Thursday, March 21, 2013

Eastern Highschool Championships

A scant 48 hours after arriving in the States, I was back on the road, this time driving north, to Presque Isle, for the Eastern Highschool Championships.  I was the head coach of the Mass. team, and fairly excited to be up there, though a little apprehensive - when things go bad, now it's my fault, so hopefully the kids would all behave themselves.

Turned out I had nothing to worry about.  The team was focused, professional, and positive, and I felt that everyone did their job to the best of their abilities.  I was super proud of all the Mass. skiers, but some of the CSU skiers really did a standout job.  I saw some of my kids skiing better - with more confidence and better technique and more desire - than they have all season.  For many skiers, this was a very good way to end the season.  With its technical twisty downhills, the courses at the Nordic Heritage Center in Presque Isle claimed their fair share of casualties, both of the equipment variety, the pride version, and a little blood, but everyone was able to walk away from the venue on their own two feet.

I'm now back in Mass., and working to wrap up my thesis and close that chapter of my life.  With no official CSU practices after work, I thought maybe I'd have a smidge more free time in my life, but somehow it isn't working out how I'd imagined, and I'm feeling busier than ever.  Part of that is probably all the tying up of loose ends after ski season "finishes" - that's in quotes because we just received another heavy 8" of snow, and yesterday held yet another night race at Weston!  Maybe we can hold out for one more week of racing; that would be sweet.  In the meantime, I should start thinking about orienteering - the night-o I did on Tuesday didn't go so well, somebody has to relearn how to navigate on foot!

1 comment:

Vida Tijerina said...

Wow, there were really a lot of things happened. Good thing you have people around you that you can really depend on. Anyway, how’s the thesis? Did you already finished it? I think it would be a good idea to get some thesis help if you think you can’t handle the pressure. Like getting others help out. It would also be good in thesis writing as they can give insight and spot mistake that you can overlooked.