MSA Monday

This morning the sun came out at MSA in brilliant fashion and I joined the Red Group on a delightful classic ski on 38 for a warmup followed by Lac St. Hilaire to 22 and some super fun downhills.  Not a bad way to spend a morning.  Every group skied one of the race trails with several doing 24 and 22.  The snow was PERFECT and the grooming even better so hopping in those tracks for the bobsled rides was way too much fun.  After all that I finally felt lively enough to ski back to the condos.  Does skiing get any better than this?  I seriously doubt it!  Good morning........

Trail 38

Trail 22

MSA Time Trial Results

This year's edition of the annual MSA continuous pursuit time was nice and cold....I mean really cold.  It was about -10C, the wind came up, the snow started to fall and people ran for their jackets, vests, balaclavas, buffs and whatever else would keep them warm.  This year we also had Justin Freeman join us for the freeze fest and of course, as expected, he prevailed.  Many thanks to Hank Yoder for volunteering to organize the race and round up volunteers!  Thanks! 

Place Name Classic Split Total Time

1 Justin 13:06:00 26:42

2 Gavin 13:19:00     27:27:00

3 Lewis 14:09:00     27:55:00

4 Chris B. 14:00:00 28:25:00

5 Jacob M. 14:11:00 28:33:00

6 Joey   14:46:00 28:36:00

7 Will R. 14:57:00 29:48:00

8 Leah  15:27:00 30:26:00

9 Rob    15:49:00 31:12:00

10 Cate B. 15:26:00 31:36:00

11 Chris K. 15:31:00 31:54:00

12 Alex J. 16:27:00 32:11:00

13 Zoe    16:25:00 32:15:00

14 Adam (Ford Sayre) 16:44:00 32:35:00

15 Kathie M. 16:28:00 32:38:00

16 Rebecca 15:41:00 33:05:00

17 Bob    16:38:00 33:08:00

18 Jacob J. 16:52:00 33:17:00

19 Hadley 16:32:00 33:26:00

20 Eli B. 16:11:00 33:34:00

21 Clara C. 17:10:00 33:54:00

22 Tess S. 17:09:00 34:01:00

23 Rosmary 16:53:00 34:05:00

24 Meggie 17:02:00 34:15:00

25 Tyler  17:12:00 34:16:00

26 Jordan 16:41:00 34:18:00

27 Sonya 16:59:00 34:19:00

28 Charlotte 16:54:00 34:21:00

29 Jamie 18:25:00 35:18:00

30 Sydney 17:15:00 35:21:00

31 Katrin 19:04:00 36:09:00

32 Jeanelle 19:06:00 37:01:00

33 Liza   19:27:00 38:33:00

34 Carina 19:08:00 39:07:00

35 Allie   19:43:00 39:11:00

36 Gabby 20:14:00 39:14:00

37 Phoebe 20:15:00 39:34:00

38 Hannah 19:27:00 40:21:00

39 Madelin 20:15:00 40:22:00

40 Claire 20:14:00 41:38:00

41 Lilly 20:16:00 41:52:00

42 Valentina 21:38:00 43:01:00

43 Lydia 22:16:00 44:43:00

44 Julia H.     22:54:00 45:39:00

James 16:46:00

Oliver 16:47:00

Eric 16:48:00

Izzy 19:04:00

Haley 21:19:00

Lucy  30:21:00

Classic on Trail 24

This morning I skied with the Green Group for a classic OD workout so we headed up Lac St. Hilaire to get on the 2nd part of Trail 24.  That skips a lot of climbing, but certainly not all of it and so there was a long line chugging uphill for a long time.  However, once you get to the Refuge the real fun begins with some lonnngggggg, fast downhills that turn your sweat to icicles.  Everyone had a great time screaming (sometimes literally) down the hills back to the stadium.  I hit 35.3 mph on one of them according to my GPS, so clearly we were humming along in the perfect powder snow conditions, the first classic skiers in the tracks for the day.  It was niceeeeee!  Then the obligatory race back to the Chalet St. Julien, but the coach said go only when it was to his advantage.  Sweet victory.  Sydney gets to say go this afternoon.  A few team photos:

Trail 24, on the backside of the mountain

Trail disappearing down the first long downhill

Sydney had a problem staying on her feet

MSA - 1st Morning

What a way to start the week here at MSA....a nice classic headlamp ski along the river last night and this morning blue sky, nice temps, immaculate grooming, great snow and an enthusiastic bunch of skiers!  CSU has something like 37 skiers here plus various alumni and family skiing with us and helping out including Calvin and Carina.  Everyone survived the OD skate session this morning in fine style and this afternoon we'll get in some classic technique work. 

Gold Group - Lily, Izzy, Janelle, Alie, Haley, Hannah, Claire

Bowing down to the gods of good skiing

Wax Team

Here is part of the team that makes it all happen at races, prepping your skis to perfection, cheerfully and on time! Does it get any better than that?  I think not.......

Rain, Ice, Puddles and Some Pretty Darned Good Racing

Wow, what a weekend of good old NE weather!  Rain, puddles, ice, trees falling in the woods with a sound like gunshots going off, rain, puddles....oh wait, I'm being redundant.  The racing season finally opened this weekend with races at Craftsbury, but unfortunately with the ice storm this morning today's race was cancelled, but that was the right thing to do.  Driving down the dirt road out of Craftsbury required some bobbing and weaving around downed limbs, branches bent low over the road with a load of ice and a slick surface.  With all that weather at Craftsbury I was amazed that there was still pretty good snow cover south of the Notch.

It was great to finally see everyone out there racing instead of doing intervals up Annursnac Hill.  The morning wasn't bad, but it was warm.  The manmade loop at Craftsbury was nicely groomed for the sprint race yesterday and fast.  CSU's crack wax team banged out 34 pair of skis, including several CSU alumni such as Rion O'Grady, Eli and Isaac Hoenig, and Olivia Cannon, and those skis were FAST!  Several skiers commented that they were almost too fast and they couldn't keep up with them.  We put 34 skiers on the course in the qualification round and 12 moved on to the rounds.  The wax team fired up again to re-prep those skis with qualifiers including Cate, Zoe, Alex and Rebecca in the women's race, Clara and Hadley in the U20 race, Eli and Chris in the men's race, Rion in the U20 race, Leah and Janelle in the J2 (U16) race and Joey in the J2 (U16) boys race.  All the rounds were fun races to watch with Zoe and Cate advancing to the A final and finishing in 4th and 5th respecively and Rebecca coming oh so close to advancing with a huge final charge up the last hill and moving from 5th to 3rd in her heat.  Eli also put in a big charge but it was a little too late to advance.  Leah skied strongly to take the J2 race in the pouring rain while Janelle finished 12th.  Joey, had a very strong finish in his final moving from 5th to 2nd in the B final.  Hadley skied strongly to finish 11th and Clara had a banner day skiing hard to grab 4th.  Great racing by everyone.  Several skiers who didn't advance still improved a lot from last year.

It was a fun weekend, even though it was cut short.  MSA next!  1 Jamie photo, several Amie photos:

Joey in the qualifier

With no race today, vast quantities of bacon being consumed

Coated trees

You can't take the wax team anywhere!

Skiing!

With new and man-made snow at Weston we are finally off the rollerskis and on snow!  It was getting too cold for rollerskiing anyway.  Time for everyone to hone those waxing skills too, as seen below at Weston yesterday.  Hmmmm, looks like a lot of skiers standing around looking at the wax bench and no one actually waxing!

Prizes!

Two out of our three coaches who raced on Sunday managed to show up for awards (Alex was out skiing somewhere of course) at Craftsbury's Opener last weekend.  That's good lookin bread!

Team Craftsbury

David Homa caught the Craftsbury gang standing still for a moment.

More Craftsbury

More good skiing at Craftsbury on Sat and Sun and today 3 coaches hopped in the race.  Rob and of course Alex, and Amie!!  They all did well, with Alex in 4th, Amie in 26th in the women's race and Rob in 30th in the men's race.  CSU alums did well, with Chris Stock 4th, Rion O'Grady 5th, Ian Meyer 21st and our friends from Canada who come to CSU ski camp Gabrielle 11th and Delphine finished 15th. They all gave us a good reason to get out and get our cheering in shape for the coming season.  The man-made loop was really nice today and fast and the race loop and Ruthie's Run were also nice early season skiing.

Here are a couple more photos from Friday: