Sprints and Relays

Part of being an all-around good skier is the ability to adapt to different styles and lengths of racing, sometimes within the same weekend of racing. Skiing a 15/20k and racing in a sprint heat take different technical skills, amounts of speed and power, and race attitudes, but both demand the same amount of effort. So it's important to switch up race formats when possible.

Last weekend the Varsity made the 8 hour drive to race at Al Quaal in Marquette, Michigan.  Saturday we raced sprints, with a qualifier then semi and final heats.  For a few it was a learning experience, and everyone was able to focus on technical or strategic aspects of the races.  Nora and Paige both qualified for the heats in 16th and 18th, respectively. Nora raced a tough semi and finished 17th, and Paige made it through to the B final, finishing in 9th.  Sprints are a good chance to push your body to the limit and experience speed you normally wouldn't be able to reach in a distance race, which makes them fun.

Sunday, we got to race relays. It's always fun to match teams directly up against one another and see how things shake up. Relays are also a chance to learn to race head to head with a few people at once, but they're different from a mass start because you're in it not only for yourself but also your team. With that said, relays give skiers a chance to push our sport from the individual realm to a team one. You depend on your teammates to come through. The men's team was 13th, and the women were 7th.

RESULTS
Skate Sprint
Classic Relay




                            












Our D-Team also got to experience sprinting this weekend! At St. Olaf! We got bombarded with snow this weekend, and Sophie had the idea to hold a sprint time trial on campus for the D-team. (Results below). They're headed to the Madison sprints next weekend. The sprint time trial made for some fun and friendly competition.


1.       1. Amelia (1)
2.       2. Emily (2)
3.       3. Gretchen (4)
4.       4. Kelsey (3)
5.       5. Sophie (5)
6.       6. Amy (6)
7.       7. Rachel (7)
8.       8. Julia (8)
9.       9. Ruth (9)

1.       1. Kai (1)
2.       2. Nate (6)
3.       3. Robert (2)
4.       4. Cole (4)
5.       5. Anders (7)
6.       6. Paul (5)
7.       7. Eli (3)



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