Ben-Hur

I've missed a ton of practices this fall due to my travel schedule but I was back in town today and just in time to do my best Charlton Heston impersonation in the AAC parking lot. 

It was Chariot Race Day at with the UAA Ski Team, and it looked something like this: 

Hannah Rudd. She was strong through every round today. (Is that a skate push, Marcus?)

Here's Michaela pulling Zacke and Natalie pulling Pietro.

Marcus and Hannah.

Zacke and Michaela.

Tommy pulling Hailey.

Pietro and Skippy

Skippy and Pietro. Skippy spent the summer of 2016 doing her first real summer of rollerskiing (as opposed to snow-skiing) in many years, and it looks like it's paying off because she was strong from start to finish today.

Skippy hanging loose behind Tom

This Natalie/Pietro duel went down to the wire.

X-Rays

If you go into Andrew's office this week, I guess this is the first thing you're going to see.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what we're looking at here. This is a picture of Bjork's fibula. She broke it yesterday in the midst of her glorious demonstration of rollerski skills and agility at the Kincaid biathlon range. Bjork goes in for surgery (some plates and screws) on Friday, and hopefully back to full training by December. I hope Bjork will remember that a dude almost won Vasaloppet about 10 years ago after badly breaking his leg in the off-season and doing nothing but double-poling all summer, fall, and winter prior to the biggest ski race in the world. We're all hoping for a very quick recovery for Bjork!

Park Rats

Today was a day for mad skillz and phat tricks. Agility day at Kincaid Park. 

Here's Skippy

Hailey vs Toomas

Marcus and Pietro. In Alpine skiing, what Von Scheben is doing is referred to as a "hook". And they disqualify you every time you do it.

Sadie vs Bjork

Sadie

Toomas pretty much dominated the men's side until the last round when Zacke came through for the tie.
That's Skippy on the tarmac in the background. But she wasn't just lying there. At the moment I snapped this photo, she was sliding across the pavement at about Mach 1 after coming into the finish a little hot.

Here's Bjork, who showed up with the illest park skillz to rule the day, hands down.

Bjork was actually going backward in this photo. No joke.

But Hanna came out of nowhere to win the final round after Bjork taught her how to roll straight to switch for the backward section of the skillz course.

Seems like most everyone crashed at least once today. Hanna, Skippy...  But Bjork had the bloodiest of all, with a tragic disaster at the drag race finish line, which left her dripping blood, oozing blood, and bleeding.

Skippy didn't get many chances to put her first aid skills to use this summer lifeguarding at the UAA pool. But she did get a chance to take care of her teammate Bjork today. It was at about this time that I heard Sara suggest that Casey use more bandages to try to keep the team van from looking like a murder scene.

Pics O' th' Day

Kincaid Park

Skating

 And technique analysis with Sara.

Happy New Year!

A brand new year, and a very new team at UAA. I had to miss the first week of practice because I had some business to attend to in the desert last week. But I got back to town last night and went out with the team today for a little rollerski action. I'm very excited about the year ahead!

Hey Coach, can I put this in my training log? (Thanks, Lisa, for the photo!)

Toomas, Andrew, Baron Von Dusseldorf, Zacke, and Pietro in fine form this morning.

Team stretching led by Freshman Hailey to finish the session.