January Update

Wow! That was fast!  Interim came and went in a flash, but not without plenty of action from the St Olaf Nordic Team.  From racing all around the upper Midwest, to dominating at broomball, to even starting their own radio show, January had a little bit of everything for the Oles.

Week one of Interim was filled with intense training as we were shocked to actually see snow on the ground at St. Olaf.  Our fearless captain Mitchell Miller even dared to comment that “This is the best snow we have ever had at St. Olaf!” despite the measly three inches being packed down to barely grass via the steel door.  On Sunday to finish up the week, most of the squad headed north in to the city to race the Preloppet, a grueling 14k skate event.  On the gun, Leif (my name is actually Leaf) Hanson sprinted out to an early lead, but 200 meters in, he decided to fall back a little and join the Ole train in order to make sure that the Oles were prominently featured on Skinnyski.  Everyone ended up doing well that day with many finishers for the Oles.  Leif was 12^th, Tyler 13^th, Mitchell 15^th, Spencer 17^th, Ben 39^th, and Matt 40^th out of 100 male finishers.  For the women, out of the 25 finishers, Daisy (PIM) Richmond was an amazing 4^th narrowly missing the podium.  Close behind were Rose in 5^th, Shelby in 6^th, Rebecca in 10^th, and Laura in 11^th.  Overall a great day of racing for the team, and a great way to get our feet wet before the CCSA races started.

The following week the Broomball season began, and team spockspockspockspock began to assert its dominance.  Throughout the next few weeks, everyone who took to the ice quickly was afraid of spockspockspockspock, as we tore through the St. Olaf broomball league.  Matt actually set the (unofficial) St. Olaf record with 12 goals in 5 games although Ethan would beg to differ.  Clearly the favorite to win it all after an undefeated regular season, play was forced to be suspended right before  the playoffs because of some unseasonable warmth that melted the ice which was a tragedy and definitely the low point of January for the spockers.  However, we expect to resume play again soon and take the title which is rightfully ours.

Amidst all of the fun of the month, we actually had some ski races too!  OK, fine the races are super fun too, but only after your race is done right?  Anyway, on the third weekend of the month, we headed up north to the Birkie Trailhead to do our first official racing.  Of course it wouldn’t be the St. Olaf ski team without a few mishaps along the way, including getting ready an hour before the bus even came to Olaf to pick us up.  We were able to salvage the time however with some ultra competitive world cup outside the ski room, where Ethan and Rose narrowly edged out Matt and Leif for the title.

Once we got to the racecourse we got ready for our individual start classic race on Saturday and a mass start skate on Sunday.  Saturday racing went very smoothly, and it was a pretty good day for the Oles.  In the womens race, Bri led the Oles with a 32^nd place finish followed by Rose in 50^th, Daisy in 51^st, Shelby, who despite finishing with many of them, is not a 12 year old, in 59^th, Laura in 66^th, Rebecca in 80^th, and Megan in 96^th.  On the mens side, Leif led the squad with a 74^th place finish and was followed closely by Miller in 76^th, Tyler in 84^th, Spencer in 86^th, Ethan in 91^st, Matt in 121^st, and Ben in 146^th.  It was rough conditions, and everyone did very well.  On Sunday, the men started their 20k skate race first, bright and early at 10 am.  Well, most of us started at 10 am.  Ethan was so used to the Diet Coke winter where it didn’t matter which skis you use that he grabbed Daisy’s skis by accident.  Realizing this with 1 minute to start, he sprinted away to grab the correct skis only to come back to a vacant chevron.  He was able to catch up with a good crew however, and the teams training ski went very well.  Spencer led the team with a very impressive 21^st place finish, with everyone else pretty close behind.  Matt even finished the race backwards!  It was a great day for the women’s team as well as Shelby was able to finish an incredible 10^th, the first non NMU or Felisha skier, and Bri was close on her heels in 12^th place.  The rest of the team zipped around the course as well and wrapped up a successful weekend of racing for the Oles.

During interim when we weren’t racing, we were probably spending hours preparing for our weekly radio show Red Leader – NOT!  We probably prepared for about 10 minutes total, but had a blast every week.  Many games of great minds think alike, along with a team favorite, the initials game got competitive, and even were able to make Daisy say some pretty interesting things which probably cannot be written about here.  The 2 initials game wins went to Stephanie and Ben, and the worst guess ever goes to Stephanie for guessing millimeter when the first clue was “there are 7 of them.”  Also a huge shout out to Mitchell for not getting midnight mass!  We laughed for almost the whole time, and on the last show, Ben even brought a marching band in to the studio although some of their instruments were suspect.  The show will continue next semester, so be sure to tune in to Red Leader if you get a chance.

We wrapped up a great month with back to back race weekends in Duluth and Houghton.  We might have been faster on ice skates in Duluth, but we still charged up and down the massive sunbeam hill over and over.  Tyler led the men’s team with a 21^st place finish on Sunday, and Bri led the women with a 32^nd place finish on Saturday.  Of course, it wouldn’t be St. Olaf Nordic without something going wrong right?  On Saturday when coming in to the finish, Matt hit an icy patch and fell as he made the last turn.  His binding snapped in half, and he had to ski in to the finish on just one ski!  Nothing surprises us anymore when it comes to race weekends.

In between the race weekends, a few Oles stayed north and cabined for the week.  Liza, Ethan, and Shelby went way north almost to the Canadian border for a fun week of hanging out and alpine skiing at Lutsen too!  Daisy, Rebecca, Mitchell, Matt, and Rose all went to Rose’s cabin about an hour north from Duluth, and Andrew and Stephanie joined us a few days later.  It was a week filled with competitions ranging from the daily morning super quiz, to the Oregon Trail, to board games like Ticket to Ride, to jelly HORSE.  After a long battle all week, Rose (Ros) emerged on top with the other two podium spots going to Matt (Crumboy) in second, and Mitchell (MM) in third. 

We then all hopped on the bus on Thursday and trekked east to Houghton, Michigan.  We were shocked (and a little jealous) at how much snow they had, but we were all thrilled to be there.  The course was beautiful, and everyone was excited for the weekend of racing to begin.  In the classic race on Saturday, Mitchell, despite being a U, led the Ole men, and Bri led the Ole women in a good day of racing.  In the mass start Sunday, Bri was once again the first Ole woman finisher, with a great photo finish between Rebecca and Daisy just a few minutes later.  On the men’s side, after getting pumped up by “I’M READY!!!” the boys took off on the gun (not the horn) and Ethan was quickly spotted in the same pictures as the NMU skiers, a feat that anyone would be proud of.  Meanwhile, Matt was distracted by looking for feeds and quickly fell to the back of the pack.  20k later, Tyler was the first Ole across the line, followed by Ethan, and a great photo finish between Matt and Mitchell.  It was a weekend of firsts for the Ole men as we all got cheered for by the NMU girls team, and Ben was cheered on mid-race by the Kyle Bratrud.  Overall, it was an amazing weekend of racing for everyone, and what could be better after a race than a stop for some warm pasties?

January brought a ton of fun times for the Oles, who look ahead to a classic race in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, followed by a weekend of racing at the dreaded Al Quaal racecourse.  It is shaping up to be a very good season, and we are going to keep pushing and finish strong!