Lobo

The bad news is that Assistant Coach Marine slipped and fell on some ice in a parking lot in Anchorage, hurt her back, and was unable to go on the team’s trip to Red River for the University of New Mexico invitational.  The good news is that her back is feeling better every day, she’s able to ski with the athletes who didn’t go to New Mexico, and it looks like she’s well on her way to a fast and full recovery. 

Andrew, at his desk job.

I got the phone call from Andrew as I was making arrangements for a week’s worth of travel for my day job, asking if I could be available to show up at the airport the following morning to fill in for Marine, who wouldn’t be able to make it.  I had unbreakable work travel obligations on the day the team flew to New Mexico, but I flew down the following day, hitching a ride from Albuquerque to Red River with the University of Alaska Fairbanks team and arriving at the UAA team house in the middle of the night.  Thank you, Nanooks, for the sweet ride – and the burrito!

The Nanooks gave me a burrito and a ride to Red River. Anja, Hannah and Kirsys

We always like racing in Red River.  It’s almost always sunny, the ski trails are pretty, and the racing is tough but low-key with a unique New Mexican flavor. The racing trails are pretty high up in the thin air – just slightly below 10,000 feet. This makes for a tactical challenge because you simply cannot afford to go “anaerobic” until the final few minutes of the race because at this altitude it’s not possible to recover quickly. Racing here, there are always some unexpected results, both positive and negative.  Years ago, for example UAA’s Paul Schauer won this race, while sick, during a season in which he didn’t finish within the top ten otherwise. And there are always a few skiers who are typically on the RMISA podium but push a little too hard on the first lap and find themselves stumbling around the second lap, just trying to crawl their way to the finish line.

Quail in the start gate

Sigurd raced an excellent first (interval-start) classic race.  He was in around fifth place early in the race, but then moved into second, according to our splits, and eventually into the lead. Problem was, Alvar Alev from University of Colorado skied a better race. He started out slower than Siggi, but even as Siggi was moving up through the field, Alvar was moving faster. He skied ten seconds faster than Sigurd on the final lap, going from four seconds behind him to six seconds in front.  Nevertheless, Siggi, with his second place finish reclaims the position as the yellow jersey wearer in classic. He needs to shore up his skating in Anchorage, though, if he wants to be the RMISA MVP this year. His 11^th place on Saturday didn’t do him any favors.

Jenna

Anna

Toom

Sigurd

Sigurd finished second in the classic race. Alvar stole the handle off Siggi's flag and added it onto his own, making Siggi's flag too short, and Alvar's too long.

The second race was a "patrol start" skate race. Each team started together, giving them an opportunity to work together, if feasible.

Here's Austin on a downhill

The boys, talking it out afterwards

Jenna, Quail and Anna at the start

Jenna underway

Jenna, Michaela, Anna

We had enough time after our race to get up the hill to see a few of our alpiners in action.

Lobo coaches Christian Otto and Aljaz Praznik. They're both recent graduates at New Mexico and they put on a great set of races this weekend. The University of New Mexico Ski Team is slated to be cut at the end of this season. The Lobos have been battling this situation for the past couple of years. Last week, a New Mexico legislator advanced a bill allocating funding directly for the UNM Ski Team and soccer team.  There's a big hearing on the proposal on February 9.  If you're so inclined, you might want to make your voice heard; the Lobos can use all the help they can get!

Big Ski Country

The Seawolf situation continues to look positive at the conclusion of last week's MSU Invitational.  Our skiers are getting RMISA results that they've never achieved before. Anna scored a fifth and a sixth. Jenna has had a ninth and a tenth. Michaela has had a ninth and an eleventh. All of them have prior RMISA experience, but none have ever placed among the top ten before. And in my opinion, it's because they're taking the time to analyze and acknowledge the specific weaknesses in their skiing and apply conscious, significant adjustments during these recent RMISA races. These are the types of scenarios that really make coaching fun and satisfying!

Toomas was fourth in Montana, his best RMISA result ever. Siggi and JC are new to the circuit, but Siggi won a race and JC got an eleventh - a good start.  We have good momentum now.  The key will be to keep making these types of improvements as the racing season progresses.

Raw data (result lists, etc) can be abstract and confusing to the layperson. This graph clearly illustrates the trend of gradually improving Seawolf results described in the paragraphs above.  From the past until now, the results follow a linear trend of gradual improvement. Future Seawolf results may continue to improve along the present linear path, or they may improve or worsen precipitously, as described by the three hypothetical (dotted) lines shown. 

A little late, but better than never, here are a few photos from the conclusion of our recent road trip, from Steamboat Springs for the University of Colorado Invitational to Bozeman for the Montana State University Invitational.

We made a lunch stop in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And we took this photo.

We didn't take Route 249, in case you're wondering.  We took Route 287.

The skiing conditions were just about right. 

A core strength session in the hotel hallway.

Race morning ski preparation.

Toomas

Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck

Siggi

Brandon

Start of the womens' race. (That's not a cloud in the photo; that's the smoke from the starter's 12-gauge shotgun.)

Siggi wearing the RMISA leader's bib in Montana. Is he still in the leader's bib this weekend in New Mexico?  No.  Can he get it back? Yes. Will he get it back this weekend?  I don't know. I guess that's up to Siggi.

Optimism

Quail, Hannah, Skippy, Anna, Jenna and Marte at Rabbit Ears Pass

Earlier today, we wrapped up the racing here at the University of Colorado Invitational in Steamboat Springs. I've enjoyed this weekend of RMISA racing more than any weekend of college racing in recent memory.

Siggi on the top step this weekend

One of  the reasons we like sports is because nothing is for certain until the end of the contest. Sometimes we have unexpected breakthrough performances, and other times we put all our effort into our preparation only to fail miserably. And in the bigger picture, we tend to have periods of relative success interspersed with periods that are less successful. Like the tide, ebbing and flowing, it seems to be the nature of things, and not only in sport. If we always win, winning loses some of its value. Winning becomes normal, and less special. But it's certainly no fun to lose all the time, either. 

Skippy and Marte - 800 meters into the race.

I've been kicking around with this ski team for almost 20 years in one capacity or another. In my estimation, the tide has been out for the past few years. This team has had plenty of NCAA champions in the past, and there have been several years when our nordic team was the best in the country. 2009 comes to mind, when our nordic men went second, third and fifth at NCAA's and the UAA Ski Team (nordic and alpine, men and women) finished fourth, just a couple points out of second. Around that same time, our women were regularly winning college races as individuals, and as a team. More recently, in 2013, our nordic men were the best in the country in the mass-start skate race at the NCAA Championships.  But lately, we've been in a drought. I don't think any Seawolves have won a college cross-country race within the past five years, and the majority of our placings have been in the teens and twenties. I think the last Seawolf to win a college race was probably Lukas Ebner or Marine, our assistant coach, back when she was racing for us.

Marine. She's been deathly ill all week, but it hasn't kept her from going out and blasting around the ski trails in the afternoons.

Earlier this week, those of us who were racing in Vermont at US Nationals arrived here in Steamboat to meet the rest of the team, who'd gotten here a couple days earlier for acclimatization and training. There's been a a good vibe around the house, with plenty of laughter at dinner and lots of smiles all around.  I mentioned to Andrew the morning of our first race that I was really happy just to be included and to be having this experience with the team, and though I had no idea if we'd do well or do poorly, it felt really good to be involved in it; more than at any time that I could recall during the past few years.

Andrew, JC, Austin, Skippy. At Rabbit Ears Pass

Our women raced first on Saturday, in an individual start race. Several of our skiers had better college results than they'd ever had before.  On the other hand, several of our women were really disappointed and frustrated with how they were skiing. But I was standing at the 3.2km mark in the 5km race course, on the final, toughest hill.  I was really impressed - by everyone.  Our faster women skied very smooth and relaxed at this point in the course, even though they reported afterward that they were exhausted.  And even those who finished lower on the result list, who were deeply disappointed in their races, looked efficient and smooth on their skis. And this certainly wasn't the case for every skier out there.  I saw some women from other teams who were truly staggering and stumbling up that hill. I reported my observation to Andrew and Marine via radio, and after the race Andrew compared his splits at the 2.5km mark to the official results at the finish of the 5km race course, and found that almost everyone on our team had moved up significantly over the final couple of kilometers, which were mostly downhill.  This indicated that most likely, pretty much our entire team had skied very aggressively on the downhill and/or had good skis, and we'd gained a lot of points for the team score with smart, heads-up skiing. This was encouraging. And Anna finished sixth, her best-ever college race.

Tommy and JC at the 5km mark.

Next were the men, skiing 10km. Sigurd was in about sixth or seventh place at the 2.5km mark, but he skied a really strong second lap and finished second in his first-ever RMISA race. Tom started conservatively, but was fortunate to have a fast skier 30 seconds behind him in the start order. When Tom got caught as he came by me at the 3.2km mark, I was  frantically telling him that if he would just hang on to this guy, he could catch a great ride all the way to the finish and have a great race. Tom did exactly that and finished fourth. And JC had a solid RMISA debut with a sixteenth place finish.  At the end of the day our men's team won.  It felt great!  It had been a long time.

Training day in Steamboat

In the evening, we had a little celebration and Marine made a nice toast to our success at dinnertime, but of course there was more racing on Sunday. Sigurd, after losing the previous day's race by five seconds, was not satisfied and had made it clear that he intended to attack on Sunday. Sure enough, although he started back around 28th place in the starting grid, he'd moved into the lead by the 600 meter mark, and immediately pressed the pace, breaking up the mens' field at the 1km mark.  His was a lead group of four, and Sigurd spent most of the race assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the others in the group. His analysis gave him plenty of confidence coming into the finish, and he controlled the sprint to the line, winning decisively. After a stretch of not winning races, it felt great to have a Seawolf at the top of the results again!

Siggi got his first win out of the way. The season's just getting started. I'm hoping there will be more wins for us this winter.

So the season is underway.  I'm enjoying myself more than any Ski Team trip in recent memory.  We're road-tripping it to Montana tomorrow for more racing next weekend. All is good with the Seawolves!

Reportedly, there were some among us who wondered if we'd be able to bring all our stuff to Montana.

Stating the Obvious

Nome, Alaska

Several years ago, during a work trip in Nome, on the northwest coast of Alaska, I saw a road sign that said "SLIPPERY WHEN ICY".  I had never seen a road sign that said that before, and it seemed like such self-evident statement that I felt obliged to take a picture of it. I mean, if it's icy, then wouldn't everyone in Nome assume that it would also be slippery?  It's icy a lot in Nome, which is located just south of the Arctic Circle, so people there are presumably familiar with the ice:slipperiness relationship.

My little home this week

Here at US Nationals in Vermont, I've been kept locked inside a little trailer beside the ski trails all week. You'd think it would be full of shovels and rakes, but in fact it's full of TV monitors. And I sit in there all day and talk about ski racing while everyone else gets to roam around free.

Inside my little silver box

Yesterday, though, Yuriy gave me some time off, so I drove north to visit my sister and her family who took me out for a little alpine skiing at the local hill.  I consider myself a pretty decent alpine skier. But I haven't done much East Coast skiing since the 1980's when I was racing in high school on various sheets of ice around the northeast. Since moving out west, I guess I've gotten soft because I felt completely inadequate and humbled by what I faced at Jay Peak Saturday afternoon.

Aren't signs like these redundant in the northeast?

When we got off the lift at the top of the hill, we saw the warning signs above. I've skied on icy snow plenty of times so it didn't faze me, until my first, cautious turn. I went into a sideslip, but wasn't really getting any edge. And then I realized that I wasn't slowing down; I was speeding up! Immediately, I regretted not packing my helmet on this trip.  Whether my head hit the ice or a tree, it seemed pretty apparent that I was bound to hit something before the day was out.

Our rat pack. (Thanks to Conor McDonald for the correct terminology)

Nobody on the hill seemed too bothered by the hard snow. One woman slipped and fell beside me. Before long, she'd picked up speed and was rocketing downhill toward people stopped on the slope. They calmly moved aside to let her pass thru.  The woman didn't seem too concerned, once she'd stopped. Soon enough, she laughed and got back on her feet and continued on. Just another day of skiing.

Rock and ice at the upper tram station.

On our way up the lift after our first run, I said something to my sister about the treacherous conditions, but she didn't seem to know what I was talking about. When I explicitly stated that I thought it was pretty icy, she looked at me like I was from another planet and said it had been kind of icy a few weeks ago after a succession of rainstorms, but they'd had a bunch of new snow - a few inches at least - and that's why we had such good ski conditions now. There and then, I remembered what it is to ski in the east, and I remembered that New Englanders have a completely different scale than westerners for measuring iciness. When you ski in the east, it's going to be an ice sheet; that's a given.  But when there's a sign at the top of the run that says, in essence, that today there's going to be more ice and rocks than usual, then you know you're in for a special treat. I remember my first day skiing outside of New England, at Squaw Valley, CA in 1987 . The locals were complaining that it was icy. But I had never seen such soft, fluffy snow in my life!

A Vermonter (my nephew Andrew) preparing to ski The Vermonter (a ski trail).

Jay Peak

Today was the first day with no races at Craftsbury.  Marine had skied the 30 kilometers home from the racing trails earlier in the week and recommended it.  JC and Quail wanted to ski home today, and they let me tag along. Here are some photos I took along the way:

Fischer's Sugarbush.  No sap was running today. It was only about 10 degrees out there.

Walking the final couple hundred yards from the Greensboro trailhead to our house.

Home sweet home for the week.

And lastly, former Seawolf Patricia Sprecher and Scott Browning were married yesterday.  Congratulations to Pati and Scott!

Tomorrow is classic sprint day, so I go back for another full day in my little silver box.