Tour de Rumford

What a sweet weekend! Too many highlights to count:

Lindsay busting out an awesome skate race

Jake's technique getting tighter and more effective every race

Justin laying down a FIFTEENTH PLACE (!) in the the sprint qualifier

Lauren's unbelievable 15k skate race

College friend and Turino Olympian Justin Freeman showing up to put the field in its place

Catching up with friends I only see during the winter (shout out to Deven, Roger, Pete, Alexei, Eileen, Flynny and Becky, and many others)

and, last but not least, me performing a crowd-pleasing cartwheeling crash in front of the entire stadium crowd. Not that it did any favors to my sprint time.

Anyway, here's some video of our troops in action, it was a good weekend to be a Big Dog and Abby and I are mighty proud coaches this Monday.

Bill Koch-apalooza

This weekend was actually my first time coaching athletes in a Bill Koch event, and I must say I was hooked. Everything was very low key and informal, the kids were all pumped up, and the courses were great. Abby and I couldn't be more proud of our little nordies, and I can't wait to bust them out at another race. Here is Caitlin recieving some "wise council" before her race:



and here she is at the Podium ceremony:



Ike also came and threw down some smack in the boys race, unfortunately we don't have any pictures. But he skied great and did us very proud.

And, perhaps most important, Mitchell skied his FIRST EVER cross country ski race. How many of you remember your very first? I'm so glad that we got this on film, so that in 15 years, when he's on the U.S. Ski Team, he can look back and see where it all began. Without further ado, here begins the career of Mighty Mitchell:

Threes and Fours

Here's a look at some of the younger members of the CVA team, our JIIIs and JIVs:

Vlogging

That's my new term for "video blogging", (blogging, of course, is a condensation of "web logging"). So from now on, I will refer to this activity as "vlogging", and then act like everyone should know what I am talking about. Anyway...

Nowadays, everyone likes to talk about "high hands". Its the fashionable technical point of the season, and everyone I talk to seems to come to this point pretty quickly. And don't get me wrong; high hands are great, and definately a part of fast skiing. The problem is, its only half of the mantra. The super-condensed explanation of great form is "high hands, high hips". The latter refers to hips that are up over the wax pocket (under the toes). In short, its the "hips forward" that my athletes will tell you I rarely shut up about. Today we tackled the problem head on, trying a couple of different strategies. See for yourself:

How to sprint

CSU put on an awesome event with the Weston sprints. Impossibly great snow, great crowd, and everyone having a thoroughly good time. Since ALL of my athletes were otherwise engaged this weekend, I was flying solo. So I have decided to use my experience to create a little primer for sprint events that I hope will be helpful to people. Pay close attention, because I will be pouring in all of my wisdom and experience.

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Step One: Dress the part
Always wear sunglasses during a sprint. Always. Even if its at night and you all have headlamps on. It looks intimidating, and you can imagine yourself as Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Also, pushing up the sleeves is a fancy touch; nordic-casual is in this season. But don't push up the legs of your suit unless you are a girl, and even then it looks a little weird.



Step Two: Make the heats
Having done this exactly once in my life, I now consider myself fully qualified in giving advice on this. First, choose the course thats right for you. If, like me, you out-weigh the rest of the field by a good 20 pounds, try to avoid courses that make you go uphill alot. Weston's ski track is very good to me. Beyond that, ski like heck and pray to the divinity of your choice



Step Three: Play to your strengths
Or maybe I should say, play away from your weaknesses. Here you see me dropping a lung to get to the turns first. Since the high school kids are all in shape and stuff, I figured it was only fair to hog the inside lane on every turn. All's fair in love and racing.



Step Four: Stick to your gameplan
Here you see my first crucial error: I forgot to put my sunglasses down for the finals. When you deviate from your strategy, anything can happen.



Step Five: Know where the camera guy is
Anyone who was at the event knows that I was smoked on the hills and cruised in to an anti-climactic last in this heat (foiled by climbing!). However, in this, the last shot of the day, I still look in contention. Therefore, saving energy for a strong finish would have been wasted. Instead, I preserved the illusion of prowess to everyone who doesn't bother to read the results list. A partial victory, but I'll take it.




(seriously now) congrats to Chris, Nick, and Topher for well fought races, and mega thanks to CSU and Weston Ski Track for a wonderful event. Next weekend CVA is back in official training, and I promise a real post instead of more evidence that I need a life instead of a laptop.

Adam

Technical session

Did some classic technique work today, very productive, here's the video of our results:

Intervals

Just as the snow started to fly, we were working hard. A good set of intervals up the warming hut trail at Sugarloaf. Jake and Lindsay both had a nice tight cluster of times, and they are working hard on shoring up the classic form. I'll let Caroline's pictures speak for themselves.