Woah!!! Long time no see...

Since the last time I posted, a lot has happened...

• My teammate Sean Doherty helped lift the US Youth mixed Biathlon/XC Relay team to the bronze medal at the Inaugural Youth Winter Olympic Games in Innsbruck Austria.
• There was another Eastern Cup.
• The Kennett Boys capped off their undefeated season with a shared championship with Hanover.
• I won both the Division Skate and Classic championship, as well as the Division and State Skimeister awards.

The Kennett Boys Nordic Team has been a force to be reckoned with this season, ending up as the number one public school in the state in the NH Nordic Coaches Series races, where we lost only to the private school St. Paul's. Other than those two losses, we won every meet we entered, finishing our season in a very nerve-wracking and slightly controversial tie with Hanover High School in our State meet at Great Glen Trails.
On a nearly perfect day to host a meet, our boys went out strong in the morning classic. I won the race, coming in with a time :49 seconds faster than the second place skier, Hanover's Tucker Cadow. Kennett placed 4 boys in the top 10, sliding into first by 2 points over Hanover, whose number 4 skier came in 11th.
Morning Score: Kennett 377, Hanover 375.

After the girls race, where my co-captain Hannah Benson won by a whopping 1:42.7, it was time for the skate race. Again, our boys went out strong and rested, but when results came out, it looked too close to call. Both our and Hanover's #4 skiers were less than half a second apart, and on the unofficial results it looked like they had tied.
After nearly 2 hours of stress and pacing, the results had finally come out, Hanover had beaten us in the skate, with their #4 beating ours by 0:00.2. Skate scores: Hanover 380, Kennett 378...
Final Scores: Kennett 755, Hanover 755
This is not the first time this has happened: in 2007, the Kennett and Hanover boys tied for the championship.

The following day (Thursday) was the alpine State Championships, where, as usual, the Kennett Boys won. I came in 36th for the slalom and 51st for the GS, enough to boost me over my teammate for the Division Skimeister.

Then, tonight (Friday) was the NH Ski Jumping State Championship, where Plymouth flew off with their second state title in as many years. Also, this is where I walked away with my 4th gold medal in three days, winning the overall State Skimeister Award. This is one of the most prestigious awards in NH High School skiing, as the winner is regarded the best overall skier in all disciplines: Alpine GS and Slalom, Nordic Skate and Classic, and Ski Jumping.

I will post an Eastern Cup/Miscellaneous update after this Sundays Cheri Walsh 15k Freestyle at Craftsbury, where I will also start my reports on the IBU Youth/Junior World Biathlon Championships (I wasn't able to get enough updates other than results), following fellow Team NH/USA skiers Mikaela Paluszek (Personal Blog) and Sean Doherty.

A week of Races, Tests, and PR's.

Let's start off with the mayhem that was scheduling this Tuesday's Thursday's Skate Classic Skate race at Moultonborough Sandwich. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is apporx. 3000 words worth of pictures of words:

  

And that, my friends, is chaos.

The race went off as "planned"with the Kennett boys winning the race by 20 points, with myself winning by :50 seconds. Hannah also won her race in spectacular fashion, coming in first by over a minute. The Sandwich course is, for the most part, a rather easy course, with a couple of narrow 2-way stretches. The course only has 2 major hills, and takes place around the fairground. Results are here. 

Donovan Spaulding (Photo courtesy of Josh Spaulding, no relation)

Then, on Friday, came my first day on Alpine skis all year. And also my first race. It was an afternoon Slalom (had to go to Midterms first, which went well) at King Pine Ski Area, and had about 5 schools in attendance. I had to take a few warm up runs before I got on course, and was in relatively good form for having not been on skis since last February. After my 2 race runs, I was 12th overall, and the 9th Kennett skier. Not bad for having taken 5 runs all year before my race.

Image Courtesy of Josh Spaulding

After the Alpine race, I drove over to Proctor Academy for a Jumping meet, and boy was it fast. After we had all practiced from top bar, they set a 3 bar limit, dropping us all down to bar 3. When the meet came around, I immediately set a new PR of 30 meters, only to be broken 2 jumps later at 30.5 meters. I came in 13th overall and Kennett came in 4th as a team.

That was the extent of my week, and next week brings us a Jump at Plymouth and XC at Gunstock for a NH Coaches Series race, which is an Eastern HS Qualifier.

Eastern Cup #2: A Learning Experience

Last weekend, the NENSA Eastern Cup's Maine Weekend was held in Farmington, Maine at Titcomb Ski Area. I left home Saturday morning at 5:00 in order to get to the mountain for course preview, for which I slept most of the way north.

The first day was a 1.6 km classic sprint qualifier, which was for the afternoon sprint heats. My time of 3:24.79 was good enough for 102nd place, but not enough for the final heats.

Men's Sprint Quarterfinal

The big challenge, and the learning experience, came day 2 during the 12km skate: an 8 lap ordeal that could have gone better for me. The temp at the start had risen from -4 degrees (F) to a balmy 7 by 1pm. The race started out fine, and was going well til around lap 6. That day, I was feeling strong, to the point of arrogance. I neglected to drink anything that day, and it took 6 laps to kick in. I stopped twice that lap: once in the woods to dry heave, and another to talk to my coach about the possibility of a DNF. He told me to keep going, and lap 7 was the same thing... stop, heave, go, stop, put my poles on, lap 8. I was feeling better by that point, and powered through the final lap, finishing 7 seconds behind the guy I've been chasing since freshman year. Had I not stopped, I would've beaten him. Even with my rather painful performance, I still managed to pull out a 100th place finish.

12km - Lap 5

12 km - Lap 6