Lake Placid Super Tour

Here is Alex's report from Lake Placid:

This last weekend was the Saint Lawrence Carnival (college race), and it was also a Supertour race, hosted by NYSEF, in Lake Placid. Supertours are the top level of domestic racing in the US, and the overall winner of the Supertour gets to go to World Cups with the US Ski Team, to give you an idea of what a big deal they are. The races also counted for JOQ points, so Hannah, Olivia, Kaytie, Chris B, Cate, Zoe, Hamish, and Ian Moore went out racing to see what they could see!

Most everyone arrived Thursday night (the races were on Friday and Saturday), although Chris and Zoe couldn't miss Friday's school, so came just for Saturday. Friday's race was at the jumping complex, and it was really cool to be racing underneath the massive ski jumps. The course was pretty brutal, it was a 2km loop, that went up up up and then down down down. It required good pacing, but the hill wasn't any longer than the one we use for hillbounding, and because everyone was doing three loops, it was just like doing three hill repeats. We had good kick, for the most part, and wicked fast skis on the downhills, and everyone skied really well. Although the skiers might have just been putting on a good face for their coach, it seemed like everyone had a good time at Friday's race.

We had a brief meeting about Saturday's race, and then we all headed out to Mr. Mike's for pizza and pasta. Saturday morning was disgustingly cold, but by the time the girls were racing, it had warmed up nicely, and our skis were again running really fast. We were in the same waxroom as Janice Sibilia (NENSA competitive director), who is a great waxer and wax tester, and I certainly learned a lot working with her. The J1/OJ/SR women went first, and that was when tragedy struck. This still hurts to tell. We had a great course tour, and then Hannah went out for more warmup, as she was the earliest starter. I told her I'd bring her skis to the start, so she'd have time to do enough warmup, and when I went back to the waxroom, I saw Bob Burnham, who wanted to know if there was anything he could do to be helpful. I wanted to go get my bib for my race, so I asked him to take the girls' race skis out - but, I didn't specify where to bring them. He brought them to the logical place, the warmup area, but because I hadn't been specific about where to bring them, or better, brought them there myself, Hannah didn't have her race skis when she started. Luckily, Hannah is a real soldier, and she raced as well as she could on a pair of super slow warmup skis. I was in pieces about this, because, as a coach, when you mess up, you screw up someone else's day, not just yours, but don't worry, Hannah and I are still on speaking terms.

So, later in the day, before the J2 race, Cate and I had the following exchange:

Cate: So, my race skis are in here, and I can just pick them up before my race?
Me: Yup, although I could also bring them out to you at the start if that's easier.
Cate: NO!!!
Cate: I didn't mean that in a bad way, I just really want to make sure I'm on my race skis.

My mistake aside, we raced well, as a team, and it was great having all the people out there cheering for us. The tightest battle of the day was in the J2 girls' race, where Cate and Heidi Halvorson finished within 2 seconds of each other, unfortunately this time Heidi was on top. Zoe was close behind, within 25 seconds of Brook Mooney, and it was super exciting to be standing on the only real hill of the course cheering these girls on. Hamish and Ian also raced really well, looking quite sharp and snappy coming up the hill. Unfortunately I didn't get out to see any of the older kids race, but I was quite proud of them all - it was a big field, and a deep one, and I think we did a great job! Thanks all, for making the drive, and I can't wait for the next Eastern Cup!

Alex