Eastern Cup Opener Day Two: Past, Present, and Future

Another cold day of awesome racing in Presque yesterday! Sunday was the mass start classic race, 10k for women and men. The course was pretty straightforward, nothing too challenging except some serious downhill S-turns which became demolished, and the rest was long gradual uphills with alot of striding. Cara went off at 10:00. After dialing in kick wax and juicing up the skis she was good to go and got off with a bang in the tight pack of women's racers. She went into the woods after the uphill mass start in a solid position. Coming through in the first lap she was in 36th, and skied her way up to 27th! She skied efficiently and strided the hills well for an awesome race.
The mens race went off at 11 and after Tony and I got our skis ready to go we joined the horde of racers on the line itching to go. The gun went off and we established good position early. The race went very well, and aside from the usual mass start carnage on hairpins and what not, we felt fit and smooth and skied well. Tony brought it in for 39th and I came in for 49th. We were stoked to be racing again. We felt fit and relaxed skiing and striding, which is what we are looking for this early in the season. Former Harvard Pterodactyl Ollie Burress had a good one, finishing 17th, and future Harvard skier Chris Stock had a great performance coming in 12th.

After the cooldown we piled into the car for the 6 hour trek back to Cambridge. We stopped at Subway in hopes of seeing our esteemed nordic colleagues from Foret....
Have a Merry Christmas and safe Holiday everyone.

-ksprague

(sorry I don't have too many pics, my camera was frozen solid)

Eastern Cup Opener: Day One

Greetings from Presque Isle (a bit too close to Canada if you ask me...). After 6 hours of touring America's great I95, we arrived in Presque and were greeted by alot of....well lets just say it gets really cold here and at least they have a Walmart.
Anyways. It's Race Season, game on. today we had Skate Sprints at the nordic heritage center, home of Junior Nats this year. Nice place - soild course - quick start then huge downhill followed by a sharp hairpin, then a nasty climb to the stadium , a couple of whoopdee-do hills, then gradual climb to the finish strech. You get the picture. The field is prety stacked - alot of EISA teams, Craftsbury, MWSC, ski acedmies, a couple of aussies, some canadians and more.
Now the first race of the season isn't always supposed to go perfectly in terms of logistics, and we are hopeful that we got our issues out of the way today, which included slower than expected skis, a broken ski boot zipper that led to a frantic hunt for a boot before the heats, keeping your feet on the ground while racing, and just the fact that it is cold as hell out here. But anyways, it was a good day and it feels awesome to be racing again. Now what you've been waiting for:


-Cara led it off for Harvard in the qualifiers, skiing very strong and coming in 36th, just missing the heats. Well done for a pretty tough women's field.
-I went off and felt good until the hairpin, where I had more speed from the down hill then I thought and Sir Isac Newton made sure I paid the price- I couldn't get around the turn quick enough and went off the mashed up trail, I rebounded but it still wasn't good enough to qualify, and I was a couple seconds out for 49th. still a solid effort.

-Tony went off very strong and looked as though he had one of the best starts of anyone in the qualifiers. Coming to the top of the hill he skied smooth and came into the stadium ripping - good enough to make it into the qualifiers at 23rd.

The womens quarterfinals went, and as the sun slowly started to retreat (no joke it's dark here at 3:30) Tony began to prep for his heat - which was eagerly anticipated due to New Zealand Olympian Ben Koonz's appearance. Well, Tony had something to say about that, and when the gun went off he took the lead going down into the hill. Standing at the top of the hill, we saw Tony emerge in first skiing hard and brilliantly - the suprised look on Koonz's face was priceless. Going into the back hill 3rd place caught up and it was a duel, Tony hung on though and gave them a fight, and finished a close 3rd. His time didn't make the lucky loser qualifier, however his race was awesome.

Now it's time for some R&R, Food, and prepping the classic boards for tomorrow. It's on like Donkey Kong.

keep it real -ksprague.







under the bridge










scoping out the start








Duelin'









Cruising







Cara in the start

Stateside

After 13+ hours of travel, 4 bags of milk, 2 turkeys, and many quality hours of training and skiing, we have concluded our Thanksgiving Camp in Quebec. An excellent camp it was too - many thanks to Chris and Sara for putting together a great week of training and fun, as well as putting up with shenanigans and a certain genre of music that our generation seems to enthusiastically appreciate. We were able to ski every day - and Saturday morning we were greeted with a couple of inches of snow. By Saturday afternoon, our patriotic souls were growing nostalgic for the stars and stripes so we decided to depart early Sunday to get in some good skiing at Bretton Woods, NH, which we heard had received a good amount of snowfall. This was one of my favorite days of the trip, not just because we were back in the good 'ol U.S. of A. but because it felt great to get in some classic skiing in an awesome New England Landscape. We skied around and worked on Technique in the shadows of the looming Presidential Range for a good two hours. It felt like a textbook New England Winter Day - sun, snow and great skiing tracks made for an excellent cap to our week of training. Now we need to do some serious snow dancing. Let's hope it gets cold here in Cambridge.


Turkey number 1

Ladies

Men

We know what song this is from...

Team Shot courtesy of Rob Bradlee

Quebec Raiders (By the way everything in Quebec City closes before 6 P.M. on a Saturday Night)

Tony what happened to your binding?

Nordic Pterodactyls

Quebec Ski Camp: Unintentional Video Documentation by Coach Sara

Yesterday afternoon we all piled into two vans back in Cambridge, filled the back with lots of thanksgiving food and such (side note: the U.S.S Party Van is obviously the superior van of the two. We have... a. Spice Girls, b. Whatcha say... and best of all c. Lady Gaga). Everyone got some much-needed sleep on the way up and Tor somehow managed to sleep the entire drive, except when we stopped for pizza (of course). Today we got on snow for the first time all year! It was amazing! The loop we're skiing on is pretty short, but snow nonetheless, and everybody had a great day with two long skis+lunch+some other technique and stuff. Here's some clips from the day, taken by sarah, who was decieved by my camera into thinking she was taking photos. We ended up with approximately 50 random videos from the viewpoint of sara getting chased by sharks. Here's a sampling:
First try at a Dave McCahill pose group shot (many more videos of this):
(also: Note kevin's tuck)

Played an awesome game of sharks and minnows (or Clare's more appropriate title: seals and polar bears):

Esther and I collided. Her effective tactic was to squish me into a fast-moving Audrey.

And Anika was the most skilled minnow of the bunch, she managed to make it to the final two twice and win once before we all decided to gang up on her, but she still evaded us somehow. I was impressed.

(note the impending crash at the end of this video)
some real photos coming soon,
Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow!!!
alena

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!!!!
One day there were a lot of : (leaves) in New England instead of: (snow), so the Harvard Nordic team decided to participate in the World Championship Ski Erg!! The awesome (coaches) procured a spiffy ski erg. And the skiers suffered many kinds of exciting ski erg deaths :-). Like : (Kevin) beating the NH coach. And: (Claire) zipping around the world championship course. The Alaskan: (Esther) and the coldplay fan: (Audrey) [sorry everyone else who raced while I wasn't there] also double poled in the World Championships. Cheerio!

Starting the Season Off Right

So far the season has consisted of lots of running and rollerskiing and even more waking up way too early on weekends. Amazingly the latest we've gotten to wake up was for a little road race called the Brian Honan 5k. The team acquitted itself well in the face of hordes of local running junkies. Now to follow: PICTURES!!

Freshman Tony stretching well before the race

And They're Off!!


Me Finishing it off


Tony bringin' it home


Trevor checking his watch moments before the finish


The Mangan Fans watch as Chris and Alena battle to the very end


Audrey Kicking it to catch Chris and Alena

The team (+ a recruit and a gap yearer) after a successful day at the races

In other news, this week is testing. the week has started off right with 2 new team records in the 3k set by myself and freshman Esther. The year is looking up and is just going to get better. Keep checking for many more random and infrequent posts.

Tor

I don't even go to Harvard anymore...

... and therefore probably should have stopped posting months ago like I promised. But this is the only good way to let you all know that Harvard Nordic has no less than eight new team mascots:


Come visit soon!

-Schlutz

The downside to turning 21 overseas:

Your license expires without you realizing, just when you're done working and want to rent a car and travel around the country. But instead of realizing this when I was making a reservation with the rental company, I realized it yesterday, after getting up early and hitching a ride over the mountains to the next town over to pick it up from the airport. After pleading with the rental car lady for about 20 minutes and seriously wondering if I could get a New Zealand license for about 2, I decided to just make a day of it in Queenstown. I proceeded to enter lots of swanky shops wearing my sneakers, dirty jeans, carhartt, and backpacker pack, with which I knocked over several rich Australian tourists by the sale racks. Back in Wanaka last night, I frantically searched for cheap buses that could take me where I'd planned on going. So far I've only found a way to get to the west coast glaciers. The project for the rest of today is to find a way to get to most of the other places I wanted to go, including Arthur's Pass (of Lord of the Rings fame) and Mt. Cook. When I return on the 24th, I'll be getting on a plane back to Boston. I'm excited for the new year with a new team!

On the starting line at the Farm.

On a snowshoe expedition.

Rock climbing in skate boots.

-AM

Another beautiful day...

Thank you, and welcome.

After three moose, four bears, one flip, and a road trip across the country, I'm back on the East Coast. Summer training has been non-conventional (is that a word? I don't know...physicists are bad at English), and tons of fun.


Training....of sorts


Be sure to avoid the dead whale.


It's a rough life.


I succumbed to peer pressure...

Looking forward to seeing all of you in a few weeks. Let's rock things this year. Be sure to say hi to our new freshman when they arrive.

-TP

Life was good today.

Hey there Pterodactyls.

Hope that everyone is enjoying a most lovely summer. With this dreadful economy, typhoon-worthy precipitation, and fasterskier.com becoming harder to navigate than my income tax returns, I've managed to find some time to sit down and blog away.

Rather, I've compiled my summer into a video highlight reel:



For those of you who didn't appreciate country music, consider me your Missionary to the Church of Latter-Day Honkey Tonk.

My summer's been nice. Highlights have been:

1. Finally getting my resume laminated at Kinkos. They reported that it was the most professional looking document to me hand-written on the back of a KFC buffet menu.
2. World-record ascent of Whiteface via running shoes and mountain bike, Midnol-Midnol, 3:37:22. The folks at Guinness World Records have been rather lax in returning my repeated voicemail messages.
3. Coaching delightful kids. If you've never coached 6-12 year olds, do it. Just make sure to carry a bullhorn loudspeaker at all times, and wash your hands repeatedly.
   

I'll wager you all thought that graduating from college could never be so fun.




So be well, do good work and come back often.


D

I wrote a longer post but it got deleted

it had funny anecdotes about my mom and snapping turtles and everything. But now I am frustrated and will give a quick summer recap:

• I am in Lake Placid, NY
• I wait on/make friends with old people and golfers
  
• I'm living with Sherborn all-stars Kyra Hill (Harvard '09 and my best friend's sister so basically my older sister) and Spencer Tweed (Wisconsin '09 and recent Ironman Kona qualifier)
• I swam 4.8 miles yesterday
• We hike mountains and train lots
• I have no furniture and basically live on the floor
• I haven't used shampoo since May 7th

Pictures:Atop Cascade

Kyra and a rainbow

Spencer in the Tupper Lake Tinman

Love,
Meri

Sooooooooo, seeing as no one will post on the blog, I will make another super post about my amazingly exciting life. Wait, wait, wait.....my life is damn boring, I forgot about that. So I've been working, like a lot. The other day i worked from 8:30 to 9:10 with two 1 hr breaks. It was pretty brutal. I've been trying to find time in between working for workouts and its not easy. The weather hasn't been helping either. I complained last time on the blog and the weather continues to mock me. I tried to find a good picture of the weather for the past month but I thought it would depress you guys too much.

On to more interesting topics I recently watched Public Enemies and it was pretty good. I enjoyed it. It was really really amusing because some woman brought her like 3 year old kid to see the movie. I figured she might leave after the first scene where some guy gets his head smashed in, but she didn't. She continued to watch with her little child and even commented, "don't worry, he's gonna get shot." It was interesting. She finally left when he had to pee.

+ =

I've also taken up playing disc golf on occassion. It is a good time except for the small fact that I kinda suck. Its a really good excuse to go out in the back woods of Maine and throw a frisbee with some funny funny rednecks.

+ =

I have also found that roller skiing on crowned roads really really sucks as my wheels are not higher than the crown.

+ + =

That's all I got for now. I'll try to update if anything interesting happens.