Finals Week

To make a long story short, things got pretty busy around here lately. It was finals week at UAA, and while the team battled through their final exams, I found myself under a pretty big workload at my day job.  Then the semester ended, the team scattered to the four winds, and I took off on a ski vacation in Colorado.  Consequently, no blogging was done all month.

But just because nobody blogged about it doesn't mean races weren't raced and everyone took the month off from training.  And here are some photos to prove that we weren't just eating bonbons and playing board games around here all month:

Early December at Kincaid Park

Racing in the Anchorage Cup at Kincaid.

The coaches don't get too many chances to race since they're usually obligated to do all the coaching. Andrew took the opportunity to race the Anchorage Cup.

...As did Marine.  She's number 324 here. And that's Hannah behind her. Coaches can learn a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of their athletes by racing against them head to head.

We didn't have enough snow in Anchorage to host the Besh Cup races as scheduled. So the races were moved to Fairbanks. Here's Tracen in one of his heats in the sprint race.

Sadie and Jenna.

Skippy and Natalie.  Skippy went through to the final and was in the running to win the overall, but a spill in the final third of the final derailed her.

Donna and Denny DiFolco were kind enough to house some of our skiers over the Fairbanks Besh Cup weekend, and invited us all over for dinner on Saturday night. Saichi & Connie Oba also hosted some of our skiers at their house. The Seawolves really appreciate their hospitality!

Stories told 'round the dinner table...

...and then around the wood stove.

I found this dog.

More racing in Fairbanks. Here's Zacke.

If you can identify this former UAA Seawolf racing in Fairbanks, you might be eligible to win a special prize.

A lot of Seawolves in this group in Sunday's mass-start race. That's Michaela leading the group.

Hannah