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
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