Lake Placid Supertours

Thursday morning, post-snowy-fun-day, I packed up and headed to Lake Placid, to be the head coach for CSU for a weekend, since the race was an out of region race, and not many kids were going. The waxing looked to be easy, and I had Janice Sibilia to help me out if I needed it, since she was doing wax support for some seriously fast skiers - XC Oregon, CXC, Sun Valley, and Noah Hoffman (USST), among others. I got there early enough on Thursday to help her test some wax, and luckily, it was cold and new snow, so waxing was pretty straight forward. I had everyone's skis by 10pm, and got enough done that night that there was minimal work to do on Friday.

These were Friday-Saturday races, because it was also the Saint Lawrence Carnival, and the EISA Carnivals are always on Friday and Saturday. Hence getting there on Thursday morning. Friday dawned cold and clear, with some snow showers moving through occasionally, and the waxing stayed easy. I got all the girls out, and with one exception they really liked their skis. Just having two J2 boys meant that I could get them testing their skis before I decided that I would go race, too (I had signed up ahead of time, just in case I'd have time to race, which I didn't really expect). It was sort of a last minute decision. Didn't go great, but I didn't really expect it to, so that was fine.
Hanging out before the race.

Eventually we were back at the hotel, and the parents treated me to a nice dinner at Mr. Mikes. I'm not sure I've ever been to Lake Placid and not eaten at Mr. Mikes. I remember eating there when we had states up there when I was a sophomore in highschool. Anyway, I decided that I had time to fluoro skis in the morning, and managed to not wax any skis Friday night, it was wonderful.

Saturday was a skate race at the biathlon side, and things went very well for most of our kids, except Hannah.

We had rocket fast skis, and I told Hannah I'd bring her skis out to the start, so she could keep warming up (she was the first starter, the rest of us were 15min later). Bob B. was hanging around the waxroom desperate to be useful, since I'd been kicking parents out of the waxroom all weekend, trying to keep up with Janice's system (stay out of her waxroom, unless you belong there, basically). Since I could tell Bob would be happier if I was giving him tasks, I asked him if he could take the girls' race skis out, and while I meant "to the start", he didn't catch the telepathic bit of my message, and had the skis out by the warmup area, instead of the start, which is a perfectly logical place to be. This meant that Hannah never got her race skis, had to race on her warmup skis, which were butt slow. So basically I blew her race for her, and I was in pieces about it. Luckily Hannah is a mature kid, and has since forgiven me, but its hard to forgive yourself when you make a mistake like that. That's what sucks about ski coaching, when you mess up, you blow other people's days.

I did that race, too, and it went even less well than Friday, and I hadn't really been expecting that, so it was a bit of a disappointment. Ah well. Then a long drive back to Boston, but I was giving Brian Gregg, a skier from CXC, a ride to the airport, so at least I had company.

Now back in Boston, and I feel absolutely shattered.

Snow day

Big nor'easter came through on Wednesday, snarling everything up for the serious people of the world. I thought it was great.

It took us a solid 2 hours to shovel the driveway. Talk about some general strength work, that stuff was cement. I was legitimately sore the next day! It may have been from the extreme sledding... I realize that at some point, this vacation thing will end (and probably shouldn't have gone on nearly as long as it has been), but that was a super fun way to spend a snowy day.


It looks like less of an impressive feat than it actually was.

So once we could leave the house, we headed over to Ross and Sam's place, to play in the snow. It was dark, but cloudy enough that the city lights kept things pretty bright, and we had some great extreme sledding through the woods and snowball fights. No better way to enjoy a snowday!




Follow a day in the snow with chocolate mousse, and you'll probably find me in a good mood. Sam agrees with me on the wonders of chocolate mousse. I just realized that that was basically a photo documentary of Sam - the boys were too busy throwing snowballs at us to be featured in any photos.

Tuesday night master blasting

I didn't blast any masters yesterday, but I like the term. Because of the no-heat-in-the-house thing, I meant to get out of the house and hang out in a Starbucks all day doing work or something, but I just never managed to leave. So, I spent all day freezing cold, and I'd woken up with a sore throat, and by the time I made it to Weston to get ready to race, I had some serious chills and shakes. I wasn't sure if this was a fever coming on, or I was just being wimpy, so I decided to go do a warmup on skis and see what happened. The warmup didn't make me feel any better, but the chills sort of went away, just aches remaining, and I figured maybe a race would blow out whatever was going on with my body. I also discovered that my skis were butt slow - its been so cold that the manmade stuff at Weston was actually acting like real snow, and I certainly wasn't waxed for that. Usually, in the sugar, wax doesn't matter, but Tuesday night it made a difference.

I lined up a little back from where I was finishing last year, but as I felt like a complete pile of dog poo, I didn't want to have to start too hard. Off we went, and for most of the promenade lap I was passing people, but going into lap 1, I realized I was burning too many matches, and had to back off. I felt alright, skiing, but pretty weak - every pole plant made my head hurt, and my feet were frozen, but it was ski racing, so things like that don't bother you too much. Anyway, at some point Blazar passed me, and in his draft, I could keep up on the downhills. Otherwise, I would just get dropped. Eventually he started looking behind him for me to come around, and I did a jerk thing and attacked up Mt. Weston. That put Blazar to the back of the pack I was with, but I couldn't hang onto my own pace, and slid back some more, after little Zoe, a J2 I coach, took off the front.

Lap 3 I was starting to hurt for real, and not just because of slow skis. The fact that I haven't pushed myself to ski race pain yet this winter was catching up, and my body didn't know what to do with itself. Also, having my feet be frozen was causing my left shin to cramp up, and when that shin goes, there is nothing I can do to make it relax. It basically disables my entire leg, not cool. I should learn to better manage my cold feet. So yeah, the third lap was a sufferfest, and two guys broke off the front of the pack I was in, and then two more passed me on the last uphill. I rallied with a sprint past one guy (Alec, I guess, looking at the results), but the highschooler kid who'd passed me on the uphill kept his lead.

Definitely NOT my best showing at a Tuesday night fight ( results), and I have since concluded that ski racing doesn't make your headache and aches and shakes go away. But the good news is that I didn't wake up with a fever this morning, and actually feel pretty normal, so it seems my plan of racing away the sickness worked. Woot.

Early on, before the pain sunk in. Jamie Doucett was out there taking photos, blinding people with his flash, and got some of me.

A true vacation

After nationals, I headed to VT to hang out with Ed and have a true vacation for a couple days. This concept of vacation is a foreign one to me - you mean, you're supposed to do nothing all day?? Luckily, I figured out how vacations work pretty quickly, and I didn't realize how badly I needed some R&R until I got to VT and started sleeping 11 hours a night. Boy was that nice. There is something truly special about waking up, and not having ANYTHING that you have to do, other than maybe go skiing at some point. We had some wonderful meals, wonderful company, and wonderful skiing. I needed that.


I am SO SICK of driving.
Used to know this road so well. Any guesses on which road and where on it?

Rob and Anne have a puppy now. She is so cute, I had immediate puppy-itis.



Time for a ski! The Danby road was nicely groomed, until it snowed on our sweet tracks.

We spend so much time hanging out at the Ogdens, we invited them over (in their matching West River BKL jackets) for some llama stew. It was scrumptious. Many games of Uno followed. I lost.

So, with vacation over, I headed back to Boston on Monday. The heat was off in our apartment, and I figured it would just take a while to warm up, so I set the thermostat and headed out for a ski (40km at Weston. WHY????), but it wasn't any warmer when I got back, and there wasn't any hot water, either. I should have A) called our landlords, and B) gone somewhere else for the night, but I was tired, so bundled myself up really well in bed and tried to sleep. Ed wasn't coming back until Tuesday, and I figured I'd wait for him to get home before I called anyone, planning to spend most of Tuesday running errands (in my car, with HEAT), but I never got around to that, and spent much of the day under fifty thousand blankets in bed. I was feeling kind of achey and tired, not sure if it was because it was cold inside, or I was (am?) coming down with something. Eventually I waxed my skis (start green, I was cold, man), took off half my layers, and drove to Weston for the night race.

Ed arrived at some point while I was skiing, and has informed me that its really bad when a house doesn't have heat. You're supposed to call the heat people immediately. Whoops. Anyway, we're all set now, and life is much better after a hot shower.

Skiing nationals

I decided not to race at nationals this year, mostly because I'm not in shape for it (I flunked the double pole test), but also because its not worth getting a stupid USSA license for three races a year. But, a couple CSU juniors are up here, and Rob assured me that I wouldn't be useless if I came by, so I've been hanging around, doing some cooking, some cleaning, some waxing, some skiing, some coaching, and a wee bit of work unrelated to skiing, of all things. Its not a bad life.

The first race was Sunday, and I missed that one. Monday we headed north to Rangeley, which has snow, and that was some nice skiing. I attended a technique clinic with Janice Sibilia and Matt Whitcomb in the afternoon, and while it was nothing groundbreaking, it was still informative. That wasted much of Monday, and Tuesday was spent skiing with the girls and testing wax. Wednesday they get to race, and I can't wait to bring my cheering voice! I'm leaving after the race, to head back to VT with Ed. Vacation is almost over... and I'm actually looking forward to being home, and acting boring, for just a little bit.
Matt and Janice giving a clinic. It was pretty windy, but the 100m area we were on was perfect for what we were doing.

The CSU house is a rambling farmhouse, and there is lots and lots of room for people. Also nice to have a big kitchen. We've been mostly sharing the cooking duties, although I'm doing my best to keep the kids off their feet.
Chris is talented - playing the piano upside down.

Erin travels with a stuffed codfish. In her jacket. Poor Erin had to leave Monday afternoon, because her grandmother, who she is super close to, got sick, and it sounds not good. Its awful when real life interrupts ski life, I hope things work out.

Cate has a problem with saying "like" too much. So, she accumulated 5 pushups for every time she said "like" on the way over to Rumford. After deciding on that, Cate was strangely quiet for the rest of the ride. She still managed to accumulate 55 pushups by the time we got there. Hannah is a tough taskmaster.

More traveling...

I have more photos to dump from Mont Saint Anne. The skiing was really phenomenal, and I got my camera fixed, which made life much better. From Mont Saint Anne, I drove south to meet Ed in VT, and life got even better, by the mile. New Year's Eve in VT, and then by Sunday we were working on ski orienteering stuff, for the race we're holding in the Balsams. From there, I moved on to Rumford, where some of CSU is holed up waiting for the nationals races to be held. Not much snow in Rumford.




Aw, brother-sister stretching, post-ski.
Me, Erin, and Kevin.

The city skyline from the Chutes de Montmorency.



Quebec City at night. All lit up.

Mont Sainte Anne photo dump

There are more photos, from the work camera, but I don't have the wire to connect it.

The good news is that I was able to get my camera fixed at a local place. So now I can use my new camera again!