Birthday Shoutout

Tomorrow (today already in France) is Meri's 21st birthday, and since we can't be in Grenoble to say 'happy birthday' in person, we sang to her today on the frigid slopes of Mt. Weston. Happy 21st Meri! We miss you!




-AM

Harvard Nordic Goes Backcountry

Well the new academic schedule put in place this year allowed for one thing and one thing only: SKIING. That's right, (almost) an entire month devoted to nothing but feeling the flex of our skis beneath our feet, the chill of the air against our faces, the powdery snow against our legs and the satisfaction of craisins in our bellies. We spent just about two weeks in Jackson, New Hampshire training on fresh powder and perfectly groomed, corduroy trails. After returning to Cambridge, we were treated to a delightful afternoon of skiing in Chris City's new backyard! Check out the photo documentary of our adventure, ending with some video clips of a round of Dave McCahill's favorite game to play on skis.

Clare and Trevor excited to start, with Chris City in the background applying kick wax to all our skis (per usual).

Scush and Alena anxiously waiting for everyone.

"Tor, just because you're on your skate skis doesn't mean you can outrun me."

Men. Being men.

"Audrey! Don't fall into the river!"

Smiles!

"Yeah, guys, I don't think that lake is frozen."



"So?"


Audweeeeeeee!


I'm on a boat.... don't you ever forget.

ROCK SKIS.

OMG... hot. so hot right now...

If all else fails, hug a tree.

Team America


Now for the videos... everyone starts with only one ski on. The point of the game is to be the last person on your ski, meaning you need to get everyone else's ski off. Kevin, Trevor, and Tony managed to make it to the final three.

And the rest looked something like this:


Thanks to Liz for a great dinner!

Ultimate Recovery Food: Crème de Marrons

Harvard Nordic, today I made you proud. For the first time, not only was I not on the last page of results, but I was on the first! And high up there too, 21st overall out of 388, and the 6th woman! Let me paint a little picture...

Setting: Autrans, Rhône-Alpes - where all the nordic skiing in the '68 Olympics took place

Event: the 32nd Foulée Blanche (rough translation: the white stride)

Distances: 42km, 20km, 10km (me!), and 5k

Number of Racers: 2200. not kidding. no really. take a look.

(and this only shows half of us)

Time taken to cross the start line: 14 minutes 8 seconds

Final Placement Overall (out of 388): 21st

Final Result only counting females: 6th

Needless to say, the trick to this race was maneuvering around all the small children, old people, and generally slow racers. The snow was amazing, so even on my rock skis, it felt like I had rockets on my feet, and a lot of the time, the best thing to do was hop in the tracks and double pole around the other skiers. All in all, what with the giant purple Milka cow mascot, the big blue squirrel of Autrans, and the course that took us through the village center, past little shops and houses lined with spectators, this was definitely the most festive and most fun race I have ever done. I couldn't stop smiling the whole time, but I definitely made it hurt.

Men's Top 10 in the 42k

Highlights:

1. Spent the night at the director of my program's father's house (he's 91) with 4 generations of her family, and after dinner (giant raclette--an interactive meal experience where you melt cheese in a tabletop oven type device and pour it over potatoes and various meats.) he spent an hour telling me about his time in the mountain troops in the army and his role as director of all nordic skiing in the '68 Winter Olympics in Grenoble.

2. The refeuling stand after the race: hot wine, tea, cocoa, juices, cheese, dried fruits, oranges, and of course, crème de marrons chestnut spread in a tube. Yes, a tube, a metal one, like toothpaste or Neosporin.

3. My souvenir: a custom buff!

Much much much love from afar,

Meri

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