JNs Photos

A few photos from classic sprint day from Amie Smith.  Sure looks nice out there!

CSU Parent Cheering Squad on Location

Corey on the Top Step of the Podium!

A Rather Good Day at JNs!

What a start to the week for CSU at Junior Nationals!!  Today was the classic sprint and the New England Team dominated the podium with 5 of six possible wins and CSU dominated the NE podiums with 3 wins!  Eli Hoenig started it off right with a win in the J1 sprint, followed by Julia Kern in 1st and Zoe Snow in 4th in the J2 girls.  Then to cap the day off, Corey Stock took the win in the J1 women!  Max LaChance finished 20th in J2s while both Cate Brams and Olivia Meyerson came in fourth in their respective quarter final heats.

Congratulations to all!

Next race is on Wednesday.

Waterville Ski

A great day at Waterville Valley!  2+ hours of classic, mostly at the North End, then lunch and 1 hour of skating on the South End.  The gang from the top of Snow's Mt with Mt. Osceola in the background.   Nice to see Waterville 100% open!

Phoebe, The Fat Man, Ben, Nick, Coach Maddy, Calvin, Rion, Chris, Jacob, Rosie, Katie, Katrin

Update from JNs, day 2

CSU and team New England is settling in to their digs in Soldier Hollow, Utah, for Junior Nationals. Rob is over there as one of the coaches, and sent the following update.

"Day 2 at JNs and somehow the weather has gotten even nicer. We could not find a cloud in the sky or feel a breath of wind. Attached is a photo of Eli and the J1 boys working on tans on top of their van. (Concerned parents: we have purchased a team supply of sunscreen after we saw a few red faces yesterday after our short practice).

Yesterday evening we had the opening ceremonies. Utah pulled out all its aces for the event. We gathered at the foot of the 120 meter jump looking up at the dramatic scene. They had a local jumper fly off the 70 meter jump while we watched and cheered. Then a silver medalist from the Nordic combined team skated in with an American flag, planted it, and lit the Olympic torch by the jump. We sang the national anthem. Billy DeMong, multiple Olympic medalist gave a brief talk about how he made it to the top. Then Dan Simoneau (peer of Bill Koch's) gave a teary speech about the good old days and about how great the current US women are skiing. And they did this all in a half hour which partially made up for standing out in the snow for the ceremony. Unfortunately, many of the team did not get the message that it would be outdoors and were freezing to death in their little team jackets.

This morning I took a van load of OJ boys over to the venue at 8:15. The snow was still cold and powdery, so Toko Viola stick (remember stick wax?) was all we needed for great kick. I skied the Olympic 5K with Nina Gavriluk, who raced here in 2002 on the Russian team. She can stride up really steep hills with no effort leaving me panting far behind her. She gave me several useful tips about my technique to make up for the punishment. We also skied the spring course several times with the boys and went over how best to approach it. The course is short and not too hard. Good thing at this altitude. The racing will be fast and furious tomorrow.

This afternoon we have team study hall. The message to the kids, was, like, whatever, study if you want. I told the CSU kids that it was mandatory and they are all here working hard (with one notable exception who will remain nameless, suffice it to say his name begins with G and ends with -avin).

The view of the mountains attached is from the back of the hotel!

Can't wait to report on some great ski racing tomorrow.

Opening ceremony.

View of the mountains in the morning.

Junior boys hanging out on the roof of the van.

Motivation

As the winter winds down, with more and more goose poop showing up at the Weston glacier, it's easy to start thinking about springtime and other pursuits than skiing. That would be fine, if we didn't have two more weeks of championship events coming up! Now is an important time to hang tough, mentally, and I have a quote for all y'all:

Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years that they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance is merely the demonstration of their championship character.

--T. Alan Armstrong, author

This is a concept we're all familiar with, as skiers, and these next two weeks - Junior nationals, J2 champs, and EHS - this is the time where we get to reap the benefits of all our hard work. Revel in your fitness!

The Bogburn Happens!

Thanks in part to one of the better (and only?) timed snowstorms and to Bob Haydock's hard work, the Bogburn race that had been postponed from early January was held.  Friday night about 4-5 inches of lovely new snow fell on Bob's hilltop ski course carved mostly with his own hands.  While the race was small in comparison to usual, all who showed up were impressed by the fantastic skiing.  Waxing was a bit weird as the snow that fell had been wet, with sleet mixed in, and was glazing in places in the intermittent sun.  The wind, which howled all day, kept the temps right about 28-30 all day and when you got into the forest it was pretty warm skiing.  The day started with the BKSL races as the kids ventured out on 3 different courses.  Then came the women on the 7km loop. 

The men then took off on their 2 lap, 13 km race.  While I was tired from a week at CSU Jr ski camp at Bretton Woods, I decided I had to toe the line given the fabulous conditions on one of my favorite ski courses.  I went with an interesting wax job that worked beautifully in the lightly glazing snow which stayed mostly powdery in the shade without being slow or icing up.  I used soft skies with one layer of old Star Silver, a magic wax back in the day, covered with a couple layers of Toko Red topped with Toko Blue to speed things up.  I had great kick which was needed since I was somewhat drained and had pretty fast skis.  Taking off, I managed to catch a few masters while getting passed by younger guys.  I fell once on the famed Chicane 180 degree turn just because I was tired, but got up and vowed to master it on lap two.  As I finished out the loop I started feeling better and better, a nice sign for lap two!

Coming around for the lap I was so focused on the Chicane that I didn't even notice that the Chicane loop was not part of the second lap and that we were to skip that part of the course and take the BKSL cutoff instead.  I got an inkling of that as I came down the hill and at the junction of the two trails, skier 44 come in from the side (I was number 27).  Wow, I thought, that kid has cut the course, I'll have to report that.  But in the back of my mind I suspected he was right and I was wrong.  When we caught #36 I knew I'd screwed up.  Doh!  I mean really, I've skied every Bogburn that's been held, know all the old trails, change the arrows for the BKSL races and know every bump on those trails and I messed up.  Duh! I passed a couple of masters for the second time and wearily dragged myself up the last couple hills to the finish.  While I'd skied about 1 km farther on one of the hardest hills of the course and lost several places (maybe 4+ minutes??) I had had a good time on the famed Bogburn course in beautiful fresh powder snow.  Of course, I felt like a fool too!  However, maybe I got the best deal because I'd gotten a chance to ski longer in great conditions and yes, I did get around the Chicane on lap two without falling!  A short warmdown with Doug Armstrong and I was cooked pretty well for the day.   Other CSUers, including Andy Milne, John Sakalowski, Jody Newton and Larry and Sarah Mae Berman were a whole lot smarter than me and raced well and I think all winning their respective age groups.  Andy - 46:58, John - 48:20, Jamie - 54:40, Larry - 1:19:30.  Jody - 34:37, Sara Mae - 57:13.

Results are HERE

Here are a few BKSL photos I took to see what you all missed:



Race Director and trail designer Bob Haydock



Wow, it looks like winter should look!

Ford Sayre BKSL kids everywhere! And, they really ski well!

CSU at States!

CSU was looking good and sking hard at the Massachusetts State Championships today, held at Prospect Mt, Vt.  CSU took the top two spots on both the boys and girls podiums.  On the boys side Greg Holdman skied his way to the top spot, followed 3 seconds later by Calvin Wight.  In fourth came Rion O'Grady.  Rounding out the top ten were Nick Reitman in 9th and Lewis Nottonson in 10th. Jordan Rickmond was 13th.  On the girls side Olivia Cannon took the top spot with Julia Schiantarelli in 2nd, Catherine Benson in 6th, Meg Yoder tied for 7th with Laura Nolan of Mt. Greylock, Sonya Jampel 10th, Clara Cousins 11th and Blake McCartney in 12th.

As for team scores, Mt. Greylock packed all their scoring skiers together near the top and took both the boys and girls crowns.  In what must be considered a big surprise, Wayland was 2nd in the girls race, coming in 1 point ahead of Acton-Boxborough.  For the boys, Concord-Carlisle was second and Lincoln-Sudbury 3rd.

Well done CSU!

Full results can be seen HERE

Chris Cannon provided a couple of podium shots:

Olivia, Julia and Brenna (from Mohawk)

Greg and Calvin

And one more from Lisa Lynch of all the girls in the top 10:


Olivia, Julia, Brenna, Mackenzie, Josie, Catherine, Meg, Laura, Phoebe and Sonya