and double pole. Then you can ski the remainder of the workout in groups.

Hope everybody is loving the new snow.

Rutland Race: The Will Conlon Perspective

On Tuesday the team raced at Mountain Top. For the Varsity squads, the race was a two person relay, with each member completing five laps around an 800 meter course. The JV skiers completed the loop three times. Each race began with mass starts. On the boys side several teams (MAU, Woodstock) pulled out to early leads and stayed ahead for the rest of the relay. The top Midd team, Will and Will, came in fifth. On the girls side, Dominique returned from Colorado, and she and Britta skied to a top three finish. The JV race saw the debut of Griffin Wood, who raced well despite it being his first time on skate skis. To quote our coach, "Once I teach him how to ski he'll be very good."
The race itself I found exceedingly exhausting, partly because I received hardly any rest after each loop. Although the skis had good wax and were fast, the snow was choppy, and got worse while the races continued. By the third lap I could feel my form begin to fail, and it got progressively worse over the next to laps. I am definitely looking forward to when we return to good old-fashioned 5Ks.
-Will Conlon

Link to the results: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Auh5AHTeS3gPdGxVSmd6ZlNfUWZiV2IzQ1dneGVfekE&hl=en

Frost Mountain Winter Break Clinic

As I mentioned at practice tonight, Frost Mountain Nordic is holding a ski camp over break, Monday through Friday 9-12 at a cost of $200 for all five days. Its a great opportunity to get some serious skiing and training in and with the new snow it should be a pretty fun week. Email Dia Jenks or me for more info or to get signed up.

Nordic Racing Is a Dangerous Sport

George shows us that nordic racing is not just spandex tights and waxing. Things get bloody out there, and as always your greatest enemy is always yourself (or in this case your hand). Don't worry though, he wiped his nose and skied two more legs of his relay...and lived to tell about it.

Pictures, Finally

A big thanks to Shari for sending along these pictures from the NENSA race on Sunday. Hopefully I can keep this blog more colorful with some of my own in the days to come. In any case, Will Earle, Britta Clark and MUHS friend Alia Johnson all headed to Jericho yesterday to compete in the first eastern cup of the season. Conditions forced some last minute changes including location and distance. It was a big race. 12km classic with decent hills in a crowd of 150+ skiers in both the mens and women's fields. We don't get to compete a whole lot in conditions like that so its pretty exciting to get out there and see what its like to hurt for 40-45 minutes. Both Will and Britta finished respectably in the high school crowd, which bodes well for upcoming races.

Head over to Nensa.net to check out the full results. Be warned there are a lot of college skiers to sort through.

Friday Time Trial

Well still a couple of logistical issues, so we missed a big part of the team for the time trail, but managed to get some good speed work with games down at the high school. Ronnie dominated sharks and minnows winning two games in a row and a fine performance from Griffin as well. The most nimble minnow was Adam Peterson by far, with so many dodges and fakes you cuoldn't keep track.

Up at Bread Loaf, Mia orchestrated a short time trial in the field. Conditions we as good as you could hope. Speaking of hope, lets keep doing our snow dances. The time trial was probably in the neighborhood of 2.5-3k. I am planning on running a number of these during the season to help track progress, and give a people a more solid sense of improvement. That being said, the first race on snow is always tough and without enough snow depth for tracks, a classic time trial is a difficult thing.

Mac 9:19
Kelsey 9:54
Steven 9:50
Haley 10:51
Emma 11:56
Hannah 13:23

Wednesday Waxing Clinic

Everybody, listen up.

There's a great opportunity tomorrow night to learn a lot about waxing. The Middlebury Mountaineer is hosting Andrew Gardner who will be giving out more waxing information than you know what to do with. 6pm, its a great way to keep the skiing excitement going after practice. Be there, and be ready for fast skis.

*** Please remember to bring your uniform contract and check for $75 to practice.

Wish I had some Pictures

So I took my camera with me to the race on Sunday, but as Britta came through the first turn and I clicked the shutter, nothing happened. Bad memory card. So this is a bummer, and hopefully I can get that figured out so that we can have some colors up on the blog here. Until then, let me help you all imagine what things looked like during the race. White moving sideways.

We were pretty much at snow-line as we discovered after leaving the race, a few hundred feet down the road from Bolton Valley Resort, conditions turned to heavy rain. So while spectating was fun, I can only imagine how much fun it was to race. Britta and I skied the course to check it out and it wasn't easy. Two 4k laps, the first 1k straight uphill, some hairpin turns, a nice open straightaway to channel the wind and little visibility.

It was good to get out there and tough it out. Good to get a little feel for racing early in the season. And as a bonus, I brushed up on my civil war history with a fun game pitting Will and Britta's intellects on the car ride up and back.

Haley's Friday Practice

I've been hoping to get some athlete input on the blog this year, and I am happy to share with you the first of these from Haley Olson:

Yesterday was the team's first day on skis.  Though the snow was light enough that we were essentially skiing on grass, the fluff was wonderful.  While Britta helped me with my double pole the rest of the team skied around the school, reacclimating themselves to the feel of skis.  We proceeded to the legion fields and played on the hills for at least 45 minutes.  We were led by one captain (britta) in doing what she calls "chinese downhills" and then we watched her fail at tele skiing (multiple times).  After being pushed down the hill multiple times by the other captain (will), the other will, and mac, I stationed myself safely at the bottom.  Overall, I can file away this practice away under the label: successful team bonding (and of course, good practice). 

Team Equipment Form

Please print, fill out and bring to practice on Monday.

Equipment Form

Hope everybody had fun on the first ski of the season today. We're taking a few people to the race at Bolton Valley on Sunday, look for pictures and news soon.

Saturday's race

Well we'll be changing focus for this weekend, Britta has pointed out that there is a race at Bolton Valley on sunday. This would not be a high school race but if there is a group of interested people we can figure out support.

It is an 8km skate race and the cost would be $25. We'll talk about it at practice tomorrow.

In the meantime begin memorizing our new team cheer:
Silo, silo full of grain, keep us dry when it rains. (please direct any questions to Micah.

Ski Equipment

Hey everybody, if you need equipment for this season, or if you have equipment you are looking to give away/sell/lend, use the comment section to send a message to everyone else on the team.

First Day of Practice

Well, a couple of bounding intervals today to get the seasons intensity started. Forecast this week looks good with snow flurries for the next couple days. Here's one quick picture from my Thanksgiving trip out West, I took it during the first Super Tour races of the season.