Back at Oak Hill!

Thanks to the nor'easter, yesterday was our first skiing at Oak Hill since....... early January 2010!  It was great to have so many alums out with us - thanks Alice, Jennie, Dylan, Rosalie, Phil, Paco!  We have some work to do on downhill skills (the alums took the downhill race...).

Ford Sayre HIgh Viz Training Shirt

After what seems like an unnecessarily protracted process, the JNT have sorted out the graphics, price and expected delivery schedule for a Brooks high visibility shirt with the Ford Sayre logo on the sleeve and a caution symbol on the back. The JNT is required to wear this (or very similar) shirt when involved in any training that introduces the risk of being hit (rollerskiing) or shot (hiking during hunting season). Sam Merrens came up with the graphic concept.

Here is the specific Brooks shirt: http://www.brooksrunning.com/Podium-SS/210015305%2e035,default,pd.html?start=15&cgid=mens-apparel-tops

Here are the sizing charts (also at brooksrunning.com with some searching):

Cost: The cost of the shirt with silkscreening is $24, We're adding $4 per shirt for shipping and handling for a total cost of $28. In full disclosure the JNT program is covering the shipping and handling for the JNT and JNT alumni as the program requires high vis shirts be worn and we want each skier to own several!

Delivery: The Brooks podium shirt in yellow night lite has been chronically backordered. We're told a realistic delivery time is end of February.

Order deadline: Prepaid, with check made out to Ford Sayre, by Jan 9.

To order: send check made out to Ford Sayre to Dan Haedrich, 49 Cliff Street, Norwich, VT 05055. Also, let me know via email daniel.haedrich@comcast.net if you are ordering, I don't want to sent the order off and then get a stray piece of mail! Also, email if you want a higher resolution image of the shirt.

Thanks and pester your friends to buy one, two or more!

Classic Distance at Jericho

by George

Today many of us endeavored to wreak havoc on the course of the Ethan Allen Biathlon ski course as the opening weekend of the 2010-2011 JOQ races commenced. For some of us it was the same old same old. And for others it was the opposite, many of us moved into a new age group this year and that means that we get to ski longer distances at the same speed that we skied previous years. For George, Spencer and Caitlin racing 10 kilometers was the next challenge and so we proceeded to wait for hours and mentally prepare for the race that would double our distance from the previous year. As the time for the race approached our younger skiers (Sam, Noah, and Kate) were preparing to battle it out against similar J2’s on a 5.5 K course that consisted of 2 loops. Sam came out with a fantastic showing for Ford Sayre, coming in 4th for his age group. As the younger skiers cooled down and got into their comfortable clothes, us older skiers were only beginning the trial that would last almost an hour and a half for some of us. Caitlin was the first of our J1’s to race today and was the first one to test her mettle against the challenging course that consisted for J1’s of 4 laps around a small loop that ended out being close to 11.2K rather than 10. But as Caitlin was speeding around the course, Spencer, George, and Isaiah were beginning our warm up and trying to figure out how we were going to make it up some of the more chewed up hills. And when it came time for our race as the siren sounded, everything went out of our heads except for our goal of getting around the course one lap at a time. And as time flew by and laps passed “quickly” we realized that we had only one more lap left and that little surge of excitement and a realization that you are almost done. And when it comes to the last downhill and the last little uphill you see the finish and you realize that the first 10K of your life is almost over, you see the people in front of you and you go into a mode of pursuit trying with all the strength you have left to track them down and maybe just maybe throw you foot a little better than them and get that place just ahead of them.

Craftsbury Sprint

Race report by Sam M and Noah

The Ford Sayre Junior Nordic Team got up on a brisk December morning at 6AM. After scrambling into the van at 715 we headed out to Craftsbury for the first skate sprints of the Eastern Cup Season! It was a very technical and challenging 1.3k course because the terrain and surface was constantly changing.

Upon arrival everyone immediately loved our new team Skida hats. But we had to put the compliments aside because the qualifiers started at 10AM. All the boys went together in the qualifiers (J2/J1/0J), then all the girls went immediately after, all in 15 second intervals. Everyone felt pretty good about getting the first race under the belt, and Sam M. and Noah qualified 4th and 9th respectively getting themselves into the J2 skidowns (semifinals)!  Chelsea, Lizzie, Dylan, and Paddy also skied fast qualifiers, making it into their respective quarterfinals.

Spencer in morning qualifier

Noah in morning qualifier

Sam M. and Noah were both put into the same semifinal heat which went off at 1:50 PM.  Sam M. pulled off a great 3rd place in the heat, which got him into the A-finals. Noah barely got 5th just missing 4th place by milliseconds, which got him into the B-Finals. Two successful races considering skate sprints aren’t their best events.

Next came the finals, though the intensity may have been too much for others, Noah and Sam put away all doubts and questions and raced two amazing races.  First came the J2 boys’ B-final with Noah as a star competitor.  Noah raced well and finished 4th, putting him in 10th place overall, a fine finish for the season’s first race.  Next came Sam, who was racing in a pretty stacked J2 boys’ A-final.  After a blazing start, a speedy descent into the first turn, a roaring climb up the so-called “heartbreak hill”, and a strong finish, Sam managed to take 5th in the heat and thus overall.  Both races provided an exciting finale to a seemingly endless day of racing.

preparing for the ski-downs...

... complete with snoring!

Quebec Trip

by Sam M and Paddy; photos by Paddy

In early December, Paddy and Sam had the awesome opportunity to get on some early season snow up in Quebec, Canada.  After a 5 hr drive up past Quebec City and down into the valley below Mont-Saint Anne, a popular ski resort, snow was found!  The snow was a bit slushy for the first ski, but overnight it firmed up nicely and by the end of the weekend, there was some world class skiing to be had.

For the first couple days, everyone was still getting used to their skis, so we went slow and long skate and later, as the snow got better, classic.  Every ski was awesome and had its own feel: some were long and smooth, others quick and fresh, and still others were just plain funky!  One day after a long afternoon ski around one of the mountains, we came to the final trail at the same time as the other group of boys: the race was on!  Flying through the woods at top speed, we all came to a flat, doublepoling into a long gradual descent, someone behind us goes down, but we hold our ground, and into the stadium we go!  Too close to call, three of us throw our feet out to the line and fall into the finish.  An awesome finish to a long day and a wonderful week.

Overall, Quebec was a great opportunity to get on some beautiful snow in preparation for the first early-season eastern cup.

Off to the Races!

Heeere we go!

Friday: pre-race ski at Trapps
Saturday: freestyle sprint at Craftsbury
Sunday: classic mass start 5/10/10k at Jericho

Sunday at Trapps

by Rosalie

A few brave souls (who were more eager to push through the past days' fatigue than through sunday's homework) headed back to Trapps for day 3 of skiing. As usual, it was a completely different world up there! Instead of pouring rain and yellow grass there was fresh, wet powder. Which resulted in...

Rewaxing:

Clumping:

And goodness knows what else:

Overall, we were able to get in some more k's and practice those downhills through the powder! Another day on snow in early December...not much to complain about!

First Ford Sayre Ski of the Year

by Kate and Helen

Today the Ford Sayre ski team drove up to the Trapps Family Lodge.  There, we finally took our first strides as a team.  Although waxing was a bit difficult we were soon on the trails.  We started off with practicing technique on a good section of the trail.  We took off our poles for several loops and worked on getting our wax to stick.  In an hour we had already improved a great deal with direction from Scottie and Astri.  After this we worked quite a bit on downhill technique.  We accelerated to catch the person in front of us and worked on keeping our skis flat on the snow.  It was a great way to get our legs back under us; preparing us for the monstrous roller coasters on our challenging home course.  We continued on to the race course starting at the “start”.  By now we were slightly tired, but we still wanted to preview the course.  There is a chance that the upcoming Eastern Cup will be held there.  After finishing the course we ended the day with speedy speeds and mass starts.  Finally it was time to put on warm clothes and to part from Trapps, but without doubt we stopped at the Champlain Chocolate Shop/ Cabot Shop.  A delicious end to a great day.

Tour de Lyme OD

by Spencer, Noah, Isaiah, Caitlin

With snow in the future, we began what hopefully will be one of our last foot ODs. Nine athletes started running from Scottie’s warm house into the cold Lyme morning.  A mile on the road warmed us up nicely for the climb to Pinnacle. From the top the snow line was clearly visible on the upper reaches of Smarts and the skiway.  After a quick water break we were off, bushwhacking down to the road.

The Tour de Lyme continued through the McIntyre/Little fields and through the woods onto a series of back-roads through Lyme.  We took advantage of an icy road and pretended to glide up it with poles.  Eventually we made our way back to Scottie’s driveway and some of us did some short spenst up it.

With the OD complete Isaiah, Spencer, George, Noah, and Tucker helped move brush and wood around the yard, while the girls made some fantastic grilled cheese inside.  This will hopefully conclude the final post about an OD on foot in the 2010-2011 ski season!

Since the coaches forgot to bring a camera, today's graphics are from Dan's GPS via Strava:

Testing, Part I

Seven athletes completed our sprint and uphill run tests this afternoon... in the lovely 47° rain.  Congrats to Sam M and George, who matched the boys' sprint record (joining Jack, Jon, Phil).  Fitness and mental toughness are looking good: six of the seven set PRs in the uphill run!  (Look out Dylan and John - Noah is just 9sec off your uphill run record, and he's only a sophomore...)

Isaiah's Yellowstone Week in Review

by Isaiah

Saturday, The Ride Up

After arriving in Boulder I got to leave really early in the BNJRT team van on a 14 hr ride to West Yellowstone. Due to impending weather up North we ended up going all the way up to Bozeman and back down rather than Teton Pass. Although the ride is not particularly eventful, 2 major points stand out. 1. Weaving Friendship bracelets is an oddly enjoyable way to pass many hours and 2. the music played in the Boulder van would cause Scottie to throw an ipod out the window.

Sunday, The First Ski

My first ski in West Yellowstone while fun, definitely had its drawbacks.  First, I learned the hard way that between my fall lifting and my brother's ultra running, we are no longer the same weight, so my first hour or so was spent trying to overcome an overdose of kick wax. Second, Adam brought his portable lactate tests, so between coming from sea level and struggling with wax I easily took the highest heart rates of the day. However at 1.9 mmol for 161 bpm I also learned that my previously tested zones are wrong, at least something worked out. In the afternoon we went for anther ski focusing on no and single pole classic skiing, and I managed to stay closer to in zone.

Monday, The Long Ski

The monday morning workout was a 3 hr od with the whole rocky mountain conglomerate. I did my best to stay in zone skiing somewhere between the Durango guys and Steamboat girls. After about  2 and three quarters hours, much of which on not yet groomed trails, most of the teams had dispersed.  However, to get the full workout I continued with my brother, his top skier, the Crested Butte coach and one of his skiers. I was doing well until about 3 hrs and 15 minutes in I seriously bonked. On a positive note though, that meant I was on skis for the longest. After dinner we went to see Harry Potter 7 prt 1 in the lone theater, and basically every other colorado team had the same idea, but it was still a nice treat even though I kind of just wanted sleep.

Tuesday, Preparing for the Sprint

Both of the skis today were focused on learning the course for the sprint showdown scheduled for tomorrow. After skiing some loops and figuring out the difference between the skate and classic courses, we proceeded to do ladder speeds.

Wednesday, Too Cold to Sprint

So the sprints were postponed due to it being like -8 degrees F. With the brutal cold, we bundled up for one lone ski along the Windy Ridge trail. I actually was glad that the sprints were postponed, because staying with the common view that the 4th and 5th days at altitude are the worst, I felt like crap. With the rest of the day free there was little better to do than play Wii wintersports, which does not even begin to compare with the real deal.  However, when the gleeks tuned into Glee that was the last straw, so Mike and I went sticker hunting at the expo.

Thursday, The Sprint Showdown

After much anticipation the sprints finally happened. In my races I felt solid technically but a little flat from a lack of speed work in the fall.  However, the part of today that will always stick with me is the poorness of the setup. The sprint courses themselves were quality enough, but there was the problem that after finishing, skiers had to ski 2 km back to the start.  It also seemed poorly thought out that the skate race involved finishing by going backup on a two way hill. I dont think I'm conveying my disapproval well, but trust me it was awful.

Friday, The Last Day on Good Snow or Winning Feels Good 

While many of the Boulder kids prepared for the skate race (slept in), I and the others not racing proceeded to do a race warm up folllowed by 6x1 minute all out intervals and a steady L3 10 minute piece. The workout felt good and I noticed quite a bit of heart rate supression, indicating that this had indeed been a big week of training. After getting warm and changing we went back out to suport the racers, of which Mike was .2 seconds out of the first results page. In the afternoon we broke out the ugly spandex for a ski in the park, for me that meant the cow tights. On this excursion we through the park to a river and around a little loop, unfortunately the only wild life was some crows and a bald eagle. However, we crossed paths with the St.  Olafs team and Adam challenged them to a friendly powder sprint. Using a beautiful high knee run, I handily beat him out for the win, putting the frosting on the week. Then maximizing our last day we went for a night ski, which like any night ski was thrilling, especially since none of the hills had a chance of comparing to Oak Hill in the daylight. This was by far the fastest conditions of the week and a perfect way to end.

Saturday, The Drive Back

On the return trip we were able to cross through Teton pass. Though less eventful than before we did end up eating cupcakes with enough saturated fat to make those reading the label want to gag. And we watched some world cup videos including the Holmenkolen 50km from last march.

Sunday and Monday, Back in Boulder and Back Home 

Today Adam took me to ski at Eldora, which compared to Oak Hill's conditions last year, quite a let down from West. Then I waxed a ton of skis that are way better than mine, yay. Although if i could I'd stay out there, I'm back.  If anyone knows where theres snow speak up.

Leaked Pictures of Spenst

As you can tell from Emily’s post below, ODs have evolved to a predictable pattern, rollerski, spenst and run. Obviously we are waiting to snow, but this weeks forecast, heavy rain, means further patience is required.

Although the salt trucks had been out from last Friday’s icing, the road surface Sunday was not as gritty as expected. We had a full roster of JNT skiers and three parents along as cabooses; Dennis provided his typically brilliant coaching commentary. Freshman Tucker did a great job on the rollerski, given he has only been on them twice.

Leaked here are the pictures from spenst two weeks ago. Although spenst was done weekly in summer training, last week there was a collapse in form. Spenst doesn’t lend itself to still images as the motions are so quick, so I found the results amusing.

Remember, all the motions from spenst should mimic skiing. In the picture below, Emily appears to be snapping her fingers as in a chorus line, Max, well, not sure what to say, Dennis is looking on, clearly bewildered, that’s George studying the grass... he’s not hurt or anything.

Next picture: Dennis had to stop the session and reiterate the fact that this was a ski drill, not free form dance: Max is doing a good job checking hand position, George is still on the grass, he is ok.

Final picture. With great concentration, the JNT gets the point, this weeks spenst was much better. Good focus Sam.

Testing Wednesday... and given the forecast, expect to get wet, here is the radar image from Tuesday evening. Thank you to Scottie and Dennis, who will be standing trail-side timing.

Sunday 11.28 OD

By Emily

This Sunday we had another rollerski, run, and tug of war combo. We had a very cold start, beginning at the intersection of Campbell Flat Rd. and Route 132 in Norwich, we skied to Huntley Meadow, about 7 miles, and then we transitioned to running.

We did spenst at Huntley and focused on our technique, then ran/strided with poles up Dutton Hill Road, to the top of Happy Hill where we were met by many BKL skiers.

We then had a rematch of tug-of-war, BKL vs. JNT, BKL won yet again. The JNT then split in half and went against each other. The team with Max, Noah, Kate, Sam, and Emily won over the other half. At least half of us were winners.

River Road Roller Ski

This Sunday brought yet another team over distance (OD) although much colder and a little closer to winter than the last one. Beginning at the Thetford bridge, we classic roller skied down River road and rt. 10 to the Richmond Middle School, a distance of about 7.5 miles. At the Middle School we transitioned to running.

After a loop around the 5 km race course at Oak Hill, we went to the stadium do to spenst then finished by running another 3 km to the High School. We were joined by Max Block who was home from Andover and Patty who was on break from SMS.

We finally got Tucker out on a Sunday roller ski and little did we know this was his first time on them! After a quick fall at the start (that’s why the welding gloves!), he put in a good 45 minutes before the sag wagon decided enough was enough and put him on photo duty in the passenger’s seat. Many thanks to Ed Merrens who worked caboose.

Lyme OD & Hike with BKL

Sunday was a training mode triple: roller ski, hill run and tug-o-war. Bonuses to the day: alums Rosalie and Beth joined us, AND the BKL skiers were going to be at the Skiway! A carefully choreographed plan had skiers of all ages simultaneously finishing at the top of Holts Ledge.

The morning was clear and frosty as the team gathered at the intersection of route 10 and River Road in Orford. The plan: roller ski to the Skiway, run around the neighborhood and up to Holts Ledge via the AT, and a tug-o-war with the BKL skiers.

Roller skiing was classic and the route covered long stretches of new pavement. Open fields, bright sun, fresh pavement.. all good. Total distance to the Skiway - 9 miles.

A change to shoes and a quick snack, meeting up with Paddy and Tim, and off to the top of Holts Ledge. Timing couldn’t have been better, the grades 5 through 8 BKL skiers were just gathering for a picture when the JNT came up the trail.

Picture taken and a short walk to the top of the chairlift and this group met the younger BKL skiers who had walked up the face of the mountain. Sunshine, more snacking and then a tug-o-war, BKL vs JNT. BKL won.

Pay attention the weather this week, it might affect practice!

First Practice

This past Wednesday was the first roller ski practice of the fall. With several team members still tied up in running and various other commitments, the practice was fairly small. Because it was one of our first times on roller skis this fall, we started with the basics: scooter drill, balance, weight transfer; then finished with specific strength.
At the end of practice, we talked with Scottie about this years team hats. There were several patterns to chose from, but in the end we picked the limited edition fabric so that Ford Sayre hats would be unique.

Practice this Friday is L3 ("feel- good") intervals at Oak Hill.