Confident and Comfortable

By late Sunday, it was clear that last weekend's Supertour was instrumental in preparing our team for the races we tackled this weekend. Everyone improved upon their results and races this weekend, whether at the Scholastica Invite or at Theodore Wirth. Not only that, but never before have we had such a smooth travel/race weekend. Attitudes were positive, we were organized, on time, motivated, and ready to go. Everyone had goals and strategies to work on.  To quote Coach Tom: 
"I think this was and is a major key to success in racing: Ski with focus and a goal or plan in mind. It doesn't necessarily have to involve results--it's often better if you focus on something that you and you alone can control. It can involve technique, pacing, tactics, sections of the race course to emphasize, elements of your fitness to draw upon, a mental attitude to maintain, anything." 

All-in-all, it was a fantastic weekend that boosted everyone's confidence in themselves and racing. It was fun to watch everyone improve with experience.

The Varsity team woke up early in Biwabik and raced a 15k/20k skate in near-perfect conditions on a tough course (one lap for the entire race!). Emma and Elise both pulled off top-20s finishing 15th and 17th respectively. In the 20k, Liam finished 18th and Joel raced miraculously without breaking a pole, finishing 28th. The boys learned a lot about pack skiing and taking feeds during 20k's, and the girls had a chance to ski the long races they love. We even managed to make it back in time for dinner (due to some expert van-jitsu in the snowstorm done by Paige).

RESULTS
15k/20k Skate

The D-team headed back up to Theo Wirth to race a 10k skate. Nora handily won the OJ category, which qualified her for the Midwest Junior National team, so she is headed to Alaska for Junior Nationals in March! Amelia Schurke also skated her way to 7th OJ. For the boys, Eli Johnson had his second great race of the weekend, finishing as 10th OJ with Paul Dau close behind in 11th.

RESULTS
10k Skate

Next weekend the Varsity makes the 8 hour van ride to Marquette, MI to compete in the CCSA Championships - sprints on Saturday and a relay on Sunday. The D-Team will ski the City of Lakes Loppet or use the weekend to get some hard workouts in.

A BIG thank you to Mike Smith, Zach Hudson, and Scott Kimes for helping Tom out with waxing and coaching for the weekend! We owe you guys!

Nels and Joel cheer on the ladies
Giant's Ridge holds a lot of memories for college skiers from the Midwest
Gretchen coming through the stadium 
Elise coming through the stadium
Emma midway through the 15k
The men's mass-start
StOlaf girls team!
Liam on his finish stretch into the stadium 
Evan heading into the finish 
You can always count on Joel for having fantastic race faces... 
.... As for Nels, maybe not.  (Disclaimer, getting feeds is nearly impossible on a downhill)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dog Days

Image
     Seeing as summer is rapidly drawing to a close, it seems fitting that St. Olaf Nordic should offer an update on all of their summer adventures. In the absence of snow, we still manage to train (and even have fun!) in the dog days of summer. Our team is scattered all around the United States from the east coast to the west coast and our activities and training are just as variable.      Mitchell has been spending the summer at Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve in Maine as an assistant camp counselor. He has collected an impressive variety of nicknames from his campers, such as “fungi,” “fathead” (hopefully named for the minnow species), and “Sensei.” Although he misses his teammates, he has been managing to have fun and train by rollerskiing and hiking around Maine. Mitchell found Mark Trail on the backroads of Maine      Moving westward, several members of St. Olaf Nordic have remained in the general Minnesota area...
Read more

Wrapping Up CCSA

Image
For our last CCSA race of the season, the Oles took our largest team up to the infamous hills at Al Quaal, in Ishpeming, Michigan. Unfortunately, our attempts at intimidating the NMU’s and Green Beans with large numbers weren’t super successful and they still showed up in full force. Saturday’s races were mass start: a 15k skate for the women, and a 20k skate for the men.  It was a beautiful day, and more than a few of us went home with a sunburn!  Bri and Shelby took advantage of a great opportunity to race well, finishing 22 and 28, respectively.  The men were led by two fantastic freshmen, Tyler in 40th and Spencer in 44th.  Chris and Leif also made statements with their headwear choices: a sparkly red baseball cap for Chris, and a Pokemon had for Leif.  In their 2017 debuts Andrew and Molly performed well and we were glad to have them back from the Mediterranean.  I’d tell you where they were, but I wouldn’t want to get it wrong and make that the o...
Read more

USCSA's aka The Bend Blizzard

Image
This year, we traveled to Bend, Oregon for US College Nationals. We fought through altitude and more snow than we have ever seen in MN to 1) find the trailhead and 2) race! It was an absolute joy to see so much snow. St. Olaf killed it at USCSA’s with 10 top 10 finishes! As we all know, 10 is better than 6. Before the racing started, we got to explore the beautiful Smith Rock State Park. Brochman ran while we walked. We also took our first trip up to Mt. Bachelor and were met with more snow than most of us had ever experienced before.  Over the next week the mountain received about 4 feet of new snow, making for some soft conditions during the races.   The parking lot snow pile. No wonder we couldn't find the Nordic Center behind all that snow! Smith Rock State Park We finally found the mountains when the sun came out on the last day! The Women's and Men's USCSA Teams The first day of racing was the 7.5k classic individual start, which too...
Read more