A Special Guest Blog from PRO SKIER Beth Taylor

Heyo everybody, this is Beth Taylor, guestblogging from the couches of Alumni Gym in Lewiston, Maine. First of all, I guess I should explain what I am doing here. Back in early September, I realized I would never make it through my first fall as an alumni without Tollhouse pie, Commons' apple cider, and of course my bobcats and kittens. I caved, bought a plane ticket, and made Becky promise to keep my return a secret. Fast forward to this past Friday, when I strolled into the ski room like I had never left.

My first few hours at Bates were everything I could have imagined and more. After several hours of double takes, hugs, and getting slide tackled in Commons (Hallie...), I was skiing through postcard-worthy New England scenery, getting caught up on everything I had missed in Bates life. My welcome to Maine was completed with fresh apples and cider donuts at Becky's house post-ski. By 7:30 PM, I found myself in an electric yellow, blue-flowered pair of snowsuit overalls, surrounded by equally stylish teammates, strapping on rollerskates and trying to do the Gangnam Style dance on wheels without falling on my face. Stars of the evening were Mr. Nick Michaud, gettin frisky with gender boundaries in a kimono and matching hat; Ms. Sally Ryerson, whose dinosaur suit inspired a young fan to ask for her autograph; and Mr. Jordan Buetow, whose skating skills cannot be matched.

Taking over the Rollodrome in a storm of neon.

Sally and Britta's biggest admirer

Early the next morning a squad of Bobcats and I got up early for the annual Dempsey Challenge charity run. Highlights of the day were several 10k titles (Filly for the men, Hallie and I for the women), a lot of awesome Bobcat spirit as everyone cheered for everyone else during overlapping points in the run, and the discovery that Patrick Dempsey was repping a Bates Skiing hat (thanks to Avril Dunleavy). That afternoon I got introduced to Lucas' new core workout (very simple: do core for thirty minutes, straight up), and began to understand the abundance of six-packs on the team.

Beautiful Bobcats with some average-looking dude

Yesterday while some of us did a skate roll/run workout around Pineland, most of the men's team, plus Hallie, Jane and Caroline, braved the rainy conditions to bike anywhere from 25 to 100 miles for the Dempsey ride. Overall sounded like a pretty awesome ride (shoutout to Filly, who broke his chain within six miles and had to trek back to campus), with a pack of Batesies leading the century just behind the lead car. 

At this point everyone is studying hard to get midterms done before we head out to Rangeley Wednesday morning for some serious uphill time trials and some even more serious apple pie baking and football playing. (check twitter for live updates on the annual and highly anticipated Rangeley Bowl.) as always, it's a good day to be a bobcat....and it's good to be back.

The very illustrious and very professional Beth Taylor.

The Team That Was a Family

School and training are now in full swing here in western Maine and the past few weeks have been filled with hard work,  euphoria, foliage, and family. Veteran members of the Bates Nordic Ski Team gathered last week to solidify our ideas of what it means to be members of the Nordic team. We dispersed into groups to brainstorm and develop lists of words. After converging, it was no surprise, although magical, that every group listed the word ‘Family.’ 

Our immediate family

In the past weeks members of the team have been mindful of this and more cognizant  of the positive and productive atmosphere we have constructed. Like a family, we have been attacking our tasks in full force. We began with a week of testing including a 3000m track test, a 15k classic time trial, and an endurance strength test. Some smashed personal records while others may have faced disapointment, but at the end of the week we had each other to tell tales of feat, or be there with positive support. 

Girls attacking a hill in Auburn

Seanie attacking MATH

As brothers, we took a short vacation in Acadia consisting of sailing, 'SUP'ing, card games, an extensive hide and seek game, and lobster by the beach.

Brothers finding bliss in Acadia

The girls group is really large this year and with numbers comes competition. Expect big things from these ladies.

Lots of sisters on Crocker Mountain

Two of our sisters, Andrea and Gabby, have been running cross country this fall and have already been pushing each other to compete with Bobcat Pride. Andrea and Gabby have been setting personal records.

 We hosted a 5K run/walk as a fundraiser for the Nordic Team and the Lewiston Adult Learning Center.

We had a remarkable turnout!

The start

Pete forerunning around our picturesque campus

 Family is not only really important to help push and motivate each other, but to help relax and have fun.

Dropping in on a local skate park during a skate ski

Captain Lukey getting rad on a pile of remnants from...a recent snowfall in Lewiston?

Thanks for checking in!

Cat Country: Big Cat NCAA's edition

We have now been in beautiful Bozeman, Montana for five days and have seen three days of significant snow fall, with the rest being your picturesque 50 degree sunny day in Big Sky Country. It's gorgeous. The skiing has been amazing with all the fresh snow so we at least have perfect conditions to look forward to on the challenging course. We stayed at the Mogk's house for the first few days, which was a great way to settle in and we especially enjoyed playing with their dog, Bridger. On Saturday we moved into the Holiday Inn where we will spend the rest of the week. Joining us here are UNH and Williams, as well as a few alpine teams. Saturday we also did some intensity to see how going hard feels at altitude—it was a lot different but every day we seem to adjust better and better. Sunday we went for a nice easy classic off of the race course and it was some of the nicest skiing some of us have ever experienced, especially (those of us from Vermont) because it was 45 degrees and we were skiing on zeros or hardwax! On Monday some of us went for an easy ski while others lounged, and we all reconvened in the afternoon for some shopping on Main Street. Jordan (unsuccessfully) searched Bozeman high and low for cowboy boots, while Beth scored big on an oldschool one-piece Bogner ski suit. We finished the day with some Bates team bonding at Johnny Carino's for dinner with the Alpine crew. We are looking forward to some sweet racing tomorrow. For all of us it will be our NCAA Championship debut so we look forward to setting the tone for the week with some solid results in the skate race.

For live coverage of the weeks races follow this link:

http://www.ncaa.com/liveschedule

P.S. We will be posting pictures this afternoon.