Mid-December. Snow. Skiing. Duntroon Highlands. The University of Waterloo Nordic Ski Team. As always, this can mean only one thing. The UW Winter Camp. For the first time in recent memory, the team was forced out of their usual farmhouse into the mysterious, rustic , slightly less spacious, dishwasher-less, aging, yet charismatic Woolner Place. The other unusual change was the Saturday morning start date instead of the common Friday evening. While most of the team understood that this meant there was nowhere to stay at Highlands for Friday night, cagey alumnus Jamie Tremaine managed to show up Friday night anyways. After attempting to scare the crap out of the regular Farmhouses’ real occupants and realizing that they were in fact a group of CANSI instructors rather than UW athletes, Tremaine used his brilliant negotiating skills to secure himself a bed.
Arriving Saturday morning at the correct time coach Colin Rhodes, Kieran Jones, Derek Hartman and alumni Greg Brigley took advantage of the fantastic -15 and sunny temperature to get moving. Rhodes, Jones and Hartman opted for the freshly groomed, perfect corduroy of the outer red loop and eventually managed to get 2 hours of skiing in before heading back down to the Woolner Place for lunch. Meeting up with the food crew, Nellie Dow and April Ross and the grad student crew, Mike Neilly, the entire team dummied a few dozen wraps and then headed out for a skate technique/downhill/balance/star turn/esoteric heart rate VO2 Max resistance test. Although the chosen location, the stadium, was being blasted by freezing winds, the entire team suffered heroically and got down to the serious business of coach Rhodes’ technique clinic. After being blitzed with technique tips, the team decided to wrap things up for the day and head down for dinner.
Sunday dawned warm, and lightly snowing, which normally is welcome, except when warm means above zero and the activity planned for the morning is a classic time trial. An hour and a half later, with 15 different grip waxes, dozens of testing trips, a lot of corking and the acceptance that Carrot was not a viable waxing option, the UW team finally made their way up to Larry’s Glacier to start the time trial. New arrivals for the morning included Surabhi Venkatesh, rookie Svenja Morgan and wax tech supreme Glen.
With Glen and his clip board at the Glacier, former athlete Colin Rhodes was freed up to ski. Rhodes pounded out quick laps, skiing away with the 3 loop 9-km, as his grip existed. After a hard fought battle for the final 2 laps, Kieran Jones used his superior lane selection to edge out Mike Neilly. In what seems to be a trend in UW time trials of late, Jones again held onto his finishing place through the ability to successful cut off his opponents rather than his speed. [Ed. Note: Kieran Jones would like to challenge all comers in a 100m sprint, either classic or skate] On the women’s side, Nellie Dow again solidified her top status on the team with a win. Unfortunately full results are not available at this time, and will follow shortly.
As most were quite bagged following the time trial, the afternoon’s program involved lots of napping, and a little bit of skating in the unusually warm weather. After a loop or two to take advantage of the snow before the forecasted rain and warm weather hit overnight, most headed back home to the Woolner Place for dinner, a bit of studying and the infamous gift exchange.
