New Year, New Events

Okay, so it's been a little while, and honestly, not a lot has been going on. Last update was after the last Eastern Cup in December, and since then there have been only a handful of races. Three NHIAA Nordic, three jumps, and another Eastern Cup have occupied the past 4 weeks. Those, and a lot of facility maintenance.

At Kennett, we own no fancy grooming machine to maintain our ski jump. No snowmaking, no Piston Bully, nothing but our own two feet and skis. So this ^^ is what we do to keep it intact. The above is the K20 meter jump, while the K35 sits, waiting to be done.

Meanwhile, I have been racing. Nothing out of the ordinary on the NHIAA front, two classic races and a skate, all dominated by Kennett Nordic. The first, hosted by us at Whitaker woods, was a close race, with Kennett coming out on top by only 9 points. Next, a Skate at Plymouth High School, we fared a little better, taking the win by a whopping 25 points.

Behold, the elusive creature Benson Yeti in its natural habitat: the nordic race.

Then, at Great Glen, it was cold. And I mean very cold. Like 3 layers and a buff cold.

Yeah, that cold.

It was a small meet, which we came within 3.5 points of winning with a perfect score. We won by 11 points, while I took home top honors (as with all the other races) by a considerable margin.

And now for the Nordic Combined portion of the post, the Jumping section. There have been three meets since the beginning of the New Year. And Kennett has not won a single one. There has been a meet at Proctor Academy, Lebanon, and on the Kanc, all of which I have been steadily improving, 

Lebanon's K25

Our precious jumps (K35, K20)

The view from house, last jumper of the night.

At home, I came in 6th overall, with two long jumps of 26m each, short by 4m of the longest on the night.

And finally, an Eastern Cup. 

If you remember my post from the end of last season, Mountain Top Resort was not good to me in the classic discipline. Well, it was time for redemption.

January 12th: Freestyle Sprint. 3 minutes of all-out, individual sprinting on a brand new pair of Yoko 8100 carbon poles (Thank you Nordic Skater!). Initial result: 42nd overall, the #9 J1/OJ That means that I made the Junior Heats at the end of the day. Two more sprints for me! The heats didn't go as well as I had hoped, coming in fifth each time, for a grand place of 11th in the youth. But it was the first time I had ever made heats at an Eastern Cup before!

200m to go, I was in second. 180m later, fifth.

January 13th: Redemption Day. The 9.3km Classic. Last year, during a 4.8 at EHSC, I had a dismal 44th place finish. This year, 54th. But, it was against college skiers this time, and I ended up 12th in my age group. So overall better than before.


As a bonus, on January 6th was the Jackson Jaunt, a 10k self-seed mass-start freestyle on the International Course at Jackson Ski Touring. Against what seemed like all of the Maine College Skiers that didn't go to Nationals, I ended up 15th overall. Not bad for a kid who completely guessed his wax the night before!

And now I rest, preparing for the Geschmossel Classic at Bretton Woods on MLK day.

Ciao.