Trapps JOQ - What a Great Weekend!

What a stellar weekend! CSU arrived at Trapps in force through a snowstorm and these pictures tell the story. Alex takes 1st in Senior women in the 5km freestyle race, Jackson takes 2nd in the J2 sprint and 1st in the 5km freestyle with Eli Hoenig 4th and Neil Garrison 9th. Corey Stock was 7th in the 5km and Hannah Smith 8th. Both Hannah and Eli won the B final of their respective J2 classic sprints for 6th overall. Hilary Rich, now at Stratton, took 5th in the women's sprint. Finally, several CSU grads now skiing in college were there as well to complete the CSU family. Bookended by snowstorms, this was certainly a class event. Even the sprints came off without a hitch!

Weston Practice

It isn't a big patch of snow and it was new, dirt slow manmade, but it was skiing! First day on snow for many so thanks to Weston for getting the local ski season moving from pavement to snow! Jrs. , Masters and future CSUers were all there....

Corey and Olga at the High School XC Nationals!

CSU Juniors Corey Stock (Lincoln-Sudbury) and Olga
Golovkina (Newton South) traveled with their
respective teams to the High School XC Nationals
in Portland, Oregon last week.  Both teams
qualified in the regional meet in NY a week or two
before.  Results are below along with a photo I
was able to download from the race website of Olga.

Congratulations to Corey and Olga!


70  Stock, Corey    Sudbury XC Club   18:54.9
116 Golovkina, Olga Newton XC Club    19:28.1

Opening Day - Waterville Valley

One photo from Alex to go with this note that Waterville Valley was very decent today, particularly when you consider how little snow there was driving up there. But the North End snow showers were working their magic on Tripoli Road, Waterville had groomed nice tracks and with light snow falling through much of the day the skiing just got better. Can't complain about hard wax skiing where I had excellent kick and didn't need to go back and rewax for the first day of the year and I didn't croak my arms. CSU Juniors were out in force along with a health supply of coaches and there were smiles all around. It is only going to get better! The season begins!!!

Alex Finds Snow.......Lots of Snow!

Found a couple feet of snow today and they're going to get another foot tonight! Salmon Hills (NY) is the place to be. It was wet snow this morning, I missed the wax and could run up (and down) the hills... the snow was compacting a lot in the afternoon as more people were skating, but even with three or four ski teams skiing here I didn't see people on the trails.

Its not often that my first ski of the season is on race skis!

Alex

Double Pole Time Trial

Double pole time trial on the infamous Annursnac Hill

Its TIME!

Click on the cartoon to see in larger size

CSU Skiers at the NEAC XC Championships

Sunday was a beautiful day for cross country, so I went to spectate and cheer on CSUers on the running side of the shop.

Skier Terry McNatt in action at the NEAC Cross Country Championships at Franklin Park. Terry finished 11th in the 8km Men's Masters race.....he can still crank out some pretty fast miles!

Sue McNatt and Lisa Doucett in the 6km women's race.

2008 CSU Fall Classic Rollerski Race

Thursday evening I was in a bit of a panic because I went to check out the race course, knowing some construction had been taking place, and discovered that North Andover had gouged out the pavement on the first turn in preparation for re-paving. It was about 2-3 inches below the pavement and unskiable without some little ramps or some other fix. I began to devise how to build little ramps in my head. However, much to my relief, the town paved on Friday and my little crisis was averted. On with the race!
For this 20th edition it turned out to be a glorious New England Fall day....dry, crisp, bright and sunny and about 40F+ at the start. I made a change this year and decided to just do the race as a classic race, partly because of some bad pavement. 27 racers showed this year, so a good turnout, plus a couple juniors who just toured 1 lap of the course because they are still running cross-country. It was a Harvard Ski Team/CSU affair.

With everyone in the same race it was a mob at the start and while a group of Jackson Rich, Frank Feist, Trevor Petach and a few others shot out in the lead I was left way behind heading up the first hill and having to play catch-up most of the race. I chased Alex Jospe up the hill and then finally caught Victor who, as aways, provided a most excellent draft for a while. We chased down Bob Burnham who had jumped off to a good start with son Jimmy. Alex was chasing Hilary Rich and Audrey Mangan was chasing Alex. Both Hilary (pole tip) and Alex (thingy that sticks out in front of her Marwe ski for classic) had equipment problems, but Hilary got another pair of poles and Alex persevered with a broken thingy. Meanwhile, Jackson Rich had busted open the field and Andy Milne was futilely chasing him....until Jackson pulled out at the end of lap 1 since he is a junior and suddenly Andy had inherited a whopping lead. Jackson took 1.5 minutes off of last years time. Trevor was over a minute back, followed by Frank Feist and Rob Bradlee, who see-sawed back and forth before Frank put the hammer down on Bradlee. On the women's side Hilary won handily despite the one or two hand-offs of replacement poles from Marsha Rich out of the window of the car. Audrey overtook Alex on lap two and hung on by one second over Alex to take second place.
Awards of gift certificates very kindly donated by Chris Li from The Bikeway Source, apple and pumpkin pies and Gu and Clif Bars were snapped up during awards as we soaked up the sun and compared war stories and talked politics. Many thanks to my volunteers, Lisa Doucett, Marsha Rich, Pat and Richard Garrison, Jim O'Grady and Walter Page. Many thanks to Chris City for taking photos.

It suddenly occurred to me as I was picking up signs after the race today that the CSU rollerski race is probably the longest running rollerski race in New England and maybe even beyond.

Place Name Lap Finish (lap 1 is about 20 sec. longer)
1- Andy Milne 21:10 41:42
2- Trevor Petach 21:38 42:59
3- Frank Feist 21:49 43:16
4- Rob Bradlee 21:39 43:40
5- Victor Golovkin 22:12 43:46
6- David McCahill 21:56 44:06
7- Jamie Doucett 22:18 44:15
8- Josef Tofte 21:56 44:17
9-Bob Burnham 22:18 44:26
10- John Rich 23:59 47:24
11- Jimmy Burnham 23:34 47:34

1- Hilary Rich 22:37 44:42
2- Audrey Mangan 24:25 47:48
3- Alex Jospe 23:59 47:49
4- Shannon Mulshine 26:13 51:45
5- Anna Schulz 26:43 52:41
6- Meri Buress 27:01 52:51
7- Alyssa Devlin 27:20 54:59
8- Katie Coil 28:13 56:04
9- Clare Miller 29:02 58:09
10- Irina Kotlova 29:24 59:38
11- Jody Newton 31:21 63:14

Juniors
1- Jackson Rich 20:15
2- Tommy Rummel 23:30
3- Neil Garrison 24:46
4- Hannah Smith (1st F) 25:30
5- Rion O'Grady 27:05

CSU Fall Classic Rollerski Race - Sunday Nov. 2

Frank leading the pack, 2007 CSU Rollerski Race

The CSU Fall Classic Rollerski Race will be held Sunday, Nov. 2 in North Andover. This year I'm changing the format a bit and there will only be a classic race. Juniors do 1 lap, Old farts do 2 laps.

Course map can be found at: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=192762

Entry forms: Send me an email and I'll get it out to you. jdoucett@comcast.net

Volunteers: I could use a several volunteers to help with timing and traffic control and someone to take some photos. If you are willing to assist please let me know by emailing me at: jdoucett@comcast.net

Fall Training Group Time Trial

At Sunday's Junior workout several took part in a 5km time trial at Annursnac Hill in Concord. A few photos thanks to Alex who came with her camera so I could snap a few pictures.

Name	Time	Ski type	Avg HR	Max HR

.	Chris Stock	15:52:00	V2 910
.	Alex Jospe	17:03:00	Marwe	175	190
.	Neil Garrison	17:34:00	V2 940
.	Hannah Smith	18:06:00	V2 940	190	200
.	Rion O'Grady	21:34:00	V2 940	134	176
.
.	Location: Annursnac	Distance: 5K	Date: 10/12/08	Temp: 65 F, sunny

FIRST TRACKS!!!!

Jonathan Shefftz wins again. First on, last off every year it seems. It ain't long now! Mt. Washington got several inches of snow over the last few days. Life is good!

A Step Way Back In Time

I've got gazillions of photos stored away in boxes around here. Lots of good stuff. I found a few to scan and put up while we wait for winter. Watch out, I'll probably dig out more incriminating photos of others while I watch the Red Sox march through the playoffs.

The first two are Rob Bradlee at the March 1987 Bogburn, which Bob Haydock used to hold in March, thus the gorgeous weather. Check out that mustache and those Peltonen ski tips! Those things would cut you if you fell on them, the tips were so sharp. Bob used to hold both a 10km skate and a 10km classic race in the same day and give awards to the ironperson in addition to the individual race winners. And, the course was harder in those days than it is now! Can you say "exhausted"?

The third picture is of me at the 1987 National Masters Championships on an off day skiing at Lone Mt. Ranch at Big Sky, MT, where the 30km was held. Check out the skating equipment, in particular the boots! I got so exhausted skiing around at 6,000 - 8,000 feet chasing Jody Newton, Keith Woodard and Vince O'Connell that I was completely useless for the next two races. However, that was some totally awesome skiing! What a beautiful place. Then we had a 5 star dinner at Lone Mt. Ranch that evening. I can still remember the salmon I had. Lone Mt. Ranch has just been sold and has been turned into a private retreat, which is truly a shame.

CSU Juniors Get Busy!

A big crowd turned out last Sunday for the CSU Junior workout in Concord. Here is a picture of part of the group.






































Heather working on V2

Awesome Day at Waterville

What constitutes a perfect summer day of training? For those who came up to Waterville Valley today for a training day hosted by the Riches, they found out. A perfect day consists of bright sunny weather with low humidity and warm temperatures, a great group of friends getting together, a 2 hour rollerski, lots of stuff to eat for lunch to fuel up, a great hike of Dickey and Welch mountains with great views up and down the valley followed by perhaps the best part....a bracing but totally revitalizing swim in the Mad River complete with some tubing.

A few photos of the day:

A Beautiful Morning on the Water!

It hasn't been the best weather lately so when today dawned clear and with no chance of rain for a change I tossed the kayak on the car for a little kayak cross training paddle around Crane's Beach. This is a great little paddle, just over 10 miles and on a day like this how could you go wrong! I took the pictures in calm areas but with the wind out of the west and the incoming tide it made for interesting conditions and choppy waves. FUN!

Lots and lots of boat traffic though with the nice weather. Got to watch out. 2nd photo shows some of the ones anchored on the backside of Crane's.
A great day with some hard paddling.