Bill Koch Festival

The Bill Koch Festival was at Weston this year, and there were a lot of CSU skiers helping out. Countless hours were spent by the volunteers to pull off a fabulous weekend of skiing, racing, sledding, snowball fights, ski orienteering, tandem skiing, face painting, and parades. The weather helped, by snowing on Saturday night to give everything a wintry look, and then warming up nicely with the sun on Sunday.

Below are an assortments of my photos from the day. Thanks for helping, everyone!

Alex applying the magic touch

Ben and Alex created a massive snowman. It didn't take long for the EMBK 5th/6th grade boys to level that thing.

Course marshals take themselves seriously

Ben with the klister application

Who gave these guys radios?

Devin waxing skis

I think I like the monkey suit better without the radio and bib. 

Future generations!

Hannah laying down a smooth klister job

Heiner's tutu was spectacular

Jackson inspecting finished work

Is your wax working? If not, put it to work, darnit!

Supposedly Lucas and Ben were going to also dress as kick wax, but I heard Linden used up all the arts and crafts supplies. 

"I think the whole thing is the kick zone"

Bretton Woods Marathon or We Should Have Raced on Friday

Bretton Woods received a good dumping of snow last week, picking up over a foot of beautiful new snow since Sarah and I skied up there last weekend.  We arrived in time to get in an hour of skiing finishing up as the sun was setting in the nicest conditions of the year at about 20F with bomber kick, snow in the trees and no wind.  I tested some wax combos, but knowing the temps would warm up all morning before the race it was probably going to be useless information.  

Sarah testing the start tracks 

Sarah and I headed for Highland lodge and dinner with Jim Ellis and through the evening the rest of the CSU entourage arrived with Tom Smith barely making it in time for dinner, Robert Faltus missing dinner and Clinton Kreuger missing lights out in our shared quarters.  A respectable nights sleep and it was time for an early breakfast and getting ready.  4” of light new snow had fallen and it was still in the 20s.  We were  all hoping it stayed colder than the forecast.  

Willey's Way

Some races are just meant to test you physically and mentally.  This would be one of them.  The temps warmed all morning to 28 when we arrived.  With much wax testing there were numerous discussions with the rest of the CSU contingent including John Sakolowsky, Andy Milne, Jody Newton, Gray Holmes, Jim Ellis, Christine Pasterczyk, Michael Melnikov and of course Larry and Sara Mae Berman.  My wax bench got lots of use!  Lots of waxes were working but we all strategized about future conditions.  Fortunately, the race was allowing ski switching so all of us with waxless skis doing the full marathon placed them next to the lap track.  I settled on some Rode T-Line covered with Ski Go purple.  Swix 45 and 55 were good, Toko Red covering some yellow was good too.  The snow wasn’t transforming…….yet.  

Start Line (Joe Miller photo)

Sarah finishing (Joe Miller photo)

With the race scheduled in Feb. this year that ruled out college kids and so it was a smaller affair.  The gun went off and I had perhaps the most relaxed mass start race of my life after lining up on the front row in the wide start area.  We settled in on the parade lap around the golf course and off into the woods.  I was moving pretty well but getting slowly gapped in front and getting a gap on those behind.  1km in and it was getting lonely!  Up onto B&M and the turn onto Tunnel and I could still see Andy but by Willey’s Way I was alone on the twists and turns.  Delightful skiing though, great kick and I settled down for the long haul, alone.  The snow was soft so the fast corners were a bit more challenging than they should have been and then the long gradual haul up Sebosis and Porcupine to the top of the course.  Kick was still solid as I went by the yurt and the feed and made the turn toward Clinton, kicking and gliding confidently and made the turn onto Clinton and, WTF, no kick!  And I mean NO KICK.  In 5 feet, one corner, gone, zilch, nada, vamoosed, disappeared.  My skis were now as slick as ice.  Well, this was sort of expected but not that fast!  Some light rain hit my face and I suddenly felt a surprisingly warm breeze.  Temperature inversion!  The famed BW temperature gradient in reverse.  The only saving grace was that everyone was in the same boat, so getting on with it, instead of focusing on a smooth stride it was focusing on double poling and herringbone.  It’s remarkably hard to herringbone with no kick whatsoever!  And now with the wet snow the skis were sloowwww.  Slow skis and no kick, the combo from hell. (I’ve had dreams about that). Skis were trying to slide on the herringbone, which is of course a no-no.  Snow was soft.  It was getting a bit tiring.  I got passed by a younger guy with a UNH uni on and tried to hang with him.  We turned onto Crawford Hollow and I’d forgotten how many hills we had to climb to get out of there.  The Hollow of Death!  Stay smooth, don’t spazz, save your arms.  I started to think about switching skis to my zeros.  Would it be worth it?  I knew they would not be too great on the first climb, but way better on the upper parts of the course.  They might be faster too.  My wax was starting to really drag in the wet snow and I almost fell down getting out of the glazed tracks on Beech Hill.  Through Dark Forest and the last feed just before the herringbone by the road and as suddenly as it was gone it was back!  Kick! I ran more confidently up the hill and then I was lapping through the two Stowe guys who’d gapped me were changing skis and I made the decision to switch.  Making a smooth transition I headed off, one Stowe guy still messing with klister or something and one ahead who hopped in the track and promptly face-planted.  Must be klister.  My skis were SO much faster I didn’t care that much that I’d struggle a bit with kick.  I was humming along as we headed into the woods for the first climb.  I was banking on the transition zone having moved down in elevation and with every stride uphill my kick was improving.  Stowe guy was gapping me.  Up on Willey’s Way and I was suddenly moving much faster on the downhills.  The corners were now all bermed up and tricky.  At the bottom of the big downhill I got into the now heavier soft snow and had a magnificent wipe-out.  My poles were intact, I recovered my glasses and finished up the downhill.  I lost a couple places on Sebosis to the klister boys and another guy, but at the turn onto Clinton it was clear my skis were much faster and I regained one spot.  I was back to kicking and gliding.  Save the arms, use the legs.  Back to the Hollow of Death and this time I could jog the herringbones and slowly I moved up on the remaining Stowe guy.  I focussed on him and finally was able to stride on by in the biathlon range as he was clearly done.  My triceps almost seized on the last hill and the finish appeared just in time.  Whew! My shoulders, lats, triceps and everything else above the waist were seizing up, so happy to be done.  

This was one of those tests you hope not to have to take, but I’d survived it.  In fact, in kind of a sick way, I’d enjoyed it.  CSU had passed the test with flying colors, garnering many age group podiums.  John was tops for CSU in 4th place, behind former CSU Jr. Chris Burnham who crushed the field with his win.  Andy was 6th, myself in 10th.  Robert hung in a few minutes after me in 18th and ironman Tom Smith, with no skis to switch to, soldiered through on one pair in 20th with Michael following Tom in in 21st.  Christine too soldiered on with one pair of skis proving just how tough she is, finishing 31st and Roger Wilson was 34th  Those who skied the half were, I think, pleased with their wise choice.  Sarah skied her first half marathon finishing first in her age group.  Jim came in 16th, Gray 22nd, Clinton 26th and Jody was 2nd in her age group finishing in 30th overall.  Larry and Sara Mae nailed down the M11 and F11 age groups to round out the large CSU contingent.

Results can be found HERE.

Craftsbury 2018

John Sakalowsky's excellent Craftsbury story can be found HERE

Lisa and I arrived at Craftsbury late Friday afternoon in time to go out and get some skiing and wax testing in as the sun was setting on a beautiful, cloudless Vermont day.  I was a little nervous about the conditions after seeing the brilliant, blinding sheen on the snow further south from last week’s rain.  But at Craftsbury there was some fresh powder covering up the sheen and the grooming looked fabulous, like you might be able to go straight hardwax, but knowing better than to go down that road.  I had prepped some test skis at home with klister and tried those out covered with a couple different choices of hard wax and settled on Start Wide Universal klister with one of the Rode T-Line waxes on top.  Good solid kick in the frozen granular.   After skiing I took advantage of the quiet waxroom and applied klister binder and the klister so I wouldn’t have to do that in the morning and headed off to the Albany Village Inn where Kate takes good care of the CSU crowd every year and in my case for the past 15 years!  A good CSU dinner and some pre-race chit chat and then it was time to get some sleep.

The red barn and nice tracks...and my finger

Not a bad view while wax testing

In the morning, too early as always, greeted by a beautiful sunrise, we all headed over.  I was feeling much more relaxed this year about the waxing compared to last year.  Maybe, just maybe, I should have been more nervous about it.  However, on arrival I went out on my test skis and my kick was still solid even though some tracks went down to the ice underneath.  I put on my layers of hard wax over the klister, tested several times in different places and was feeling satisfied.  

Sunrise at the Albany Village Inn - Time to ski!

For once in my life I had a good start and going around Murphy’s Field I was right where I wanted to be, just a bit behind Bob Burnham, Rick Powell, Robert Faltus, etc.  My skis felt good and fast and I had no problem with the first uphills.  This allowed me to get relaxed and work my way in to the race.  I was in it for the long haul of 3 laps so chasing hard at the beginning made little sense, especially with many only going 2 laps.  Plenty of time for that later.  Ollie Buress, race director (and former CSU Jr. and Harvard and Craftsbury Green racer) was kind to us and cut out the two big hills at the start of the race loop for which I was grateful and before long we were sliding around the giant slalom turns of Elinor’s Hill and headed up Sam’s.  I slipped a bit on Sam’s and my kick was not as solid as it should be in places and I was getting passed by a few people.  Hmmmm, was this to be a repeat of the last 2 years?  The tracks were glazing up in places and that is where I was struggling and consequently using my arms more than I’d like.  I had a bad feeling…..Slip sliding awayyyyy.  But the top of the hill came, with a good feed and onto the new loop, chasing and eventually passing Jim Stock.  I recovered somewhat here and had a blast on the curvy, twisty downhills in the sugar snow.  Really fun!  Jim Stock blew by me on the inside of one corner and I realized I needed to ski a bit more aggressively on the dowhills where my skis were really fast.  Through the feed at the end of the loop I tried one of the gummy things and 200 yards later - patooooee -had to spit it out - it had the consistency of a lacrosse ball!  The rest of lap one was uneventful and I recovered pretty well  and going through the center, grabbed fluids and a GU to fuel up, and on to lap two.  Lap 2 started well, trading places with some guy who was skiing very nicely.  I finally passed him for good, or so I thought, as we came to Elinor’s Hill, on which I was much smoother this time down, and out onto Sam’s for the long climb.  I didn’t go far before I realized I really was struggling to get good kick on the glazy sections and the guy I  thought I’d dropped returned the favor and dropped me quite emphatically, having much better kick.  Did I underwax my klister skis again or just blow the call?  Regardless, I now had to break the course down into parts and focus on one at a time.  The debates in my head started - should I grab the emergency wax from my coat when I lap through and lose some time or just go for it on lap 3?  On an icy corner coming out of the new section I slid across into the berm and fell on my butt.  “Well, that was graceful” said a woman who had practically skied into the woods.  Shortly after I caught up to Sue LaChance and exchanged greetings as we blew through the feed.  On with the chase, again I recovered pretty well on the long series of downhills.  Wait, who was I chasing?  No one, apparently.  It was getting kind of lonely out there.   On the climb back to the center I lapped Larry Berman and caught up to Jody Newton as we cheered each other on.I was now torching my arms up the hills and the decision was made - grab my kick wax from my strategically placed jacket and hastily apply some kick at the bottom of Sam’s.  I could get through the first part of lap 3 easily enough and I’d probably lose it again on Elinor’s hill if I waxed up before.  I futzed around getting the wax and stuffing it down my pants and off I went at ever-diminishing speed.  2 lappers were gone from the course and now I really was alone.  At the bottom of Sam’s a hasty wax job after having trouble fishing the wax out of my pants, it having migrated a bit further south than planned, and I was on my way.  OMG, solid kick!  What a difference!  I kind of enjoyed my 3rd trip up the hill as a result!  Somewhere Joe Holland skied by me on the new loop and I had the pleasure of chasing Joe down the twisty downhills, his cornering virtuosity on display and then he was gone and I schlepped my way to the finish line.  Not a horrible race, certainly not a great race, but I was way behind where I was planning to be.  My GPS indicated that I lost a total of about 2.5 min. with my rewax process, but it was worth it and I was happy I hadn’t bonked.  A bit more kick would have been nice, but it was good skiing, a nice course and enough snow.  

Lots of CSUers as usual at the race with lots of good results. Results are available HERE

World Masters

Meanwhile, at World Masters being held at Theodore Wirth in Minneapolis, Alex has claimed a couple firsts, Rob a 10th and a 3rd and Kathy a couple firsts in their age groups.  Hopefully they will report later.

Alex looking pretty happy, but then she just won! (Fasterskier photo)

Handsome and Beautiful CSU Skiers Take on the White Mt. Classic

For the second week NE suffered a big warmup which ate up snow, but at least there was a brief snowfall early in the week which gave Jackson a few inches to work with.  They maintained plenty of snow cover so the big question became how warm would it get on race day and when and what klister would be needed.  Based on my looking at the weather about 100 times during the week I waxed up skis at home before heading to Jackson. 

Dawn over good tracks

The morning dawned at about 22F.  I rushed out with the test skis and quickly decided that Start Wide Universal covered with Rode T Line would work well.  My major concern each year is getting up Yodel without blowing a gasket early in the race.  The course was back to a longer course by adding in loops in the fields before we headed up the race loop as well as adding in the Henry loop, so the course was reportedly 26km, much better than last year’s 18 km. 

Just before the race started with temperature shot up, I removed my hat and the winds started gusting.  Weird weather!  The start went smoothly as we looped the golf course as I followed Robert Faltus around just a bit behind Bob Burnham who was behind Andy Milne with Frank Feist and John Sakolowski leading out the large CSU contingent.  I was happy to cross the road and start up Yodel with Andy and Bob just a bit in front of me, although they slowly gapped me as we crested the hill.  Behind me, Clinton was going full double pole again, this week on much harder hills.  I will be signing Clinton up for some canoe racing next summer!  Robert was just behind me as we labored up Yodel.  On the left turn heading toward the road crossing I passed Bob who was dusting himself off from an uncharacteristic fall.  Out in the fields, the wind was picking up, rendering the tracks useless and skiing into the wind was like skiing up hill while going the other way was so fast it was like going downhill.  Bob and I even tucked in several places.  Heading up the first section of the Wave was as always a rude awakening and I struggled a bit but once we got back into the woods it was better.  However, with the wind we now had large pine cones littering the track, some branches here and there so it was hop in the track, hop out of the track, try to flip pine cones out of the way with your skis without running over them, etc.  Lots of one-footed skiing, picking one foot up, then the other.  Interesting!  Adding in Henry added some good climbing to the course and some twisty downhills.  Back in the fields the wind gusts were getting ridiculous and it was good to get back in the woods in Alice’s Alley, but back in the fields Bob and I managed to draft off a skiing high school kid and he stayed in front so we kept following.  The wind gusts were so strong we were barely moving going into the wind and were flying going the other way.  Just before heading up the Wave again, someone ahead of us took a big, inexplicable dive.  As I crested the first big hill to head down the dip I figured out why….it was now warm and wet enough that I’d iced up a bit.  No problem kicking it free though.  We left the kid we drafted off of for dead as we headed up the hill but we in turn got totally schooled by Ava Thurston, an 8^th grader skiing for Mansfield Nordic who had smartly drafted us in the fields and then scampered up the hills and dropped us like a stone! She finished 2nd for women.  Lap two of the wave went better than round one with better kick as I chased Bob.  I tried to stay close on the downhills as he gapped me a bit, but once back in the fields was able to slowly catch back up.  Now the winds were probably gusting to 30 or 40mph.  We tucked in a few places going downwind and struggled going upwind.  I nearly got knocked down on the top of the one hill in the fields as I turned the corner.  Ridiculous!  I finally got by Bob as we headed up to the Eagle Mt. House, trying to get a lead before the big downhill on Yodel where I knew Bob would ski faster.  The focus narrowed to the finish line as we crossed the road in muddy slush and down to the first herringbone hill where Bob pulled up. “Here we go!” he said and proceeded to kick my butt up the hill, having taken lessons from    Norway's Johnny Kaebo, effectively putting our race away right there.  I chased but he gained time on the downhill and I didn’t have anywhere near enough time on the golf course to catch him.  Further up, John Sako led the big CSU contingent, coming in 13^th with Frank Feist 15^th, Jimmy Burnham 19^th, Ari Ofsevit 24th and Andy Milne 31st.  On the women’s side Ann Burnham was first CSUer and winner of her age group, followed by Christine Pasterczyk, Amie Smith, Lisa Doucett, Sarah Gates (1st F4), Jody Newton and Sara Mae.

Jody, Christine, Amie, Ann, Sarah and Lisa take home the club championship!  Absent - Sara Mae

This race serves as the one day club championship and as usual the scoring was going to be close between CSU and NWVT.  In the men’s race it came down to the first tie-breaker and NWVT took top honors.  I noticed they’ve locked down the younger age groups and we seem to have locked down the older ones.  Need to round up some younger skiers!  Also, they stole Chris Burnham from us (well, Chris does now live and work up in NWVT territory).   On the women’s side CSU pulled out its secret weapon, founder Sara Mae Berman, who made the difference after the scoring came down to 2 tie breakers to give CSU the top spot!  Well done!

It was another beautiful day to race, even if the weather was a bit extreme, the course was good and lots of CSUers made the trip to enjoy the racing and comraderie.

Full results are HERE

Here are some really nice photos from the Jackson Facebook page.  Thanks Jackson!

Robert

Jamie and Bob

John

Ann

Sara Mae

Amie

CSU going downwind (to the right) and upwind (to the left)

Tom

Andy

Jamie, Bob and Steve

Michael

Lisa

Frank and Jim

Geschmossel 2018

After a week of warmup and heavy rains that destroyed the snow in the Boston area it appeared that Bretton Woods had survived with sufficient cover to hold their race.  Lisa and I headed up on Sunday in time to get in a ski to check things out.  BW had already modified the planned course due to the icy conditions and lost cover.  Heading across the golf course in the cold and wind, which had returned, we skied on a sheet of boilerplate and heading up B&M there was ½ inch of new snow over, you got it, boilerplate and nice big ice patches.  It was pretty grim, but the coverage was at least pretty good.  I started down Abenaki Way and turned around due to the ice.  Hopefully BW would be able to pull off a grooming miracle for the second year in a row.

Monday dawned at 2F, but sunny and no wind.  It was going to be a beautiful day, although it was a bit weird that the top of Mt. Washington was naked rock and little snow.  Heading over from Highland Lodge nice and early I started working on the skis, using klister binder and blue klister covered with blue stick.  It was warming up nicely and tested the skis, happy to find that indeed, BW had groomed things up very nicely, covering up the ice, grinding up ice and setting a couple tracks, shallow in places, but totally skiable.  Well done!  It was going to be fast!

CSU arrived in force along with Northwest Vt, Ford Sayer and other New England clubs.  Toeing the starting line for CSU were John Sakolowski, Rob Bradlee, Kathy Maddock, Robert Faltus, Clinton Kreiger, Tom Smith, Lisa Doucett, Sarah Doucett, Jody Newton, Gray Holmes, Steve Moreau and Roger Wilson.  (Hope I didn’t miss anyone.)  The start went well with few entanglements and off we went!  I started a bit too far back and a gap was opening ahead of a couple people in my track, so I hopped out of the track to the outside and DP’d by several people before settling into the gap comfortably behind Robert and Clinton on his first foray into double poling the entire race.  Turns out that wasn’t a bad idea as it was very fast and there was very little striding but Clinton found how tiring it can be!  I strided a bit just to get the legs moving and stay a bit warmer, but it was mostly DP and kick DP all the way up.  I was moving pretty well, chasing some high school kids and was joined by Ian Blair from Bethel, trading places as we chased the kids. Near the top, in the one place where striding was the way to go it was like I’d forgotten how and flailed about a bit, then back to DP toward the downhills on Sebosis.  Up ahead John was having a good race in the top group with Kathy and Rob a bit further back while close behind were Robert and Clinton. The ride down Sebosis was interesting with some icy spots, a bump with dirt after which I spazzed and fell down on a flatter stretch. Stupid!  The fast ride down continued on Dark Forest to the last hill by the road where I’d almost caught up to the kids and 2 guys who’d passed me when I fell.  My skis were rocking!  The finish was a dead flat km to the finish and my skis were so fast I caught up to everybody, the last one a high schooler and I just knew he’d be able to shoot his foot at the line and I would have probably torn my hamstring if I’d tried, so got nipped at the line.  I’d had a blast in my first non-Weston race of the year.  CSU had a great day and a good showing with John in 10^th, Rob in 18^th, Kathy 21^st, Steve 26^th, Jamie 31^st, Robert 37^th, Clinton 39^th, Tom 52^nd, Gray 60^th, Sarah 62^nd in her first non-Weston race since high school, Roger 70^th, Jody 80^th and Lisa 85^th.  Lots of age group first places with Sarah, Kathy and John all first! 

A full lap of warm down with NWVT then commenced for many of us as our big pack slowly yakked our way around the course again.  An excellent day of racing!  Many thanks to Bretton Woods for pulling off a race in marginal conditions.

Full results can be found at:

http://brettonwoods.com/Winter_Sports/Nordic/~/media/CB1776C8428C4D29945B97272CB4B2BD.ashx

CSU takes on the Gunstock Winter Thaw

A good crew of CSU juniors and masters showed up to the Gunstock Winter Thaw race this Sunday. The name was meaningless, because it was -3F when we arrived, and warmed up to about zero for race time and well into the double digits after the race. Conditions were beautiful, though there was definitely some debris on the trails from the recent storm.

For the juniors, we had a big crew. Dante, Lucas, Ben, Linden, Flora, Jordan, Eva, Francesca, Madeline, Graham, Henry, Alex, and Devon were all racing. For some, this was the longest race they'd ever done - kudos! Alex Burt had a good day, getting to stand on the overall podium despite finishing fifth (I like that math). I think everyone enjoyed the experience, at least in the "type 2 fun" sort of way.

For the masters, we had a bunch of age group winners: Bob Burnham, Frank Feist, John Sakalowsky all won their age classes. In the M5 category, we swept the top four spots, and that includes Andy Milne who brought his classic skis to a skate race. Cameron Cogburn and Ari Ofsevit took second and third in M1, and we had good representation across all the age groups - good training for the White Mountain Classic coming up!

We had fewer women in the race, but took a DXC/CSU sweep of the overall podium, with Kathy Maddock winning the race, Alex Jospe in second, and Lily Bates in third. Chris Pasterczyk took second in the M5 category, and Cat Johnstone missed her start with equipment problems, but still managed 5th in the category!

Women's results: http://www.gunstocknordic.com/attachments/GNA-Zak-Cup-2018-Womens.pdf

Men's results: http://www.gunstocknordic.com/attachments/GNA-Zak-Cup-2018-Mens.pdf

Andy striding the hill

Women's podium

Beautiful day!

Men's podium

Dante cruising