We’re back with more results! It’s been a busy interim and start to second semester for us,
especially as racing ramped up. After our first weekend at Wirth, some of us
kicked off interim break with the Minnesota College Championships skate relay
race up at Snowflake in Duluth. Our men’s teams took 2nd (Nels,
Leif, and Jake) and 8th (Graham, Mitchell, and Jeremy) and the women
were 3rd (Piper, Laura, and Nora) and 5th (Shelby, Allie,
and Amy), and Liza was a champ and raced the scramble leg with unfortunately no
team to tag off to – so really, she was the first across the line by over half
an hour! Some of these skiers then headed up to Ironwood, Michigan for an
intense four-day training camp to get on snow, since the cities were pretty
bare.
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Allie braving the cold at Conference (photo courtesy of Mrs. Brown) |
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Amelia cruising over the top of a hill at Wirth (photo courtesy of Mrs. Brown) |
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Teamwork! Amy and Shelby at Conference (photo courtesy of Mrs. Brown) |
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Jake striding the last piece of the tubing hill at Conference (photo courtesy of Mrs. Brown) |
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Jeremy having...fun? at Conference (photo courtesy of Mrs. Brown) |
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Laura working the flat at Conference (photo courtesy of Dr. Drevlow) |
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Liza finishing strong in the skate race at Conference (photo courtesy of Mrs. Brown) |
After
interim break, we found ourselves back up in Duluth for the CCSA Conference
Relay Championships at Spirit Mountain, where our men (Nels, Leif, and Jake)
and women (Piper, Shelby, and Nora) took 5th and Allie, Amy, and
Laura took 9th. The men were the 3rd program overall and
the women 4th, setting us up nicely for the sprint the next day and
conference the next weekend. In the skate sprint, four skiers made it to heats
(18 skiers advance from qualifying), where Jake was 13th and Nels 14th.
Nora went through to the B final and finished 11th and Piper raced
some great and tricky heats and skied into the A final, finishing 5th.
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Piper working hard at Conference (photo courtesy of Mrs. Brown) |
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Piper and Allie in sprint heats at Wirth (photo courtesy of Skinnyski) |
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Paul skating through the tubing hill at Conference (photo courtesy of Mrs. Brown) |
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Nels with a strong skate at Conference (photo courtesy of Mrs. Brown) |
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Nora striding in the pack at Conference (photo courtesy of Mrs. Brown) |
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Mitchell pushing hard at Conference (photo courtesy of Mrs. Brown) |
The next
weekend saw us back in Wirth fielding a full team for the CCSA Conference
Championships and the final JNQ race of the season. The 15/20k classic race on
Friday saw Jake ski a fantastic race, pasty-ing people left and right to finish
5
th. The rest of our men also had great races, with Nels in 32
nd,
Leif 34
th, and Mitchell 38
th. The women had a good day as
well, with Nora 14
th, Laura 28
th, Piper 32
nd, Amy
37
th, and Shelby 40
th. The next day brought the whole
team together for a frigid 5k skate race, and we battled windchill, freezing
temps, and numerous race delays with duct tape on our faces and the indomitable
lion in our hearts. Full results are here:
http://skinnyski.com/racing/college/2015/feb14wirthv2.pdf.
The men were 3
rd and the women finished 4
th overall in
the conference, a good showing for both teams. On Sunday some of the Friday
racers ducked out, but cold temps and hard racing didn’t deter our team from
putting four women into the skate sprint heats. Piper ended up 19
th,
Shelby 24
th, Laura 27
th, and Allie 29
th. Full
results can be found here:
http://skinnyski.com/racing/results/2015/feb15wirth.pdf
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Men's team on the podium at Conference! |
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No frozen faces for us! |
That
catches you up on our busy racing schedule! With Conference over, many of our
skiers caught the fever and raced in Cable this weekend at the Great Minnesotan
Skier Get-Together…er, the Birkie. Next weekend, a smaller crew will head up to
the UP to Marquette to race Regionals, and promptly fly out to USCSA Nationals
in Bend, Oregon for an intense finale of 6 races in 8 days.
Most
importantly, a huge thanks also goes out to our coaches Tom and Joel and the
fantastic and generous assistance of Ollie Garrison, Fred Kueffer, Mike Smith, Sophie LaFond and
Zach Hudson for the immense efforts and time they have put in to making sure
our skis are waxed and fast, our
muscles are ready and our minds are not going crazy – along with making sure we
don’t freeze our noses off, lose our bibs, or show up two hours early to the
start. They play a huge role behind the scenes and without them we would never
be able to even get to the races, much less train and ski without worrying
about anything but racing fast.
Until
later, we hope all of you who had the fever successfully recover from the
Birkie and enjoy the snow!
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