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