New England Winters

At the time of this blog post, it is 47 degrees at my house in Gilmanton. Today I raced at my old stomping grounds at Gunstock in what were easily some of the worst conditions that I have ever skied in: puddles, rocks, many loops of a 1.6k course, and huge gobs of klister. To think that just over a week ago I was skiing on VR40, and had bomber kick and glide. I remember thinking as I was driving home through the snow from the Trapp Family Lodge after the Eastern Cup opener, "well, we should be set for a little while."

What a difference a week can make. So what happened? Conditions were still spectacular at Gunstock on Tuesday! But then came the rain on Wednesday, and cold again for Thursday and Friday, and then more rain, and heat over the weekend. Any Nordic skier reading this blog will commiserate with me here. The temperatures we had today are the kind that make you feel sick to your stomach when you walk outside on a December day. It was 65 in New York City, which ties the previous record high for this date, and believe me when I say that it wasn't much colder in New Hampshire. The two feet or so of snow that we had last week evaporated faster than you could say "thaw."

I suppose I should be pulling my hair out right now... but I'm not. Why? It's December in New England, and one doesn't have to look far into the forecast to find reason to hope. Chance of a little snowstorm for New Year's Eve? Chance of a BIG snowstorm on Friday? Give it another week, and I bet we'll be skiing on VR40 again in perfect tracks. All we have to do is train hard, keep the fire burning, and all will be well.

Keep on keepin' on, and pray for snow!

-Sam EB

A Week of Studying

Skiers are also students. For some, this becomes more of a reality at the end of the semester when constant e-mail checking, Facebooking, and humorous YouTube videos are replaced with back-to-back sociology and psychology statistic finals, along with 20 page labs and research papers. Yes, it is finals week again. While work is at the forefront of our minds for the time being, there is of course that place that exists in every skier's head that is reserved for thoughts of snow.

Sugarloaf camp is coming soon and we can't wait to get there. After a week of work and upredictable weather, that never lets us know ahead of time if we can snow ski or rollerski, we are ready to be done and focus on a good ski camp with the crew.

We will have updates from the 'Loaf' throughout the week. Keep in touch.

-BN

Great Glen Sprints

Bates Nordic headed to Great Glen this weekend, which was the closest Nordic area to Lewiston with any snow. Skiing on the Great Glen trails is always kind of a treat for me. They are an old stomping ground of mine, from back when I raced in windpants and a t-shirt, so there's the nostalgia factor. Also, the trails are pretty nice for such a small nordic center: very nicely maintained in the summer, and well groomed, despite the fact that they don't have a Piston Bully. The trails this weekend were hardpacked, coarse snow. The granulated stuff that you expect in New England after one of these rain/snow type storms. Conditions weren't at all bad though, and the skating was fast and fun.

The actual race is another matter entirely. The conditions better than last year, when the race trail deteriorated throughout the day and we were pretty much skiing that beautiful Granite State bedrock by nightfall. However, the race organizers seem to be dead set on making the results of the race as arbitrary as possible. First, the course is very short -- 400meters long -- and two laps of it are still less than a kilometer. This is exacerbated by the fact that for one round of heats they shorten the race to one lap. Second, it is so narrow that there are very few places where passing is at all possible. Finally, they don't do a qualifier, but instead just put everyone randomly into heats. The first and second place skiers from the each of the first round heats advance to the third round, while third and fourth place skiers move to the second round. This sounds fair, right? If you get first or second you get a by! Not quite true, because the first place skier from each heat in BOTH the third round AND the second round advance to the fourth round, meaning that those who do badly in the first round have an easier path to get to the fourth round. This silliness is compounded by the fact that the second and third round heats are shortened to one lap to save time. The course is so narrow and so short that, in the words of coach, "the first guy to get to that first corner is the winner." The Great Glen Sprints is a contest of 25 meters.

But, it was fun; especially for me since I did terribly the first round, and as such made it all the way to the final (while many better sprinters than I were eliminated in the "lightning round" of the third round heats). Also Kirsten Gill had a great race, getting second overall and winning a sweet ski suit. Mostly this race just gets the engine revving for the real thing that starts up in a week or two. Everyone is excited, and the weather is starting to look favorable for some significant snow for New England! This week is finals and then the team is off to Sugarloaf for winter camp.

See you out there!

-Sam eb

Catchin' Up with Chambo

Recently, I got the chance to catch up with Bates College Alumni David Chamberlain (a.k.a. Chambo) over the holiday break. With a gnarly travel schedule this winter, he has some serious goals that would land this Native Mainer among the top in the US while making a dent in the international scene as well. If words don't show his potential, here are some numbers that might help:

-2001, 2003, and 2005 U.S. World Championship Team member
-2004 and 2006 Overall SuperTour Champion
-2 time NCAA All-American

Here's what the young alum had to say:

Sylvan Ellefson: How has the summer and fall training been going?

David Chamberlain: The summer and fall have been really good for training. I packed in quite a bit of volume training through the summer months, and as the fall has progressed I have focused more on quality intensity sessions. We had a good group of skiers around in the County over the summer which made for focused training. I was able to travel to Vancouver in September to check out the Olympic trails and train with the US team boys out there. That was a great camp, and coupled with the Lake Placid camp in October gave me the chance to knock heads with some fast guys. That is always important for me in the fall.

SE: How is it balancing a family and skiing?

DC: It is really easy when your wife is also a competitive skier. BethAnn is a biathlete so our schedules are similar. We don't always get the chance to see each other much through the winter months, so we pack in as many dates as we can through the summer and fall!

SE: How do you feel going to college while still skiing has helped you in the grand scheme of things?

DC: The obvious answer is that it is nice to have a college degree. Aside from that I would say that personally I felt I was able to progress as a skier and get a lot out of my college experience. Students at the small liberal arts colleges in the east have many advantages, campus housing, food, a challenging race circuit. As long as certain priorites are looked after, like training and rest, the choice to pursue college and skiing can be a really good one, even for those looking to compete seriously after graduation.

SE: What are your goals for the upcoming year?

DC: My big goal is to score some World Cup points. Making the World Championship team is also a goal and winning the overall SuperTour title again.

SE: If you were a tree, what kind would you be?

DC: I really do love the look and feel of a gnarly old pine tree.

Thanks Chambo for catching up with the ol' alma mater. Good luck on the trails.

The Best Laid Plans...

So this week was Thanksgiving break, and the plan was to be in Canada at Montmorency. Unfortunately, as Friday morning rolled around it had become clear that mother nature had no intention of cooperating and giving us some snow. However, we had a Plan B: a Rangeley Camp Redux. We know Rangeley, and we like Rangeley and it seemed the logical choice for a dryland camp. It has hills, and good rollerskiing, and even had some snow in the forecast!

Isn't there some expression, though, about what happens to the best laid plans?

So, after our Canada plan was foiled by the lack of snow, our Rangeley plan was foiled by the presence of it. We got to Rangeley and there was about a quarter of an inch of snow everywhere. That was not enough to ski, but exactly enough to make the roads too treacherous for rollerskiing. We scrambled for a plan C.

Saturday we did an OD run in the snow, followed by level 4 moosehoofing intervals on Sunday. By Sunday afternoon the roads had melted enough to make rollerskiing possible, and so we did some classic video-work. However, with mixed precipitation and possibly a whole-lot more running on the horizon, we had to make a decision. Half the team decided to bail, and headed back to Lewiston, where the rollerskiing was still good, and the other half remained at Rangeley, hoping for enough snow to ski on the golf course.

Turns out that both decisions were good ones. The guys who headed back got in some good workouts on rollerskis, where mostly rain fell from the sky. The girls who stayed got to ski on the golf course, as in Rangeley they got a fair amount of snow, followed by heavy rain. Enough snow remained for them to do intervals on Wednesday, when the guys did a 10k skate timetrial on skis. Everyone then headed home to share Thanksgiving with our families, and continue what will be one of the biggest weeks of training that we do all year. When we get back there will only be one more week of classes, and we are all very excited to be done!

The moral of this story? Mother nature is fickle, but training is good pretty much where-ever you decide to do it. Both teams are looking strong, and getting excited to compete. See you out there!

-Sam EB

Swollen Arms, Shaking Legs, and Blurred Vision

My non-skiing friends think I'm crazy. They don't understand what we do, why we do it, or why it is fun. I cannot blame them, because for someone that does not cross-country ski, why would running until you want to throw up along with doing push-ups, pull-ups, dips, sit-ups, and box-jumps until you can't do anymore be fun? What about waking up the next day to ski for three hours? I can't speak for everyone when I give my opinion on why it's fun, and I don't argue that I am completely sane, because I'm not. The insanity of our sport and our character is what makes it fun. Spending a majority of my time with twenty-five of the hardest working, fittest athletes on campus is what makes it fun. Knowing that on any given day, someone on our team can wake up feeling great and have the race of his or her life makes it fun. It's more than the toughness of the sport, the talent level of our team, and the work ethic instilled in us by our coaches. For me, when I look around the gym at the end of a long, brutal morning of testing, and see someone on the pull-up bar with the other twenty-four athletes and three coaches screaming in support, I realize why this is fun.

We completed our annual fall testing on Saturday morning. While some may not be happy with a result here or there, I think we can on the whole, look back on the day and smile in knowing that we busted our asses for two hours in an effort to separate ourselves from our competition. There were impressive 3000 times on both the men's and women's side with both Sylvan and Beth setting impressive PR (personal record) of 9:25 and 11:09 respectively. It was incredible to see people push themselves beyond what they thought was possible in the strength testing. It was satisfying to see the look on someones face after he or she destroyed their previous personal best, but wanting more. Beyond this, it was the team chemistry that was displayed when people finished the 3000 on the verge of throwing up and found it in themselves to raise their voices in support of their team members crossing the finish line behind them. When someone was getting tired on the pull-up or dip bar, everyone got louder and pushed their teammate to four or five more dips until they collapsed off the bar. I can't explain this feeling to my non-skiing friends as they would have to participate in the insanity to truly understand it.

This team is talented and fit, but I think we gain an advantage with the team chemistry that has been built throughout the fall. This is why I don't mind my non-skiing friends calling me crazy. This is why waking up on Sunday to ski for three hours with sore arms, shoulders, and armpits didn't phase us. And this in turn becomes my answer to my friends' simple question of, "why?"

-Harry

Racing on Rollerskis

Hey y'all-

We just finished racing in two separate dryland races. We had the Second Annual Lobster Roll out on North Haven Island on October 25th. This is always a Bates favorite. We leave Bates at 7:30 in the morning and do not return until 6:30 that night for a thirty minute ski race... and we think this is awesome??? Heck yes we do!!! It is a long day for such a short race but trips like this is what makes a ski team. Starting to race 2 months before actual ski season begins will make us strong when it gets to real race time.

The Lobster Roll was a great first opportunity to check our fitness levels and challenge other Maine Schools (Colby, Bowdoin, and Presque Isle) in a preview of the Maine State Championships, also known as the Chummy Broomhall Cup. We traveled on a ferry to the venue and after a 30-45 minute warm-up, all the skiers were out on course. Ingrid Knowles was the top collegiate skier in the women's race and had the best result of the day. There were many impressive performances from the team and clearly there are also areas that we can work on to get better. One thing that is constantly made clear after these races is the importance of SKI SPEEDS. While some liken bringing training skis to a race to bringing "a little league team to the world series," truth of the matter is that the difference between fast and slow skis is like skiing on klister in powder versus taking the wheels off of Lance Armstrong's bike and putting them on some roller skis: the difference in speed is enormous. This is why our we must only look at success in the race in terms of previous year's times. That is how we can gauge how we are doing individually. A quick lunch, ferry ride back to the mainland, and we were back to Bates.

Results can be found at:

http://www.nensa.net/news/news_more.php?id=2862

The next weekend was the infamous Bowdoin Duelathon, not to be confused with a Duathalon. Somehow former head ski coach Marty Hall coined the phrase "duelathon" when creating the race many years back. It is a mix of a run and then a classic rollerski. This race is also another favorite. The race started in a mass start formation in the soccer field which quickly funneled into a narrow 2.5 foot wide gateway. The race continued over a 4 - 4.5 kilometer course. After the run it was a struggle of the most coordinated to see who could take off their running shoes and get on all of their ski equipment the fastest. I wished this year that someone had a video camera because I know trying to watch me buckle my helmet with freezing, fatigued hands would have been priceless. Not to mention some others (names will not be included) who ripped through ski boots in attempt to put them on causing them a transition time that ended up being 1/5 of the overall ski times.

Again we had a great day. Fast and slow skis included, Bates men were 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 9th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 23rd. Bates Women ended up in 3rd, 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, and 16th.

Results can be found at:

http://www.nensa.net/sched&result/2009/duelathon_2008.pdf

Back to work. We are in a recovery week right now so less hours means more time to eat, sleep, and for most of us catch up on school work. We are going into another big week next week and are looking forward to keep pushing ourselves so that our efforts now will show up when it counts.

Thanksgiving Camp in the next two weeks. WOOP WOOP.

Cheers

Rangeley Camp

Hey y'all-

Here is a quick update as to what we have been up to since practice officially began on the 6th of October.

RANGELEY CAMP

We left for Rangeley, Maine on the 15th of October ready for another grueling 5-day intensity/volume camp. The boys team were housed at Camp Cushman and the girls at Camp Flynn right down the road (thanks to both families for letting us use your camps as our headquarters).

*Wednesday*...We went immediately into lactate testing making sure that everyone is training at their proper levels. For those that don't know much about lactate testing, it looks at lactate threshold which is the exercise intensity at which lactic acid starts to accumulate in the blood stream. This happens when it is produced faster than it can be removed. This point is sometimes referred to as the anaerobic threshold, or the onset of blood lactate accumulation. When exercising below the LT intensity any lactate produced by the muscles is removed by the body without it building up. The lactate threshold is a useful measure for deciding exercise intensity for training and racing in nordic skiing.

*Thursday*...Again another tough day. We had our third annual Saddleback Hill Climb. Tim Whiton set a new course record 14 minutes 48 seconds. The girls record is still held by Megan McCllelland 17 minutes 57 seconds in 2007. The afternoon was again no walk in the park with an uphill double-pole test. Men and women went on equal speed skis up an incline lasting at the fastest 2 minutes and 41 seconds.

*Friday*...Our easiest day of the camp, we had a distance ski (1.5-2 hours) in the morning and then a run on the Saddlback Ski Trails in the afternoon (1 hour).

*Saturday*...A very eventful day. We had a 10k classic time trial in the morning. It took us over some rolling terrain and then at about the 6k mark climbed to the lodge at Saddlback. A great time trail for everyone. Hard to compare results from past years because there was a slight course change. The afternoon was exciting as the 2nd Annual Rangeley Bowl was played amongst the men's team. Team Woop Woop made up of Sylvan, Sam, Tim, Dylan, and Liam took on Team Booyah made up of Harry, Connor, Ben, Nathan, and Jimbo. It was a tight game with Woop Woop taking a lead at the beginning but Booyah coming back strong and going ahead at the end. A last minute hurry-up touchdown put the game into overtime. Woop Woop came out in the end, but a close game to say the least. The girls team at this time was most generous enough to let the meatheads play their game while they went out to buy ingredients for that nights APPLE PIE CONTEST. The winners of the pie contest was Ingrid, Harry, Dayna, and Liam.

*Sunday*...Our last day at camp we went on an Over Distance run/hike to the top of Saddleback Mountain and then down. It was much nicer and exciting experience than the year before. A great camp overall.

US SKi Team in Lake Placid

Hey y'all-

Hope everyone is doing well back at school. I thought I would use this opportunity to get this blog rolling again for all those people who are interested in what we are doing as part of the Bates Nordic team (which this summer consisted of mostly Sam, Harry, and I with some other posts here and there). However there has been some interest from my family and I'm sure everybody else's families would love to see what their kiddies are doing with nordic skiing.

So anyway, as most know, I am here in Lake Placid training with the US Ski Team, CXC, and Sun Valley. I will keep it short but here is kinda what we have been doing:

Friday: short run with the US Ski Team...got a chance to talk with Andy Newell for a good half and hour about World Cup stuff, Jordi St. John, wanting to spend more time in Rangeley, and keeping it real in the nord skiing world.

Saturday: VO2 max double-pole intervals (3 x 4 minutes (equal recovery) then a 10 minute break, then another set of 3 x 4 intervals). I ended being able to hold onto the front guys for first two intervals of each set but the last one would kick my @$$. This was about 2 hours. In the afternoon we did strength led by Whitcomb which is no easy task when he talks about how much more other good skiers are doing than us right at that moment. This was about 1 hour then we played a huge game of soccer for about 1.5 hours after that.

Sunday: (not yet arrived) We are double poling for 1.5 hours and then running for another 1.5 and then nhave the afternoon off in which I will be sleeping and attempting to study for my Oceanography test.

Monday: THE BIG DAY...time trial up the Whiteface toll road to the top of Whiteface Mountain, the 4th highest mountain in the Adirondacks.

What I learned from this camp: US Ski Team members are monster double polers and skiers in general, Bird and Newell can put time on people whenever they want, whenever they put it into their brains that they want to go faster. They are also a lot stronger. They are also this way because of their schedules. They sleep, train, eat, take ice baths/spin, nap, eat, train, eat, rest (watch baseball), and then sleep, making money the whole time. It has been really good training as well and also being able to talk to people like Freeman, Newell, Cook, Whitcomb, Igor (SAm's old coach...who you still cant understand what he is saying).

I put some pictures of the camp in. See you soon. THE SEASON STARTS ON TUESDAY!!! SHAKE AND BAKE!!!

Ushuaia Sweet Ushuaia

Hola Chicos y Chicas,
So I thought it was time for a blog post from the end of the world. It´s pretty hard for me to even begin to talk about the way things are here, but let´s just say that skiing in Ushuaia is different.
For one, the ski community is pretty small. The races I´ve done so far have had about 40 people -- counting men, women, juniors, seniors, masters -- total. Also, everyone races on equipment that´s anywhere from 15-20 years old. There are a few with new stuff, but very few. I tend tot stick out like a sore thumb. There´s one other American here, and we recognized each other as Americans instantly when we saw each other. So that´s cool.
Grooming appears to be a secondary concern here. There was a night sprint that took place (supposedly) at 6pm... but the grooming took place at 6:10, which brings me to another point: very few people, things, or events occurr when you expect them to. The first race I did here, I arrived 20 minutes after the start was scheduled, and I was one of the early arrivals, and there have been a couple times where the carpool I take to the ski trail in the valle de tierra mayor arrived 45 to an hour late and once I missed it because they came 20 minutes early.
However, there is a crapload of snow. We´re talking (about) 4 feet of snow. It´s snowed pretty much non-stop since I got here. And there is skiing within walking distance of the house I´m staying in, on a pretty hilly, fun course. The only problem is that the pisten bully they have is from the 70s, and breaks pretty frequently. However, a half-hour away is a 7k loop that gets groomed once a day by a brand-new machine, which is swell, except totally flat.
People, in the typical latin american style, are all incredibly nice, and most are very excited about my willingness to eat a lot of whatever they put in front of me. This food typically consists of beef, chicken, beef, lamb, beef, and the occasional vegetable. I´m getting plenty of protien... but not much of anything else.

In a little less than a week is the Marchablanca, which is the one big skiing event here. It´s a 21k race, in the valle (meaning, mostly flat with one or two climbs), that the whole town comes out for many dressed eccentrically. It has been won for years by one Martín Bianchi, who skiied in the Torino Olympics for Argentina. He´s an awesome guy who I´ve had dinner with a couple times and skied with a whole lot.
So, who knows. There´s about a thousand more things that I could write, but I guess I´ll cut it off. Things are good, I miss you all, and I´ll put up some pictures of the Marcha when that happens.
Ciao, nos vemos.
-seb

The McClellands Go to Alaska

11 McClellands (my family, uncle's family, and uncle from Wyoming) made the daring journey into grizzly infested Alaska this July. Our trip started in Hatcher Pass (2 hours outside of Anchorage) in cabins where we did some hiking in the beautiful Talkeetna Mountains. It took a few days to get used to sunlight 20 hours a day, but we were able to get our beauty sleep using Buffs as light blockers.
Our second destination was McCarthy, population 20 and 60 miles away from a paved road (I later found out that Molly M. coincidentally has a cabin in McCarthy). Here we did some more hiking (Ing would've love this trip), the first day up into an old snowy abandoned copper mine called Jumbo, the second along an enormous glacier. Instead of

carrying bear spray or guns for protection we
sang as loud as we could while traveling through grizzly country (the von trapps don't hold a candle).
One of just three sunny days our whole trip was spent on our drive from McCarthy to Valdez,
a small town on Prince William Sound. We rented kayaks and paddled the 40 miles into a cabin about half the size of a leanto that my dad and uncle built 30 years ago. From there we
hiked, kayaked, slept in tents, played cards and fished. Our fishing excitement reached its max when cousin Sophie thought she had caught a huge silver salmon, we all watched as she reeled in an enormous piece of seaweed and some jellyfish tentacles.








Wildlife sightings included 2 black bears, lots of otters, seals, jumping fish, 1,000,000 jellyfish, sea lions, local Alaskans and dolphins.
On our kayak back to Valdez, we watched a 1,000 lb. sea lion snag a couple of excited fishermen's enormous silver salmon (they weren't too happy). Another sea lion encounter occurred when cousin Matty kayaked over one and it popped up just a few feet away snorting and spitting water, needless to say we all paddled as fast as we could in the opposite direction.


Unfortunately I missed meeting up with Molly on our last day in Anchorage but all in all it was an amazing trip.
see y'all soon
-moogs

For Sam...

hey everyone. no rollerski links this time for me. sorry. just wanted to update. life is fun in maine. sort of. ive been working 40-50hrs a week between my two jobs since i got back from cali. which was chill. check out facebook for pics of my adventures if you want. and if youre not friends with me dont be shy. i cant bite you over facebook. im not that skilled with comps.
anyway. for my internship we just finished up a petition drive. that was wildly unsuccessful. we got less than half of the needed signatures. but it was fun to run around the state accosting people on the streets to get their signature. now im doing research on religion in maine, how immigrants feel in maine, and setting up a blog and writing entries. which by the way check out my first post at mclublog.blogspot.com. so ya its been funish. good experience.
my second job is being bitch at the running store and working at road races for them and trying to be friendly. and getting paid shit. but better than smeltzer. other than that im training, hanging out with a future roomie of mine whos at bates right now, and trying to get together with people to do stuff. which seems to be impossible and for which i am sorry about. one last development in my life. some of you may have seen on facebook but i have lost my car. the prius has found a new driver. so im dealing with that loss of transportation and am scouting out nice, cheap, young rides that dont involve much commitment and can be drove hard and discarded easily and without mess. so far i have been unsuccessful but would welcome any suggestions.
hope all is well.
boner
and to second sams comment on my rollerskiing post: who else would be sending you links like that and working on thesis during the summer???

Public Radio Debut

Yo Yo Yo,

This week is radio week. We've got 3 feature shows airing Tuesday-Thursday. Each one will air once in the morning and once in the evening. The AM show is between 7:30-8:00 (somewhere in there... each segment is 10 minutes long or so) and the PM show is between 5:30-6:00. Also they'll be online at www.NHPR.org

So those shows are what I've been working on the last two months, with this guy Jon Greenberg. He voices the shows. They're about the Merrimack river, and environmental/development issues that are facing it. HOWEVER, if you listen to NHPR any time this week, there will be a different one minute segment airing each day called "river minutes." They are basically trivia that we couldn't find a good place for within the big features. One is about fishladders, one is about stormwater management, one's about Henry David Thoreau, etc. I wrote and voice those, which is wicked cool. Each one airs 6 times throughout the day, whenever they are doing New Hampshire News they air once.

SO, listen, you punks!
Either online at the website or at one of the stations below if you're in NH.
88.3, Nashua, WEVS
89.1, Concord, WEVO
90.3, Nashua, WEVO
90.7, Keene, WEVN
91.3, Littleton, WEVO
91.3, Hanover, WEVH
97.3, Plymouth
99.5, Jackson, WEVJ
103.9, Portsmouth
104.3, Dover, WEVO
105.9, Colebrook
107.1, Gorham, WEVC

I miiiiss yooooou.

-Sammy B

ps. I had to add my name after, because Jerry Lewis was confused about which Bates Nordic skier was working at New Hampshire Public Radio this summer. Oh, also, I go to Argentina a week from today. Woo. I also wanted to let you know that I like horses and long walks on the beach. I have a cat named Aunt Jemima and I like to comb her with my comb.

The Best Skier in the World

After being nominated as the Best Skier in the World alongside tough competition such as Bjorn Dælie and Thomas Alsgård, I felt it would be a great opportunity to ask the star some questions about himself

BATES NORDIC: How do you feel being nominated as the best skier in the world alongside skiers like Bjorn Dælie and Thomas Alsgård?

NATHAN HARRY WINEBAUM: I feel honored on being nominated as the most accomplished skier of the cross country

SE: What do you attribute your success to?

NHW: I attribute my success to my god given abilities. Cross-country skiing just comes naturally to The Nathan Harry Winebaum.

SE: Would you like to thank anyone for being the best skier in the world?

NHW: I'd like to thank Jesus Shuttlesworth aka. Ray Allen for giving me the inspiration.

Thank you Nate for the opportunity for fellow readers to understand how one of The Greats does his thing. Provided below is a picture of Nathan Harry participating in one of his hobbies at the beach.

Some Fundy Pictures

Yo here are some more photos from kayaking in Fundy.

The first and last are the same spot, at high tide and then at low tide. The middle one is one is just pretty.

The Future

Unless you live in Aspen (where Brandon is still skiing) this may be our future racing...
1. http://youtube.com/watch?v=OR8PtKXdmzs&feature=related
2. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Dt3jDzhCA8o&feature=related
3.http://youtube.com/watch?v=tuqmO2YqIeM&feature=related
4.http://youtube.com/watch?v=0awKX2yw25w&feature=related
my personal favorite:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ptQAYpAa57c&feature=related
this?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=x-xiYk_sGOw&feature=related

nate?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Kr6iHZSaTbU&feature=related

obviously i was really bored and not wanting to research human rights for my thesis. so one last motivational note try and pick out steve's best friend.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=scEaUa7D0vA

Being a Kid Again

Theme parks suck. They are overly crowded, filled with junk, and in the end, pretty trashy. But damnit they are fun. On our off day of work and training, Sylvan and I took a day trip to Six Flags (Great Escape) in Lake George, NY with a whole crew of friends. The original plan was to go with a group from work, but when we learned that more people= a cheaper ticket, we recruited most everyone from Keene that had the day off of work. This included Scotty McClelland, Tommy Biesemeyer, Marlijne Cook, and our housemate Paul Smith (who makes his own work schedule).
The last time I went to a theme park was for my brother's 10th birthday party, so I didn't remember much except that they are fun, and you can spend a lot of money in a short amount of time. That last theme park was, in the grand scheme of theme parks, pretty awful considering it was Aquaboggin water park in Saco, ME. The Great Escape was a little better, but according to everyone else, still pretty awful. I didn't notice as I was amused by the rollercoasters and waterslides all day.
Being a kid again felt way too good, but after some bike intervals today and with work tonight, I have (kind of) snapped out of the trance. It was a perfect day off of training and work, but I can honestly say that it will probably be another ten years before I brave another theme park.

New Hampshah!

hey Hey hey hey,

So I'm now installed in my internship with NHPR in Concord, which is a pretty sweet town. I've been carpooling with my MA because gas is wicked expensive (though nothing compared to Keene, NY). And since she goes to work at 6:45am that means I've been doing my training down here a lot. Which is pretty good because the roads are very nice compared to Gilmanton (and Lewiston). The internship is characterized by some boredom, and some excitement. Every now and then I'm given stupid busy work jobs, but sometimes the guy I'm working with puts something that seems like way more responsibilty than I should be having heaped onto my plate. An example: last week he had me edit, start to finish, an interview with a lawyer who represents guantanamo detainees. I had to turn a 15 minute interview into 3:20 worth of radio, and got to choose what was put on the air and what wasn't. They didn't check my work before it was aired, they were just like, "yeah you probably did good."
And then some days I just call people.
I also just got back from a trip to the Bay of Fundy with Aubrey. We sea kayaked there. Here's one picture, and I will put up some more later. The place is crazy. Just absolutely crazy. We were there during a Spring tide, and very near to the perigee(I think... right Gill). So that meant that the tides were HUGE. We're talking a 40 foot tidal range. The tide would come in six horizontal inches in a minute. And tide pools up there were actually more like lakes. Fishing boats can only come into port at certain times of the day, and are suspended by cranes the rest of the time. At one point I was scrubbing my cooking pot with sand down by the shore as the tide was going out. I filled it, scrubbed for about a minute and reached out to rinse, but by that time the water was already out of my reach. Crazy.
And also sweet sea kayaking. I'll get some more pictures soon. I miss you guys. And really enjoy the blog. Keep posting!

In My Defense

Don't believe anything Steve says. I actually have resisted the call of the grocery store a total of three days out of the nine I've been here, and when Steve came home from work today I was not napping but hard at work washing the dishes. Which I may or may not have counted as a specific strength workout. This all arose from the fact that I didn't fall the training schedule EXACTLY this past week, because I couldn't figure out how to open it on Steve's computer. It may also have helped that Steve is a little bitter about the hike I dragged him along on yesterday. Just because there was no trail, the mountain turned out being a huge pile of loose rocks at 50 degree angles and Steve had gone on a seven hour hike AND a seven mile run the day before, he felt the need to whine the whole way about his sunburnt legs and... never mind. That's it. But he didn't even let us go to the summit, and I had to buy him an ice cream at the end to make him feel better. 

For those of you who don't know, I'm living in Ketchum, Idaho in a beautiful ski condo tastefully decorated with an excessive number of dream catchers. I'm working at a sandwich shop with a bunch of twelve-year-olds. Actually I think their ages range from 16 to 19, but kids just seem so much younger these days.

I miss all you guys like the coccolithophore is going to miss it's shell when they can't form anymore because of the input of carbon dioxide into the oceans which causes the calcium carbonate to enter into a buffering system with the carbon dioxide. (right Sam EB?) Which is a lot. I was going to add real pictures to this, but STEVE forgot the cord for his camera and I can't upload them. 

Love (I'm having a major identity crisis and can't decide which name to put down, so each of you can insert your preferred name for me.)

watch out for Gill this fall

So Kirsten has officially fallen off the training wagon as she as completely abandoned her training schedule only a few seconds after telling me she was going to be on the 500 hour schedule.  During her week in Idaho she has gone to the grocery store every day for between 1.5 and 2.5 hours which she then logs as a distance workout.  She has also taken to calling any time that she spends in the kitchen a specific strength workout because she has to wash so many pots and pans (her right arm is huge).  For intensity Kir has entered one hot dog eating contest and climbed the stairs a total of 7.5 times, she fell half way up after a particularly long trip to the grocery store.  The other day she told me she had just come back from a hike that consisted of her riding the bus to the mountain and then taking the chair lift all the way around.  Then there was today after I got home from a long strenuous day at the office Gill walks out of her room and tells me she just woke up from a recovery run.   I just don't know what happened to her but for some reason I am pretty sure her recent trend of laziness is some how Evans-Brown's fault. 

Enjoy,

Steve

Jumpin' Off Things = FUN

A big hello from upstate where the water flows like wine and the women instinctively flock like...well...I guess they don't really flock around here. Anyway life in Keene is still GOOD! Except for the fact that even though Hova and I live about 10 minutes from both Papineau and Magoo, I think we have seen both ladies only twice...I blame it on work and not wanting to drive because of newly increased gas price of $4.31 (yeah I know Dylan its like 9 bucks a gallon in Germany yah). Anyway we have been busy with many things: cliff jumping, ice cream making, selling stuff on eBay, Six Flags Theme Park, getting pulled over by NY State police for neglecting to wear a seatbelt 100 feet from our residence, humidity (blah), losing and buying new heart rate monitors, realizing that food actually costs money when you live on your own, and other fun stuff like that. Recently, I went to a US Biathlon Team camp and was very happy I was attending for two reasons: (1) it is great to ski with some of the faster skiers in the country (i.e. Tim and Lowell) and (2) it made me realize that when I race on nordic skis I know that I will NEVER have a gun on my back when I do so...EVER. Besides that, Hova and I have a new housemate, Paul Smith, from UVM. He's the man. Quiet, but the man. The movies that are up are of nearby cliff jumping shenanegans (or SHEE-NA-NEE-GANS as Harry likes to pronounce it). We went to a place called The Bluffs with the Matty McClelland, Sophie, Scottie, Marlijne, and some other nearby peeps for an adrenaline rush one afternoon. 70-foot cliff...terrifying really but FUN!!! Hope all is well and it is great hearin' how people's summers are going. Can't wait to see people in the fall.
Later Skaters,
Sylvan
PS- So of the 46 mountains that Harry and I were planning to climb we have hit....... FOUR, maybe a goal for a different summer.

Tim and Kumar go to White Castle (or the White House)

Hey everyone. Hope summers are going well. I just got back from DC. Which was pretty chill. I was there for an ACLU membership conference with like a thousand other crazy liberal people from all over the country. Listened to a bunch of interesting speakers like Arlen Specter, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, James Souter, and Antonin Scalia. So ya it was cool.

Other than those boring details about my trip I must say that DC is a pretty sweet town. I stayed in China town (which was really just a hundred yard strip with a bunch of Chinese restaurants). The weather was real hot down there too. I left last Sunday and Saturday in Portland was around 65 and DC on Sunday was 105. And humid. And I was wearing a suit. So was very sweaty. And I look funny in suits. I went for a walk around Sunday night to see some of the sights and it turned into a 2 and half hour walk down to the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and White House. And it was still 90+ outside. At 11 pm. But the monuments were awesome. Except that half of DC was at the Lincoln Memorial. I also got to go on a nice little jaunt Monday night around the monuments again and lost like four pounds in water weight, but its so humid down there that you don't dry off and so it all stayed in my clothes. Which was awesome.

Other highlights were meeting Mike Michaud (Maine State Rep), getting lost on Capital Hill, seeing lots of good looking women (women in the South really are hotter), and meeting the actor who plays Kumar in the "Harold and Kumar" movies (and he's really smart: getting a Ph.d from Stanford in security studies).

Anyway I'm home now but leaving for the Bay soon for the Fourth. Hope everyone is doing well and I'll post some pictures from DC soon. That is if Homeland Security, the FBI, CIA, NSA allow me to...

Gallivanting in Europe

So as many of you know I left mid semester for Berlin. You know because I said bye many more times than was necessary, but I am glad I had the chance to do so. I am currently sitting in my room in Berlin, a little homesick, but eating up the experience none the less. It’s become apparent that skiing plays a more important roll in my life than I previously would have admitted. Anyways, enough of the nostalgia; you know it is not my style. I write because I want to fill you in on some of the things I have done. Although it may be difficult to find roller skis, weight rooms, mountains, snow and basically anything that has to do with skiing in Berlin, I have had the opportunity to visit a couple of places that are a little better suited for our sport. Two weeks ago I traveled to Switzerland with my Aunt. I ended up in a place called Interlocken. It is the site of the first Alpine World Championship (1922). This place is gorgeous. It is also the host to the most memorable day I have had in Europe so far. It began in a Valley around 2000 ft in elevation. By the end of the day, however, I ended up hiking up to 10,000 ft (some cable car assistance) and back. Needless to say the sights were breathtaking. The very next weekend I found myself in Stockholm. (For those skeptics I actually do go to class.) It just so happened that the Stockholm marathon was being held that weekend. Unfortunately I was not able to register, but I threw on the old running shoes anyways and ran along for the last half. Running the Swedish cobble stones was hard on the old legs, but they persevered. That is all for now… stay tuned for further European escapades. Signed,D masta flex

P.S. The pics were taken within six hours of eachother.

Nicole The GREAT

Thought ya'll should see what was posted on the Bates Athletics page yesterday about our beloved captain! I am lost without you all in my love. ~ABNER

LEWISTON, Maine -- For the second year in a row, Bates College junior Nicole Ritchie was named to the Pocock Division III All-America First Team, the College Rowing Coaches Association has announced.
Ritchie (East Dummerston, Vt.) led the Bates women's rowing team to the NCAA Women's Rowing Championships for the second year in a row. Bates competes with seven other Division III teams and two at-large eights at nationals this Friday and Saturday at Lake Natoma in Gold River, Calif., the home course of the University of California at Berkeley. Bates finished third at nationals in 2007 and is currently ranked No. 3 by the CRCA and US Rowing.
Selection criteria for earning CRCA All-America honors include strength of schedule, regular season record, end of season regatta results, nomination rank, coaches' comments and 2,000-meter erg score.
Ritchie is also a NESCAC All-Academic honoree and a member of the Bates Nordic skiing team, for which she has been elected captain for the 2008-09 season!!!!!!!!

I am Ironman

I arrived home just a few days ago after narrowly escaping the pink eye plague of Bates College.  So far I have only had one training experience that is deserving of a post... actually you can decide if it is worthy.  Yesterday, I was running a loop by my house, which usually takes me around an hour and a half to complete, but for some reason I was running a lot faster than I normally do.  Anyway, long story short I was approaching the top of a dirt road which heads straight down to my house when I decided to look at my watch and realized that I was running the loop almost 25 minutes faster than I normally do.  At the same time that I came to this realization, I remembered that there is a chain fence hanging across the road that I was getting onto.  I reflexively turned to my hurdling instincts, which I clearly did not have because I caught my back shin and fell flat on my face onto the dirt road.  Luckily there are probably something like 10 people who live within a mile radius of me so nobody saw this incident, but I was still pretty embarrassed and my shin is still swollen.  Later that night I went to the movie "Ironman" with a group of people including our alpine teammate, Megan Papineau, which is where I came up with the title for this post.

Otherwise I have been perfecting my cooking skills, which I will be needing later next month for my position as a co-cook for a camp.  My previous cooking experience is limited to middle school Home EC classes, but so far I have made banana muffins and tomorrow I will master the art of cooking lasagna.

Wish me luck - Moogs

also, I don't know why this post is all underlined... I couldn't figure it out

Pink Eye

Yo yo!!! So i have been reading the blog and everyone seems to be up to some really fun activities! I figured I would take the time to let you guys in on my life. So recently I have been diagnosed with Pink Eye. Allow me to set the scene for you guys. I was in new rand hanging out with the McClelland family. I was checking myself out in the mirror and I noticed that my eye looked a little red and had an excessive amount of "gunk" in the tear duct. So I obviously cleared the gunk out and showed Kir who came in for a quick visit. Kir is into that kind of thing......I think. After this I lay down on Megan's bed and smear my eye into her pillow. So then Abner came in and looked at my eye and thought just maybe that I had pink eye. I never thought that I could have it so we just kept chatting until i decided that we should just go and check it out. So all of us walk to the health center together which was mildly entertaining to the nurse...i think.  It was decided that I did in fact have pink eye and was given drops. Such a downer but i went on with my night gave Matt one too many butterfly kisses and he came down with pink eye. Anyway good luck to Nicole!!!!!!! And just some advice for all of you: don't give butterfly kisses and make sure no one farts on your pillow. Over and out-Ing  

I like to ride my bicycle

On memorial day, Sylvan and I decided to drive down to Kennebunkport, ME to take part in the Cape-Able Memorial Day Classic bike race. It was the first real road race for either of us (I have done two legs of a triathlon before), so our expectations and goals were all over the map. I have been riding a fair amount this summer, so I decided to be ambitious and sign up for the A race. Sylvan is relatively new to biking (this is his first summer ever riding), so he signed up for the B's in order to get a feel for riding in a pack and experimenting with tactics.

The race began at 4:00 PM with the A's going out first. The course was twenty eight miles and flat. It began with a two mile stretch that connected with a four mile loop that we did six times before heading back on the two mile stretch for a sprint finish. There was a tail wind heading out the two mile section which ultimately meant for a brutal headwind coming into the finish (this was not fun). On such a flat course, breaking away was nearly impossible. I found this out on the first four mile lap. I knew I was in a competitive field, but everyone was sticking in a huge group, so I tried to break off with two other guys who looked pretty good. Needless to say, this was an awful idea as it was only four miles into the race and my legs were already screaming with lactate. After the pack came screaming past us, I decided I would sit in for a while before trying the same stupid move a little later. I tried two more times with some bigger groups of guys, but it was too hard to gain any distance on the 30+ riders in the main pack. I stayed close enough to the front to watch a certified professional, Dan Vaillancourt, break off of the front with one other guy, and that was the last we would see of them until the finishing stretch. I stayed in essentially the same position until we headed back on the two mile finishing stretch. I tried to get into a good position heading into the last two hundred yards for the sprint. I saw a few guys take off from the front and when I moved out to the left side to sprint, my legs said "NO!", and the head wind gave me the big middle finger (I also suck at sprinting on a bike). I got passed by a few guys in the last little section, but finished anywhere from 10th-15th (I think), but haven't seen results yet.

Sylvan experienced similar events in his race. He tried to break off the front a few times, but realized it was nearly impossible. At one point, he and another guy made a move, and were riding extremely hard (hard enough to think they dropped their competitors), but turned around to see that the other races were sitting in their draft (a real pansy move). Sylvan says that he tried to sprint too soon on the finishing stretch, and eventually got passed by about five of the guys in his pack. His legs also told him "NO!" during the sprint. It is interesting that, while we raced in different races, we both experienced similar occurrences with cycling tactics and our bodily reactions.

We are quite sore today, but are taking the day off to go camping with Chewy the graduate, Abner, Ingrid, and Connor. Hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather. PIECE.

Bates Rowing in Sacramento

this blog thing is pretty sweet. I like the pictures.
Anyway, if anyone wants to check up on some racing at NCAA's you can check it out:
http://www.ncaa.com will be posting a webcast. For division three, heats are this Friday and finals are on Saturday.
It should be pretty exciting - Williams and Trinity have traded off winning the past few years, and at Easterns and New Englands this year. We are currently ranked third, but have had a couple injuries this week. We will see how it all shapes up!
-Nicole

Summer Plans for Sam EB

So some of you may know this, but for those who don't, in hopes of re-calibrating my Spanish to an Argentine accent and ditch my Spanish (as in: of Spain) lisp, I'm headed to Tierra del Fuego this summer.

The plan is to live and work with a guy name Marcelo Echazu, who owns a variety of ventures including a "centro invernal" or winter center in Valle de Tierra Mayor. There has been a lot of concern over the presence or absence of snow down there during the summer, but the way I see it, it can't be any more unpredictable than in Coastal Maine!

There's good news though, relayed to me by a guy named Matt Muir who leads trips down south. Behold---------->



I know I'm excited. Are you excited? Well, get excited.

Killin' It In Keene

There are no flat roads out of our driveway. Only UPs and ROLLERs. Gotta love it. Life has been great in Keene so far...some very sunny semi-warm days and some frigid days. Hova and I have been biking a lot (something that I just got into thanks to Dumpling's bike and some urging from friends). I love it...don't be surprised if Hova and I come back in the fall looking like two thigh-building freaks. Nothing super exciting from our neck of the woods quite yet though besides the gas prices, $3.99 right down the street. Hova and I are trying to conquer the 46-4600 foot Adirondacks this summer. We are hoping to get all of them by early August before I leave and we have 4 down so far (we need to get on our horses) and have climbed the second highest Algonquin with an eclectic mix. Bates, University of Utah, UNH, and SLU folk...and one soon-to-be Bobcat. Thats it for now. Miss y'all.

First Post

Hey Everyone,

So this is what posts will tend to look like! You can put pictures and videos in them, change the font color, add links, and generally do whatever you wanna do with the menu at the top of the posting page. Go nuts!

Oh, and if you don't like the way the colors look, we can change them.

-seb