Oh, Look What I Found

I was just looking through my iPhoto and noticed the album from the GPN concert I went to right before New Years. Here's my favorite vid from the evening.

"2:22" from their first album, Nothing But the Water.

Amazing.

Porcupine Excitement

There was a new post from Rizzle on the team blog about our nature sighting during skiing today. I loved it so much I'm putting it here for your viewing pleasure.

"As we skied at Sleepy Hallow this fine afternoon, we happened upon a most marvelous prickly creature. (drumroll please!) It was a PORCUPINE! He was just sitting up in a tree chillin' like a villain and munching on some nom nom, which, for him was some pine bark. He would crawl back and forth on the branch eating. He was quickly named Yeaman by Kat, *edit: it's actually Herman. When Rizzle asked K-Beatz if she named him Herman K-B said "yeah, man." and then Riz became confused.* (all I could come up with is Porky, which, is really unoriginal. I did learn later though from the outdoor hero (my mother) that baby porcupines are called Porcupettes and I think that'd be a pretty cool name too!) Sadly, being the super intense skiers that we are, we couldn't watch him forever which I totally would have done, and skied back down the trail to work on some skating technique. We skied back up and during our talk it over time, the porcupine decided that it wanted to switch branches, and in the process of trying to move promptly fell out of the tree. It was hilarious! He was fine, shook off his quills and went about his business of eating bark. He was awesome. But he does not replace our desire for a pet Hedgehog.

On a skiing note, sleepy was awesome, great snow, great trails! We'll be doing some sort of race there tomorrow, WOOT WOOT for 6K skate races!!! Should be a fun time! Unfortunately now I must continue my copious amounts of homework, (boo!) Until next time world, Rizzle out! (Larissa for those of you who are unaware of my gangsta name....)"

Love that Rizzle. Aaaand back to Chelsea Lately.

Colby Carnival

It's currently -1 degree outside, which is a big step up from the -10 that it was when I first walked to class this morning. While walking across campus is literally painful, I'm pretty thankful that the deep freeze didn't quite set in until yesterday.

Originally it was supposed to be in the negatives this past weekend while the Big Purple was in Maine with the rest of the EISA racing the Colby carnival. We headed to Augusta, ME fairly early on Thursday to ski the course before checking into the hotel. Originally we were supposed to be skiing laps of a 5k course. The first section of it seemed fast and fun with a lot of tight turns and a couple of quick uphills before the long gradual one toward the end. We then worked into the next section and went up up up. When we got to the top we were really surprised to find that we had actually made it to the top of a bobsled course. That's how we ended up describing it anyway. Check out Adam's blog for a picture. I promise that it's ridiculous.

As it turns out a couple of coaches felt that the course was a little too sketchy, especially after a UNH skier broke his finger skiing it earlier that day. The course was changed to a 3.3k loop and the races from 15 to 10k classic for women and 20 to 15k classic for men.

The snow started coming down before we woke up on Friday, but it didn't let up until that evening. It made for some VERY powdery conditions. The tracks were only existent due to the number of people on the course, but once you were tracked you had to fend for yourself in inches upon inches of powder until the skier had gone by.

Game face.

Rizzle

I started 25 minutes after the start and right off the bat I was really not having a good race. While I'm really confident in my classic skiing right now, it's actually my stride that I'm liking. This course had maybe two hills you could stride straight up. There were plenty more that involved lots of herring bone through lots of powder. No good. Long story short, I was less than pleased with my race. These things happen.

Bear skiing to a solid 37th

Trudging through it...

Saturday was a much nicer day. The set up was a three person relay with 2 loops of the 3.3k course each. Luckily the girls went first, so it was fun to run around and cheer for the guys. We actually only have one person on our men's team, which makes for boring cheering, but after 6 1/2 years of skiing I've gotten to know a good number of people, so it was a little more exciting.


Our relay went well. The twists and turns were really fun to ski with all of the powder packed down. And relays are always fun to race. Plus, our finish was the best the SMC women's team has had since 1999. We've got this weekend off from carnival racing, but have a time trial against UVM and Midd on Saturday. It's going to be a hard week, but hopefully it'll really pay off.

me on the last leg

Gabby - leg 1 of our relay

Bear bookin it up the last hill.

Big Purple ladies in all our glory:
Rizzle, K-Beatz, Hammah, Chief Balla
Clearly.

SLU Carnival

So it's a little late to actually write this post...we leave tomorrow for the Colby carnival. However, since we haven't left VT for Augusta, ME yet I'm going to go ahead and pretend it's ok.

The week leading up to the carnival was pretty crazy. The life of having nothing to do everyday but ski wasn't all too bad. (check out the team blog for more posts on the week) While everywhere we went had plenty of snow, originally Placid was looking a little iffy, so there were some changes made in the original plan. The classic race on Friday ended up being a 6k on a course just below the jumps. This course was actually three loops of a 2k course. This consisted of a winding section in the stadium, which led into about a k of uphill and then a long downhill back into the stadium.

The night before the race I went over the tiny loop over and over in my head. I knew that I could either have a solid race or I would max out too fast and end up crawling up the last sections of the hill. I went into the race with the plan to ski smooth and easy up the first long hill and then book it up the next two sections before the downhill.

This plan ended up working out pretty well. I was pretty happy with my results, though I'm always hoping to move up. I feel really solid in my classic skiing right now and am really looking forward to the classic races this season.

The skate race wasn't so successful. I came out of it feeling really good about my race, but looking at the results I was pretty disappointed. Before the results I felt like I had skied hard through every section and raced smart. After looking at them I began to look back on the couple of places where I relaxed a little and lost time.

It's only the first race of the season and you learn every race. While it's not the best feeling to be so let down by the results I definitely feel optimistic knowing that the seconds I lost can easily be regained. It's also helpful to have such a positive outlook on my classic skiing. I'm not going to write off every skate race, but I'm definitely really hopeful for the classic ones.

15k classic is next on the schedule...welcome to carnival season.

Update from LP

It hasn't been that long since my last post, but a lot has happened. It's been a busy week or so for SMC Nordic. Last I wrote we were staying at Larissa's house in Jackson and skiing at Bretton Woods just half an hour away. The conditions there were absolutely perfect while every other ski area was hurting for snow. We had sunny days and hard tracks. We got in a day of intervals, a double session, and a really successful long ski. We were all absolutely in love with the place and were sad to leave. I'm completely in love with the hotel. It's basically a castle and it's amazing.

Mount Washington Hotel

Larissa up at the Yurt

Kat and I

From New Hampshire we headed back to school for a few days. We spent a good amount of time up in my area. We skied at Dickenson's, which is where I skied in high school, and had chicken parm made by my Gram at my house.

Dickinson's

Kat, Silke, Larissa, and Gabbi at Dickinson's

Yesterday we had a quick ski at Sleepy Hollow and then made our way to Lake Placid. We had dinner at Colin's which was nice since it was the first time in a while our whole team together. Colin's been M.I.A. with a broken ankle from ski jumping and Silke's leaving soon for World Juniors for biathlon. Clearly straight up nordic skiing is the only way to stick around for extended periods of time. Last night it started snowing and pretty much didn't stop. It let up for a while, but is now going steady again. Things are looking good for the carnival this weekend hosted by SLU.

Kat shoveling away this morning

Excitement on the way to ski this morning

Races on the bridge

Whoops.

Kat and I pretending to be Silke

Check out the team blog for Larissa's account of our day in Placid! Tomorrow's an easy ski on the courses for the weekend and then Friday we start our carnival season. Busy busy.

What He Said...

For the first day of camp we had a super busy day though we were all spread out until everyone gathered at Larissa's around dinner time. Bear and I were with my dad all day. We met up with Larissa at Bretton Woods after leaving VT around 7. We did some good intervals in a very short amount of time and then the three of us booked it over to Rumford to watch the men's 15k at Nationals.

Instead of repeating all of what Adam had to say about the Nationals race yesterday I'll just say go HERE to read about it.

After watching the races we headed to Larissa's for a home cooked meal and a night of Bananagrams.

We're heading for Bretton Woods in just a minute for a day of skiing on some great snow.

Some pics from yesterday's race:

Evan

Steve

Kyle

Break's Over/Nationals

I'm doing laundry (thanks mom) and packing up my stuff so I can head out for our winter camp. We're heading to Larissa's house in Jackson, New Hampshire for a few days on Wednesday morning. With the lack of snow we'll be one of many schools heading in the direction of Bretton Woods for some solid k's. We'll be back in Burlington on Friday and will head out for Lake Placid early next week. We'll ski for a few days there before the St. Lawrence carnival marks the beginning of our colligate race season.

The few days leading up to the big move back to school have been relaxing and it's hard to believe the break's just about over. Most of SMC still has two weeks, but with all the skiing they'll fly right by and before you know it I'll be heading into my nice and roomy 13 credit semester.

It's been incredibly warm and the Northeast has had a major melt down. This has been problematic for pretty much everyone. It's probably safe to say that those scrambling most are the people in charge of US Nationals at Black Mountain in Rumford, ME.

The YouTube clip is an interview with the chief of course, which should give you an idea of the predicament they've been in.

It seems Black Mountain has been making it happen, which is pretty impressive. There's a chance I may be heading up on Wednesday to watch the 15k as it's only an hour or so from Larissa's. I've been keeping an eye on results and blog posts (particularly Adam's) and following my brother and others as they race through the wet conditions. The most impressive finish to me was the 18th place finish from Colby's John Dixon. I know him through Adam and have seen him race since high school. His results just keep getting bigger and better.

For now I'm baking brownies, watching a movie, and enjoying my last real time at home until March.

My brother, Evan, skiing for BMA at Nat'ls.
("Borrowed" from Adam)