Or so I've always been told. We had a couple of great practices this weekend. The snow couldn't have been better (sorry, southern Maine) and our young athletes were chomping at the bit. Jake persevered as the lone high school skier while I made him slavishly drill through some classical technique work. Like most younger skiers, he prefers to skate, but I have assured him that he will discover the zen of classic in due time. We worked on committing the weight to one ski, and swinging the drive leg though with good momentum and forward release. Relentless coach that I am, I turned around and made him do a classic time trial today, in far from ideal conditions. He had a strong showing, and already he is starting to pick up some of the technical subtleties. I think by seasons end he'll be singing a different tune about which discipline he prefers, but we'll see. Right now we're keeping our eyes on the prize and working to get into the post-season, and he's well on his way.
The younger crew was out in full force. Today we had 4th grader Lena, 5th grader Mitchell, and 8th graders Kaitlyn and Trent. After a little icebreaking session, Abby and I put them through the paces, doing some no-pole technical drills. These kids are picking up skating in a hurry, making me wonder why it took me so darned long to learn. After looping the stadium for a little while, we went right into "feats of balance", which today consisted of sking backwards down a very steep, ungroomed trail. I made it about ten feet before being shown up by both Lena and Trent. Hoping to save face, I switched us over to one ski distance contests, but still failed to top Trents hill spanning perfect run. Once we were all good and soaked, we headed out on trail for a longer ski and another big hill to tackle. This one was even longer, and also ungroomed. We opted for chinese downhill, where two skiers lock arms and test each others balance with shoulder pushes as they go down the hill. Trent seemed to interpret my instructions as "throw your partner into the woods", which he attempted on every run. Our finale was a four person linked ski to the bottom, of which only Mitchell and Kaitlyn managed to survive intact. Abby and I both wished we had remembered the camera; it was quite a sight, at least until Trent and Lena's spectacular crash. But it was a great day of skiing, and I hope the kids had half as much fun as Abby and I did. We're both really looking forward to next weekend and some more nordic goofiness.
Since we don't have any pictures this week, here is one of my favorite inspirational nordic videos: Petter Northug showing the definitive "finishing kick"
Wow!
Adam
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