2009 Junior Nationals

After two days of travelling, covering enough miles officially classify this trip as a ‘road trip’, we (CB and Durango) pulled into the parking lot of our home for the week, the Boreal Inn.  Shortly after arriving, we got out for a short run in order to stretch our legs and get a lay of the land. The location of the hotel is perfect.  While all the other divisions have to stay down the pass in Truckee, the RMN skiers and coaches are housed right at the race site.  This will infinitely simplify the logistics for the week.  The stadium for the 2009 Junior Nationals is only located a short 500 meters from our hotel front door, with the base lodge of Boreal Ridge (where we eat our meals) half way in between.  Shortly after we settled in to our rooms, the remainder of the RMN skiers arrived from the Sacramento airport, marking the official start of Junior Nationals for the complete RMN team.  Game time.

 

Saturday and Sunday we broke up into age groups and previewed the race courses, talked some strategy, and prepared for Monday’s sprint races. Oh yeah, and we marveled at how much snow is on the ground out here!

 

On the morning of the sprint, the RMN skiers were ready to lay down some speed.  Everyone was focused on the job at hand and they ripped it up!  We qualified 17 skiers for the heats and ended up with multiple top 10 finishes.  Lars, Gino, and Alicia were the 3 skiers from Durango to move on into the rounds.  Be sure to check out the full results on http://www.durangonordic.org/Results/results.htm. 

 

Today was another training day and once again we broke into age groups and previewed the distance skate course one last time before tomorrow’s mass start race.  The 5k loop that the J2 boys and all girls will be skiing is a tough course without a lot of rest.  The climbs are short and steep, but typically followed by a log gradual uphill grind.  This is where we are going to ski fast.  There are no long downs that those lower elevation dwellers can catch their breath on, so our plan is to make them suffer: to push the pace on the transitions to eliminate any chance for the group to rest. 

 

Tomorrow is going to be a good day for RMN skiers, I can feel it in the thin air….

 

 

Succes at SoHo!

January 30th and 31st - Western JN Super Qualifier, Soldier Hollow Utah.

A great weekend for Durango Nordic! 28 skiers represented.

Notable results:

Stephanie Ogier - 1st place J3 female (3km freestyle)
Hannah Madden - 5th place J2 female (both days)
Rogan Brown - 6th overall 1st J1 male (15km freestyle)
Charlie Greenburg - 1st and 2nd overall J4 male
Mallory Byrd - 2nd J4 female
Hakkon Sigurslid - 2nd and 3rd overall J3 male

These are just a few of the great results Durango had!
For full results and more photos go to www.durangonordic.org



Thanks so much to the Coaches and Parents of DNSC!
We had great skis, plus they kept everything well organized, and us ready to race.



Dense fog and cool temps in the morning broke away to beautiful sunshine in the afternoon.







Soldier Hollow put on a great race weekend. Excellent timing, grooming, and organization make this race one we can't wait to go back to next year!

Thanks to Jeanne Pastore for the great pictures -

Email from Tad - U23 Worlds

Things here are going well here in France. I feel like I did before Owl Creek Super Tour Race.  I am now resting and trying to stay healthy and get ready for the races on Thursday and Friday.  Thursday is the 15km freestyle race and Saturday is the 30km Ski-Athon.  The race is a mass start and the15km classic technique is first and then 15km freestyle technique.  I am happy the juniors are here now for the Junior World Championships. 

 

The race organizers groomed the skate course today.  Holly cow is it hard.  The course is either going up or going down.  It is pretty sick. I really like it. The start is way steeper than the last hill into the Nordic Center.   Got to keep it chill going up there.  One hill on the course is like going from Boyce Lake up to the top of the North Loop but the climb is 300 meter longer. 

 

Getting to know the Canadian Team. The guys team is cool.  The girls team is really nice and they are fast.   

 

Good luck in the Super Qualifier in Soldier Hollow.   I kind of wish I was there.  Well I am off the eat now. They fed us steak for lunch. It was awesome. I will talk to you soon. 

TAD

First Race in Norway

So we had our first race of the trip yesterday, which was really eventful. It is really something to be at the start and not having any clue to what is going on, and what people were saying to me. I was the first older skier out so I had nobody to follow. I arrived in the starting area and got to hear the whole race instructions in Norwegian. If there was not a clock telling me when to go I would have had a much delayed start.

The course was in a unusual layout. We first skied a 3km loop and then came through the start and finish and skied a 2km loop, there were a lot of really big hills.

During the awards ceremony the announcer tried to call up all of the Americans and get us all on to the podium. This took about 5 minutes because his English vocab consisted of only a few words. Once we were all up there he gave all of us these small glass bowls and a thanks for coming to the race, and welcomed us to Norway.

Today we went and watched ski jumping that was really, really cool. Here are some pictures.