Midd Recap

After being personally attacked by Max in the last blog I felt as though I had to take on the responsibility of writing the recap from the Midd carnival. So, Max I am sorry for not saying goodbye, and here is my effort at making up for that.
The crew gathered at Rikert on Friday afternoon (a day later than originally planned due to conditions) and previewed the course. We all stayed at Britta's house, where most of the boys and Britta had spent all of break week. Huge thank you to Tony and Sheri for hosting us! Friday evening we had all the skiers and our families together for dinner at Blueberry Hill Inn. Again, the food was amazing, and the company even better. We mingled as many athletes tried to keep a watchful eye on their parents, trying to reduce the number of embarrassing stories told. But inevitably the stories were shared despite some of our best efforts. Tony (Britta's father) gave a speech about the place of the nordic community in his life, and we all signed a lovely picture of Britta when she was younger. John (Corky's dad), Deb (Gracie's mom), and Hank (my dad) all made similar points about how special this time in our life is, and how the memories we make today will carry us for many years to come. A few team photos, dessert, and some last embarrassing exchanges capped a wonderful night.

Saturday (5k/10k Skate)
The boys started the day off with a 10k individual skate race. Considering the circumstances it was incredible what Rikert was able to put together. Everyone who made these races possible deserve a huge thank you, but with my limited power the best I can do is a shout-out on this blog!! The boys were met with fast conditions, and some icy downhills. The men were led by Corky in 27th, with Nate and Parker scoring for the team. Henry made his EISA debut, and put forward a valiant effort.

After a regrooming of the A climb, the ladies were off for their 5k skate. Sadie set the pace for the day finishing a career best 14th, followed by Snorel in 20th, and Britta (on her home course) in 25th. The course was fast and furious. We laughed the night before when Becky called it a 12 minute 5k... she wasn't wrong.

Sunday( 15k/20k Classic)
Again, the boys started off the day with a 20k classic mass start. The course broke down fast and left many K's to be skied through slush. Again, Corky led the way in 30th, followed by Nate in 36th, and for the first time Wade scored for the team in 51st.

The day only got warmer, and the course more broken down for the women's race. I heard many adjectives describing our race, many of them I cannot write on this blog, so I will just tell you it was brutal. However, Bobcats are tough and Sadie skied to 12th, qualifying herself for THE BIG SHOW (NCAA's)!!!! Gracie to 30th, and well Bobcats do like to travel in packs so Britta, Laurel, myself, and Helen finished 35, 36, 37, 38 respectively.

As I am still recovering from this weekend of racing, writing this has made me tired (Max- this is kind of hard, new found respect for what you did the past two months). Many pictures were taken, and posts written so I am going to let those do the talking. But one (or maybe two) last things: Thank you to all the parents who traveled around New England this winter for their cheering, food prep, and most of all their support. This wouldn't be possible without you.

Congratulations for an incredible four years to our four seniors: Corky, Britta, Gracie, and Helen. Enjoy retirement!

Corks

C.Gray

Colt

Ladies Start

S.James

Britta (is that almost a smile?)

Helen

Gracie

Snorel

H.Lange

The Boyz

As James says "You can take a nap in the snow when you are done." 

I am sure there will be more posts to recap the season, but until then it is on to NCAA's, and Marathon season! 

The next episode

Lewiston, ME- It might be fitting that this is both my last and latest blog post. I'm boarding a plane that'll eventually drop me off in New Zealand here in about 11 hours, which leaves me just enough time to recap my last weekend of the season and make some wild predictions for the team's performance at the upcoming Midd Carnival.

The Williams carnival somewhat confusingly took place in Lake Placid, NY. I'd blame the awful winter we've been having, but I'm worried that doing so would anger Ullr even further than whatever we've already done to deserve a February with more rain than snow. So anyways, we went to Lake Placid and skied on the paved loop at the ski jumping arena. A paved loop means that a course can be groomed with very low amounts of snow, and so the 2.5k course was in great shape despite the general lack of snow. The course itself was partially designed by our own assistant coach James Upham (who recently celebrated his 29th birthday on February 20th), who was able to give us an in depth guide to each twist and turn. I'll summarize that guide into: the course went uphill for a while, then it twisted down for a while, then it lapped through a flat stadium.

The carnival itself was a 10k skate race, and then a 5k pursuit start classic. I haven't done a pursuit since high school, nor has anyone else to my knowledge, so it was an awesome change of pace. The skate took place on conditions best described as "thinly covered ice," and some of the turns were a little bit spicy. But we put up some awesome races anyway, with Laurel skiing to a career-best 12th place, Grace in 18th, and Britta in 22nd. On the men's side we had a tight pack of me, Corky, and Nate in 24th, 25th, and 27th, all separated by about 15 seconds total.

The next day was a battle for spots, where you started based on your time back the first day, and were scored based on your finish order, rather than time. Temps pushed into the high 40s, and waxing was interesting, to say the least. Nevertheless, Sadie James crushed it, posting the 11th fastest time and moving up 13 spots to 25th.

After the races, I stoically said goodbye to everyone but Halie (who disappeared without a word, thank you) and drove off back to Lewiston. Since then I've been treated to snap stories from the crew staying with Britta in Middlebury, sketchy ice fishing, and lots of time to speculate on how we'll do at Middlebury. The races have been moved back a day due to excessive rain, which if you ask me favors those teams from Maine because if nothing else we've gotten used to rain. We will also see Henry Colt's scoring debut at Middlebury, where the newly 21 years old loose canon could shock the circuit with some stellar results, as long as he keeps both skis on his feet.

I guess that this is where I'll leave this last blog post, I really don't anything more to say besides a huge thank you to the whole Bates Nordic Family for all the support and love. Every weekend I'm humbled by the incredible display of support that our parents put on for us.

So until next semester, thanks for putting up with my poor spelling, grammar, and humor.

Max

Better late than never

Lewiston, ME- Once again I am late in updating the blog. Even more disgraceful, I didn't even manage to write a post last Thursday. But, as the title of this post says, better late than never.

Last weekend we raced a 20k classic mass start at Dartmouth's carnival in Craftsbury. Unfortunately, I kind of missed the beginning of the mass start and started a bit late(sorry Becky). Fortunately, this gives me perfect material for a blog post! So instead of the usual boring summary, I'm going to try something new this week and give a detailed timeline of how I missed a mass start, titled "How I missed a mass start."

2 Weeks to race start: Max gives a brief lecture on how stupid you would have to be to miss a mass start.

18 hours to race start: Max previews the course, decides that the best strategy is an aggressive start.

13.5 hours to race start: Max promises Becky that he will be skiing in the top 20 out of the starting area.

11 hours to race start: Max visualizes his first few laps and psyches himself up to stick with the lead group.

1 hour to race start: Max puts on his ski clothes, goes over his warmup plan one more time and grabs his watch so he can stick to the plan.

41 minutes to race start: Max returns his race skis for the first of two re-waxings, continues warmup.

28 minutes to race start: Max practices some start speeds, knowing that it will be his best chance to make up some ground.

11 minutes to race start: Max's race skis are ready to go, he runs inside real quick to change his shirt and throw his bib on.

5 minutes to race start: Max leaves his watch in the lodge, runs to the bathroom, and grabs his skis.

4-1 minutes to race start: ???? somewhat unclear

1 minute to race start: Max compliments a girl's hair in the parking lot, and happily runs towards the start pen.

10 seconds to race start: Max realizes something is wrong when his spot is the only unfilled spot in the start area.

-5 seconds to race start: Max, still with jacket on and skis off, lets out a heartfelt inappropriate exclamation which draws the ire of a nearby elderly spectator.

aprox. -30 seconds to race start: Max succeeds at putting his skis and poles on, and starts off after the disappearing pack.

The rest of the race: At this point I think the coaches and women's team assumed I had fallen and broke a pole, so I was actually getting cheered at instead of receiving the disappointed glares I probably deserved. It took me another minute or so to really realize what I had done, and to reevaluate my goals. I just decided to start picking racers off and see how far up I could get. I believe that the lead group was actually moving pretty slow for the first two laps or so, which helped me to no end. I ended up racing the best mass start I've ever done and finishing 28th. I am disappointed in myself for screwing up such a simple task like getting myself to the start, and for letting the rest of the team down, but I was really happy with my effort and glad for the learning experience.

The rest of the crew also had some strong races, with Corky in 24th and Nate in 35th. The women fared a bit better, with Sadie skiing to a strong 13th, while seniors Britta and Grace finished 24th and 26th respectively. It was one of those days that was just difficult racing, with temperatures for the girls race only borderline legal (around -4 degrees F), and not much warmer for the men's race. Our skis were crazy fast though, so a big thanks to the coaches.

Other important news: Happy 21st to HENRY COLT!!!! I'm not sure if the Blue Goose is open on Mondays, but if it is, don't enjoy yourself too much.

Stay tuned for my penultimate blog post on Thursday previewing the Williams carnival, which will take place in Lake Placid, NY.

UVM Ups and Downs

Lewiston, ME- After a brief hiatus, I'm back to bring everyone more bloggy awesomeness. Shout out to Bria Riggs for doing an awesome job filling in last Thursday! I had really meant to get this post out yesterday, but due to a combination of being tired, lazy, and asleep, I didn't. Anyways, back to carnival season (which coincidentally lines up with Carnaval do Brazil)!

We save this sort of stuff for next weekend's Carnie Crush

We spent the last weekend in Craftsbury because UVM's home course of Stowe was more grass than snow. The races were skate and classic 10ks for the men, and a 5k skate and 10k classic for the women.

Results:
Well Saturday went pretty well for must of the squad. Conditions were best described as sugar over ice, which made for a wicked fast race. Each 2.5k lap was taking around 5 and a half minutes (which makes for a blistering speed of 27.27km/h). Described by retiree Ben Pratt, the snow was "corny choss." Although Ben wasn't there and I'm not sure what that means, it seems to fit. Anyways, here are some highlights:

Britta Clark bringing it in in 15th place, followed .7 seconds later by Laurel in 16th, and Sadie 2.5 seconds after that in 18th.

Nate Moreau had a breakout race, finishing in a career-best 24th. He was followed by me in 27th and Parker in 28th, making this the first time in quite a while that the men's team has had all three scorers in the top 30.

I think it goes without saying "training together equals racing together," there was only a combined 12 seconds separating all of our scorers.

We ended the day with our women in 5th place and our men only 7 points behind Middlebury and Colby, who tied for 5th.


It seems that good things usually get balanced out, because our Sunday performance was a little lackluster. The flat course had a significant portion of the men's field choosing to double pole on skate skis, a feat that for me at least would have been inviting a hernia. Regardless, our hours practicing for the hills of Stowe and Oak Hill didn't help too much, and as a whole I don't think we skied the way we had hoped. Regardless I think that everyone is hungry for next weekend, when we'll get a chance at some redemption.

Pics:

They call them freedom, just like a waving flag

Bates Sports shamelessly tweeting a horribly out of date (but totally bad***) pic of P. Mcdonald

Team Update!

Carnival season is in full swing, people are prepping for the UVM carnival/E Cup/Supertour this weekend, and there isn't much snow on the ground. This time last year campus was covered in a beautiful glistening blanket of snow and it was so cold that I was questioning my decision to move from California to Maine. Today it's 52 degrees and everyone went running in shorts and t-shirts. But this post isn't supposed to be about mother nature's decision to move to the West coast for the winter, it's about how we've all managed to stay pumped and positive despite the conditions.
If you don't currently follow our team instagram page, you should drop everything and go follow us right now, @batesnordic. This way you wont actually have to waste energy reading words, but you can still follow all of our adventures through beautiful pictures. Just kidding, don't stop reading the blog, but do start following the team on instagram. So back to my point, you can tell that the conditions aren't great based on our instagram posts, but we've still been having lots of fun and training hard.
On Tuesday, some of the team tested their downhill skills and got some great pics in the process. Below you can see Connor Gray sporting his tricks that are normally saved for alpine skiing and Britta giving us a glimpse into her future in the modeling industry.

Source Credit: Connor Gray's Instagram
Photography Credit: Halie Lange

Everyone has somehow managed to still be stoked to enjoy the warm weather that we've been given so far this winter. This weekend we get to travel to the great state of Vermont and race at Craftsbury (races were moved this morning from Trapp's). It will be the first carnival of the season that isn't at Quarry Road, and I think that everyone is excited for a change of scenery and some new courses. So as the hustle and bustle of waxing continues in the fabulous new and improved ski room, we are all internally doing a snow dance and hoping fro improved conditions in the coming weeks. And as a more random/general update, here are some photos I've collected from the past few weeks. Enjoy!

The Dream Team: Halie and Helen after their amazing
performances in the skate team sprint at Colby Carnival 

Hadley as the MVS (most valuable spectator) for the
men's race at Colby Carnival

A beautiful sunset from the top of Lost Valley to round out a
beautiful ski! 

Happy Snow Dancing,

Bria