Very late end of season post!

Okay, so the last few weeks have been pretty busy. I've had Eastern Cups, Fun Races, Championship Races/Jumps, and school (okay, maybe not as much of the last one).

Quick Recap:

Geschmossel Classic at Bretton Woods
1/21/2013
7th Overall

NHNCA Classic Qualifier
1/26/2013
7th High School Class

TD Bank Eastern Cup at Trapp Family Lodge
2/02-03/2013
63rd 10k Skate
114th 10k Classic

NHNCA Skate Qualifier
2/10/2013
4th High School Class

NHIAA Men's Alpine Division II State Meet:
2/12/2013
60th GS
38th Slalom
Kennett: 1st

NHIAA Division II Nordic State Meet
2/13/13
1st Classic
1st Skate
2nd Divisional Skimeister
Team Champions

NHIAA Ski Jumping Championships
2/15/2013
T-3rd overall - 119 points
PR 33.5 meters (K38) - T-Longest of the night
1st State Skimeister
1st Nordic Combined

TD Bank Eastern Cup at Quarry Road
2/16-17/2013
25th Mass Start 15k Classic
17th 10k Skate

NHIAA Meet of Champions
2/25/2013
1st Classic 6k
2nd Skate 6k
Kennett: Swept the Classic Podium, 4 in the top 6. Two in top 6 for Skate.

Phew...

Details details...

The Geschmossel at Bretton Woods was a very cold day. I got a slow start but held on to the front of the second pack fairly well, culminating in a sprint finish with rival Joe Smith of Moultonborough.

Alpine State Meet: Cold, starting last. Not my kind of race. But I managed, and placed fairly well considering my lack of experience this season.

Nordic State Meet: See here.

Jumping State Meet: Was a great way to end a High School Career. As the last jumper of the night, I put up the longest and best styled jump of the night, en route to my best finish in a jumping competition: a three-way tie for third with 119 points. As a trio, we were still only one point out of the tie that was first place already, with two placing with 120 points.Local sportswriter Josh Spaulding (Salmon Press) put it best in the first sentence of his article that week: "Torin La Liberte saved his best for last."

Eastern Cup: Quarry Road is by far one of the hardest courses I have skied. Part could have been the Zero conditions, part could be the A-climb that made college kids drop out at the Colby Carnival earlier this season. Either way, I put up some of my best points races of the season, but they were not enough for me to make it to Fairbanks. I ended up less than 5 points away from making it, and am currently the first alternate for the team. As of now, I am headed to Presque Isle with Team New Hampshire for the Eastern High School Championships. It's go time.

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.

End of a Season...

After the NHIAA State Meet and EC Finals, not many races took place (6 total races over 4 days on 2 separate weekends), although the ones that did were quite spectacular.

The Saturday following the Eastern Cups was the NHIAA Meet of Champions at Gunstock, which takes the top 10 racers from all 4 divisions in both skate and classic, and races them to determine the number one public school skier in the state.




The first race, a 6.9 km classic mass start, was interesting to say the least. Things got off to a rough start when, during wax testing, I found out that my coach had waxed my skate skis (which I was to race on later that day) and were handing them to my teammates to test. Oops. Then, while testing, we were only allowed one lap to test, so everything else was done in the stadium: NOT THE SAME CONDITIONS. Once the race was underway, I had very little kick in the tracks or on the inside of the trail, so my climbing technique was to hug the edge and run. Honestly, it worked pretty well. I got off to a commanding (~15 second) lead after the first lap of the three lap race, and had no major icing problems. My lead grew to about 30 seconds by the end of lap 2, but by the height of land on lap three, the icing kicked in. Myself and many other athletes who followed had between 0.5 and 1 inch of snow stuck to the bottom of our skis, and I had to stop and try and rub it off. That stop, by that point, cost me about 8 seconds, and I finished in first place with a 28 second lead on Spencer H. from Hanover and Joe S. from Moultonborough, who had an eyeballed "photo finish."

The Kennett strength continued throughout the race, with our senior Peter coming in 8th, and Donovan and PJ coming in 13th and 14th respectively.
Hannah, our only female at MoC's, also won her race with a dominating 2. 5 minute lead.

That afternoon came the freestyle sprint: a little easier to wax for (the klister had been removed by that point), but with one catch. The snowmobile groomer had either run out of gas or had broken down and could not wipe the tracks from the morning's classic race. This meant very sketchy and uneven trails for the sprint.

Once everyone was warmed up for the sprint and were lined up in their waves... they put a 5 minute hold on the course. Did I mention that it was about 25 degress out and windy? I was the first one out of my skis and sprinting along the side of the stadium keeping warm.
Finally, when the heats went off, many people were surprised. I'm not a strong double-poler from the starting line, and thus two of the guys in my heat were out in front as we disappeared into the woods. Their lead didn't last long. By the first hill I was past them both and crossed the line nearly 15 seconds ahead of the second place athlete from my heat (Matt came in third overall) and 8 seconds ahead of the overall second place time (Spencer).

Donovan and Peter tied for tenth, and PJ came in 19th, while Hannah also won her sprint.

The Kennett boys again won our races, capping off an undefeated public school season by being the number one school in the state.

Fast forward a few weeks. Eastern High School Championships in Chittenden, Vermont. It's 40 degrees, raw, and foggy at the start of the 4.8 km freestyle on Friday, March 16. By the time I started at 4:08:00, you couldn't see the length of the stadium. I did fall once on my first lap (I bounced and lost maybe a second) and finished in the mist for a solid 15th place. Not quite matching my 13th of last year, but still quite good.

Overnight, after Team NH had our little yankee swap (my gift was again the most popular), the weather cleared and gave way to 70 degree temps and sun. This, my friends, was the result:

About 3 inches of slush and no real warm up area for skis. That little strip in the background was our wax testing area. Again: NOT THE SAME CONDITIONS AT ALL.

Saturday was also the double day: 4.8 km classic in the morning followed by a 0.8 km skate sprint that afternoon. My classic race could have been better, 44th isn't really where I was hoping to place, but oh well, what can you do.

My sprint race went much better than expected thanks to some last second follies by another racer (sorry Silas). Silas, who I was drafting for 700 out of the 800 meters, fell with about 50 meters to go, as is seen here:

I came in 11th that race, 3 seconds out of the top 10.

And finally, Sunday came. The last day of racing for the season came with weather much like Saturday, which made for a very interesting classic relay. Teams were picked based off of the Classic results from the day prior, so I ended up as the anchor of team 5, which included the other NH State Skimeister Lucy Skinner from Hanover. We got off to a rough start, our scrambler fell at the height of land and lost some ground, but we ended strong, with a 34th place finish.

Overall, NH came in 4th, our worst finish in recent memory, but nonetheless it was a great time.