UVM/Dartmouth Carnivals

Some may call it laziness. I call it visually pleasing. Here are the last two weekends in pictures.

UVM:

Silke, Kat, me, Balls, Emery

Baller picture I took of Isaiah

So many fans!

Parents busy being fabulous and making us food!
(Special thanks to the Sitzers and Vargos! mmm...grilled cheese!)

Ski friends!
Brian, me, Mama Lauren, Joshy, Claire Babe, Balls, Silke

Brian, Bear, Lauren, Kat, me 

me and my daddy

Dartmouth:

Bear in the 10k skate 

Catching rays on the gorgeous day

Just after the mass start...everyone running to the next spot

The pack heads up the first hill

UNH Carnival

I feel kind of stupid writing a post about last week's carnival the night before the second race of this week's, but I figured I'd go for it anyway.

So last weekend we were in Jackson, NH for the classic sprints and 15/20k skate races. It was the first weekend that Rizzle and Mama Rizz got to cheer us on as the course literally passes their house. SO GOOD to have them there. Rizz will hopefully be there from now on, but Mama Rizzle was a special treat!

The first day of sprinting was really interesting. To start things off, I'm not necessarily a sprinter. And by "not necessarily" I mean not even a little bit. It was also raining/slushing/snowing the entire day. It was a soggy mess, but the course was ridiculously fun. I didn't do well at all, but I had a great time. It's not often I say that...

Women's mass start (pics by Colin)

Kat and I coming around for our last lap

Saturday was the 15/20k mass start. The start was pretty crazy. The first k bottlenecked right off and there were a few seconds where almost everyone was standing completely still. After that it was a solid race. I went back and forth with both Kat and Chloe a couple of times each. We also saw Emery out there in the mix. On the last k or so Kat and I were skiing side by side staring at Chloes back about 10 seconds in front of us. Chloe, Kat, and I crossed the line one right after the other.

I'm really pleased with how I skied. Going into the third lap I had a few seconds where my body just wanted to slow down, but I kept my head in it and hopped back onto Kat who had dropped me a little. I skied hard for the entire 15k. As someone who has real issues with my mental race it was nice to feel like I held things together. I didn't look at the results and I never plan to. I'd rather be happy then look and end up disappointed with how I actually placed.

Chloe in front, me on the left, Kat on the right
Less than a k from the finish

Cheering for the boys...there was a gap in the action and a
beautiful background! (Chloe, me, Em, Kat, Balls)

That's actually my new strategy for the year. Unless my parents see that I did ridiculously well and tell me to look I will never see the girls results for the races this year. I'd rather be happy with myself and how hard I pushed. In the end, I know where I'm at after four years. It's not even in the ballpark of where I wanted to be. At this point there's really not much else I can do. As long as I'm happy with the effort I put into this last season I'm going to be able to call it a success.

On the guys side of things, we had a few that were incredibly close to qualifying for the heats, which is encouraging. The mass start wasn't as successful as it could have been, but they seem to be improving every weekend. A shout out to Adam for his 16th place finish on Saturday. Giving feeds on top of the hill I was so excited to see him come by with the top guys lap after lap. My mom was freaking out as well. She even said, "The way I was cheering you would have thought he was my own son." I can only imagine what that must have looked like...

Mama, Lar, and I
Fam shot. Can you tell Cathy loves pictures?

Lary Writes a Blog Post

Mi padre is a fabulous man. He is also one of my coaches. Not everyone realizes this probably because I call him Lary more often than I call him dad. People have mixed reactions when I share this information. Sometimes I get, "Oh that's great you get to spend so much time with him!" Other times it's more like, "Doesn't that kind of suck to see your parents 24/7 while you're in college?" The correct answer is more the the first remark. My dear old dad and I are more alike than either of us would like to admit, which makes it easy to spend so much time together.

He also likes to blog. Kind of. Every so often I get an email containing a post that I then have to edit and put on the team blog. I really enjoyed the latest one, so unbeknownst to him he is going to be a guest blogger on my ever popular bloggity that is probably read by the same people that read the team blog anyway. (This isn't laziness. I swear I will get a UNH carnival post up here later.)

So here he is, the great Lary Martell:

We're rolling into February in a snow challanged winter! The walk across campus has been easy. Warm days and a lack of the huge snow banks to crawl over has made it simple for the team to get to the ski room and into the vans.  The talk at the early Eastern Cup races and carnivals is all about the difficult snow year.... 

But not so fast! The SMC gang, it seems, has had no problem finding the white stuff.  From long over-distance days on the rolling terrain at Craftsbury to mid-winter conditions at Trapps to interval training at The Range, the Purple Gang has not missed a beat.  It seems that it is good to be a nordic skier in Northern Vermont. 

The season is well underway and the Big Purple is getting fit and looking foward to another great weekend of skiing at Trapps in the UVM Carnaval and Eastern Cup races.  We'll see you there!

-Lary

Last minute decision to join the race!
Big Purple was PUMPED!

Off he goes! Just look at that form!

Nice work, Lar!