Twas the Night before Ski Camp not a Snow Flake was in the Air

Beware the writing contained beyond this point is not very good and may not be suitable for all to read. PS this is why I’m an engineer.

Twas the night before ski camp not a snow flake was in the air

The forecast was warm which caused us skiers to say our goodnight prayers

Excitement was rising since all exams were nearly written

Even though it was warm Coach Colin said “Don’t forget your mittens”

The day had now come when some athletes planned on arriving

It started with three men, Derek, Oliver and Glenn driving

The car was very packed, due to the amount of equipment

Many pairs of skies and clothes this was a large shipment

Normally at the corner of Singhampton snow can be seen

But not this December 15 nothing but the hideous sight of green

To the farm house we entered, unpacked and started to relax

Today sure wasn’t the day to be thinking about ski wax

There were two more skiers on their way

Both Colin and his friend Ursula were the only others for the day

The five got dressed and laced up their shoes

To the bush they disappeared ......(couldn’t think of word to rhyme, therefore you come up with one)

After dinner the schedule read a strength circuit

Everyone complained but that courageous Glenn R. Workit

When it came to push ups he did well over a hundred

Some say Chuck Norris got scared and wondered

The strength circuit pretty well summed up the night

Everyone soon was off to bed to rise early in the morning sun light

In hopes that snow would have scattered that ground

That way they could ski and not run around

Well rhyming takes a lot of time and so the remaining of the ski camp adventures will not be shared in such a way as the first day.

So day two of the camp soon arrived with a few centimetres of snow on the ground. The four guys unpacked their rock skies and set out for a morning adventure out on the white stuff. A few laps began around the lower field but soon their interest grew short and they began to trek through the ponds and mud puddles formed through-out the various trails leading up to Larry Glaciers. The snow was little nicer up top, or maybe it was the fact that the ground was not a marsh that melted the snow the instant it hit the ground. As you can imagine there was not a heavy amount of snow but we made the best of it by putting a few hours of striding in, with a hint of mud running and rock climbing. Yes that is right ladies and gentlemen some rock climbing was done while we were out for our morning ski. It may be a little painful to take in the fact that skies were being used for the pleasure of climbing over trees across beds of rocks and through patches of raspberry plants, but coming from the not so snowy city of Waterloo the conditions were not all that big of a surprise for any of us. A good few hours went by from the fun filled morning which made it lunch time and gave us some time to realize how much we all wished there was snow on the ground so there was no repeat of the morning. But lunch was finished up and the scheduled nap was disrupted to yes you guessed it go for another ski hike with skies on. This time around things were not near as fun since we came to realize this wasn’t the smartest and nicest way to treat ones skies. So the afternoon ski came to a close with the remaining afternoon work out to be done by playing some ultimate Frisbee. Due to the short turn out so far to the camp teams were broken down into the young bucks, strong accurate thrower rookie Oliver Conway-White and superior quick hands second year Glenn Hartman. These two men took on the old folks, butter hands Colin Rhodes, talented but short Ursula and lastly Sir falls a lot Derek Hartman. As you can imagine it was a blow out game with the young guns making some unbelievable plays leaving the old farts left behind not knowing what hit them. Day two soon came to an end which included the arrival of two more fellow athletes, Tim Hughes and newly comer Lucy.

Saturday morning came with a great surprise, nearly a foot of powder. Breakfast was quickly eaten since everyone was so excited to get out and experience the winter wonderland. Everyone strapped on their skies and set out for a morning of technique on the classic skies. The day consisted of skiing and lots of it. Most people remained with the classic since the snowmobiles had not yet had time to proper pack the trails and make the conditions suitable for skating. There wasn’t even time for a nap this afternoon because of the fear that the snow would soon disappear. So after long kilometres on out in the bush dinner was greatly appreciated by all. Joining us for dinner were a few extra Hartman boys Ian and Karl as well as some Guelph athletes Shaun, Laura and Mary. After dinner was complete the Waterloo team did the tradition gift exchange which resulted in a few laughs from some ridiculous gifts, may just have to come out next year to see what the gifts were since that sometimes becomes a routine of re gifting. Most hit the hay around 8:00 in order to be rested up for another great day of skiing and/or potentially racing in the Yuntide Blast.

Sunday came quick with only getting an 11 hour sleep, breakfast was eaten with hardly a word spoken (general case for tired, hungry skiers). The race today was going to consist of a 3 km loop from the lodge, out the green loop taking the short cut up to the first finger were the climb continued. Once the top of the climb was reached the remaining part of the race proceeded to be downhill, backwards on blue to Larry’s Glacier and a sprint down to the finish. For the men this was repeated 3 times and with the women doing 3 as well. Not too many Waterloo members participated in the race due to the fact of working extremely hard over the previous few days. Results available on Zone4.ca.

Over all the camp ended fairly well, plus I am getting really bored writing this blog so that’s all I’m writing. If you want more, it will be nice to see you all out next year that way you can experience in the excitement.

Merry Christmas Everyone,

Happy skiing over the break and I will see you out at the future races.

December's Daily Dilemmas

          Yesterday morning I woke up to 35 centimeters of snow.  The excitement was unbearable, I immediately went to scrounge up whatever ski gear I could find in the basement (I was visiting home and, without anticipating snow, left all of my ski gear in Waterloo) and was planning on getting to our local ski club as soon as I could to indulge in all of the snow we'd gotten.  I was then faced with a decision.  With upcoming exams and all, I really should have been spending the day studying, with upcoming ski season though, I really should have been spending the day skiing...

          The conclusion I drew was that being a university skier in December is hard! For any student, December is a month full of final projects and exams, not a lot of sleep and stressing about whether the work you have or haven't done will be good enough for whatever your standards are.  Generally speaking, not a fun time- at least in my experience.   Being a skier though, December is a very exciting time of year- after 8 months or so of dry-land, the snow finally comes and you get to try out all of those fancy new tricks (or was it technique?) you've learnt over the fall.  But not only is it an exciting time of year, it is also a time crucial in your training plan.  If dry-land, you're trying to get in as much volume as possible, and if on snow, as much time on snow as possible.  So the study vs. ski dilemma isn't purely desire over discipline, but two competing needs both with considerable consequences.

          In the end, I ended up going for the ski, and it was well worth it.  The snow was beautiful and I even got some studying in too.  The message here isn't to skip out on studying the day before that exam you have to pass to go for a ski, but to know that as university skiers we're all in the same boat right now.  Study hard for those exams, and get out there in the snow as much as you can manage. Christmas is right around the corner, where we will be able to ski until we can ski no more.

No time like snow time!

At approximately 5:55 p.m. on Thursday, November 10 Coach Colin notified us that there was potential for some of that white stuff to be on the ground by the morning, and that it was "time to revive the 'first on snow' competition".  The criteria was that there had to be a picture taken of them skiing on the 'snow' and that it had to be legit flakes of snow-not just a thick frost covering the ground.  And though I am not sure as to how many competitors showed to the start line for this one, there was a definite winner.  Tim Hughes was able to both ski on acceptable 'snow' and snap a shot of himself doing so.  Although the prize was not publicly awarded, or even seen for that matter, it was said to be an eloquent snowflake crafted from corrugated material and wrapped in silver lining.  Though I do have a hunch it was a cardboard snowflake wrapped in tin foil, just a guess though.

Going with the 'first on snow' theme was the potential to head up to Highlands for some better quality powder.   Unfortunately though, the weather was a tad warm and so rollerskiing was once again the way to go for the weekend.

A little bit of a makeover?

If you've started reading this, I'm sure you've seen that there have been some aesthetic changes to UW Nordic News.  The previous format, although visually pleasing, was a little out of date and starting to feel like our bulletin board inside the PAC (I think it's advertising OU's for either 2008 or 2009?).  The goal is to make the blog somewhat similar to the previous- having pictures of team members (past and present?), updates as to what the team has been up to, all the usual stuff, just newer format.  As you can see the format that you are currently seeing is the 'dynamic format' to which you change your view of it to mosaic, snapshot, etc (you should be able to do this in the top left corner), but there are many formats to choose from.  That being said and done, feedback from regulars (of course I can assume we have many, many regular readers) as to reading format, etc. would be fab.  It is nowhere near being done, or started really, but here's to some fresh ideas.
Over and out.

September, according to us.

September, for university students, is a time of change. For first years, it involves many new starts, like moving towns, a new school, new friends and so forth. And for the rest of us it usually involves new living accommodations, new courses and a fresh start to the school year. For us members of the UW Nordic Ski team it means the beginning of team practices - after possibly training alone all summer- new team members and, of course, the Fall training camp.
And there are a few new faces for the team. Joining us on the men's side are Oliver Conway-White and Curtis Mosier and on the women's (woot! more girls!) are Emily Yungblut and Leah Krustafer.

And so comes fall camp.

It began on a rainy Friday afternoon when vehicles packed with rollerskis, poles, lots of food, and skiers with their accompanying gear set off to Highlands Nordic Ski Club for a stay at the farmhouse and lots of training. Those who were first arrived (Martha, Glenn and Katie) decided that to suit the rainy day some napping and other subdued activities would be appropriate. Upon the arrival of a few more team members (Tim H., Nolan, Oliver and Allison) a delicious dinner was prepared and, as per usual, the Friday evening strength work out was laid out. It consisted of various indoor activities such as dips in the kitchen, jumping to the top of the stairs, fireplace leg dips and much, much more.

As Saturday morning's breakfast arrived a pack of skiers headed downstairs, ate and prepared for a morning of rollerskiing. There was much rollerskiing to be done and throughout those hours we bettered our technique with various drills, some video analysis and lots of easy skiing through the sunlit back roads of Highlands. Back at the farmhouse lunch was prepared and the team continued with the next scheduled training session: team nap. After some decent R&R though, the trails beckoned and soon enough we were to be seen ski bounding through the Highlands ski trails. And after this , since we hadn't quite had enough physical activity yet, a game of Ultimate Frisbee was enjoyed by nearly all team members. Dinner, a team meeting and bed followed one another to lead to the end of the first half of the training camp.

But Sunday morning's activities comprised of a different sort of challenge than the previous: Mountain Mania.
For those not familiar, Mountain Mania is a five kilometre race from the bottom of Duntroon all the way to the top, literally. The keeners in this race (which is usually most of the guy's) chose to double pole the whole way, while the rest of us varied between skating, classic, running and biking. The fastest time of the day was Martha who, biking, had a time of 22:45. For the double- polers, Glenn lead in 23:54 and Ryan followed in 36:06 - but it must be noted that Ryan's pole tip decided to jump ship and so a pole swap was needed. Skating, were Katie and Alison in 28:35 and 28:45 respectively, and Tim H., doing classic, came in at 31:14. Mountain Mania proved as much a challenge as it ever was and, without a doubt, every athlete was thrilled to not only be done the race, but to be standing on top of Mt. Mania.

The last planned event for the training camp was a nice ski hike on the Bruce trail. It was a beautiful, sunny day and those who remained gathered what energy was left to hike, cave explore and even do some running. And as the end of the run drew near, so did the end of the training camp and all athletes were content to enjoy a nice quiet car ride back to Waterloo. Overall, a beautiful, warm, sunny weekend of training was enjoyed by many and Fall Training Camp 2011 was a huge success.

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Season Wrap-up

Seeing as there is no longer any snow on the ground and your skis have been stored away for the summer (if not, you should probably get on that...), we here at UWNN thought it would be appropriate to give you a brief wrap-up on the year. Now we are not going to summarize all of the results and what happened on the year, as you can go back and read the previously posts for that info.

FUNFtathlon
The tradition of late season racing continued this year with the annual FUNFtathlon world championships. For those of you unaware of this event, it consists of 5 events: swimming ~1000 yards, running ~7.5 km, classic skiing/rollerskiing 5 km, biking ~15 km and skate skiing/rollerskiing 7.5 km. With all of these events done triathlon style.

This year, there was snow on the ground for the event, however this snow was fresh snow that had fallen on top of ground that had been saturated with rain. Therefore skiing was out of the question and rollerskiing was the choice. However, the ground was still white making the rollerskiing itself kind of depressing. Additionally, it was fairly cold, with the possibility of more snow in the air on the day of the event, resulting in less than ideal conditions.

There was low turnout for the event due to the combination of injuries, the conditions and athletes being out of town. This meant that there were only 3 contenders for the title of "FUNFtathlon World Champion". Tim R, Justin and a team of Alison and Katie took to the startline.

Tim, being in triathlon shape, was the first out the water, followed closely by Justin and Alison. From there Tim tried to maintain and grow his lead, while Justin tried to play catch up, and Alison was looking to the use the benefits of being in a team to go hard and get the extra rest while Katie worked some of the events.

Coming in off of the run, Tim had increased his lead slightly as they switched to classic rollerskiing. This is where the trouble began for Justin. Part way through his first lap he managed to lose his pole tip. After finding it and managing to get it back on his pole, he lost it again and proceeded without one tip. The tip was located and a new pole was given to Justin by the support staff, but the damage had already been done. Katie took over from Alison at this stage for the classic and bike portions of the event.

On to the bike Justin experienced more problems with a flat tire. From here Tim cruised to the victory, despised miserable conditions that evolved during the bike with wet snow falling directly into the athletes and coating them is snow.

Overall, this meant that Tim managed to maintain his title from the previous year and became a two-time "FUNFtathlon World Champion".


Athletic Banquet
The athletic banquet was the time to hand out some of the awards on the season and see the end of the careers for a few of the athletes on the team.

Most Valuable Skier(MVS): Alison and Nolan

The graduating athletes this year were Jess Stevenson and Derek Hartman.

Jess completes 3 seasons with the team and is graduating from Chemical Engineering. Her career will take her home to Calgary, where a full-time job awaits her.


Derek completes 5 seasons with the team and is graduating from Mechanical Engineering. He will be back at Waterloo next year for a Masters in Mechanical Engineering and will be helping out as an assistant coach with the ski team.

Eastern Canadian Championships

This past weekend the University of Waterloo ski team headed to Ottawa/Gatineau for the Eastern Canadian Championships, which was also a part of the NORAM race series, held at the Nakkertok ski club. Among the competitors, were numerous world class athletes with World Cup starts, including two Waterloo alumni Andrea Dupont and Harry Seaton. The format for the weekend was a mini-tour setup where there are three individual races and the times from each of the events, along with some bonus seconds awarded for placement in the sprint are added together to determine the winner. The three events were: a 3 km skate prologue, a 1.4 km skate sprint and a 15 km and 30 km classic race for the women and men respectively.

The members of the Waterloo team currently based in Waterloo decided to forego the prologue event in order to allow the team to leave for the race site on Friday instead of Thursday, in order to be able to engage in the studious side of being a student-athlete. However, three members of the team, Alison Stephenson, Nolan Beanlands and Ryan McNamara, are currently living in Ottawa and working their coop jobs and therefore decided to race the prologue event. A prologue is an individual start, short distance race, with it being a difficult race to pace for as it is between a sprint and a medium distance event. The course chosen for the prologue was particular tough, as the organizers managed to arrange the course so that all of the major climbs at the race site were included. As a result of the race format being different than what is commonly raced by the Waterloo athletes, both Ryan and Nolan had fairly tough races and were looking forward to the next day’s event for redemption. Alison had a decent result and ended up finishing 40th in a fairly deep field of skiers in the Open Women’s race. In the same race, Andrea Dupont was 6th, while in the Open Men’s field Harry Seaton was 9th. Additionally, local Waterloo Region product Andy Shields had a very good race, placing 7th. Full results for all of the weekend races can be found at www.zone4.ca.

While all of these athletes were busy racing, the rest of Waterloo team was sitting on a bus on their way to Ottawa. The athletes heading up to meet the other three athletes already there were: Derek Hartman, Glenn Hartman and Katie Madden, along with coaches Colin Rhodes and Justin Faulkner. A few other athletes were unable to make the trip due to academic commitments and sickness, leaving a slightly smaller crew. As is usually the case, the Waterloo team picked up the University of Guelph team and headed on the way.

Upon getting to the race site, the team headed out to preview the course and get a feel for what to expect on the Saturday and Sunday. The Nakkertok trails present a fairly tough set of courses, so getting a picture of the trails in one’s heads so that it is possible to mentally prepare for the following races is quite important.

Saturday morning dawned and the Waterloo skiers boarded the bus a little after 7:00 am to head to the race site. The schedule for the day was a qualifier race in the morning at 9:00 and 9:40 for the men and the women respectively, followed by heats from noon and on for those that qualified. The way that a sprint race works in that in the qualifier, every skier races the course individually, with 15 sec starts, and records a time for the course. Based on this time, the skiers are seeded, with the best time getting the first seed. The top 30 skiers in each of the Junior and Senior, Women and Men categories then proceed to race heats. In the heats, 5 skiers at a time race against each other in a quarterfinal. The top 2 in each quarterfinal, plus the 2 other fastest times from all of the quarterfinals move on to the semi-final. Again, the top 2 in each semi-final plus the next 2 fastest times move onto the A-Final and the others move on to the B-Final. From these finals, the final results for the day are determined.

All of the Waterloo skiers, except Derek, who is on the IR with an inability to skate ski pain free, took to the startline. The final results were that Nolan placed 37th in Senior Men, Glenn placed 32rd in the Junior Men field and narrowly missed out on the heats, while Ryan was 37th in Junior Men field. On the women’s side, Alison was 13th and Katie 14th in the Junior Women field and therefore both qualified for the heats in the afternoon. Dupont won the Open Women qualifier, while Seaton was 4th and Shields 3rd in Open Men.

The afternoon brought the heats for those who qualified. The Senior Men heats got going first and both Shields and Seaton skied through to the semi-final. In the semi-finals, Seaton was narrowly edge out at the line for 3rd place in his heat and therefore did not advance to the A-Final. Shields on the other hand secured a spot in the A-Final with his skiing performance. In the A-Final, Shields ended up in 4th place. Seaton won the B-Final to place 7th overall. In the Senior Women heats, Dupont skied her way into the A-Final and ultimately placed 6th overall.

Katie and Alison both skied well in their quarterfinals and Alison managed to secure a spot in the semi-final with her performance, while Katie was unable to advance. In Alison’s semi-final, she was unable to secure a spot in the A-Final, thus sending her to the B-Final, where she skied well and ended up in 10th place for the day.

The weather on the day was very temperamental, with it being sunny and as a result feeling very warm one minute and then the sun would disappear making it feel much colder. Additionally, at a few times through the day it snow heavily for 10 min here or 30 min there. As a result, the weather kept everyone on their toes as they raced or watched.

After these performances, the Waterloo skiers headed back to the hotel to rest up for the long race scheduled for the next day. Additionally, since Ottawa is a bit of a mecca for skiing and ski equipment in Eastern Canada, some of the team headed to a ski shop to stock up on ski clothing and equipment, which is not readily available in the Waterloo region.

Sunday brought the 15 km and 30 km classic races for the women and men respectively. This is a longer distance than most of the team had skied in classic and so the day was going to be a good racing experience regardless of the results. As a result of the fact that the weekend was a mini tour, the start was handicapped. That is the starting sequence was based on times from the two previous races. So the fastest, world class skiers started up to 6 min before the main pack of skiers, who had not done the previous two races. Based on the fact that Alison, Ryan and Nolan had raced the previous two races they had starts in front of the main pack which consisted of the rest of the Waterloo racers in Derek, Glenn and Katie. The women went out first for their 15 km and both Katie and Alison turned in solid results, with Alison placing 52nd, which left her 37th in the overall mini-tour and Katie finished 60th in the classic race. To entice Katie to ski a little faster, a certain delicious piece of food may have been waved in front of her during the race by a member of the coaching staff as incentive. It remains to be seen whether the coaching staff may have opened up a can of worms with this, as all the skiers may need to be enticed with this delicious food item at future races.

The men’s race consisted of 6 x 5km loops to make the 30km distance and so this made the race spectator friendly. The race ended up being a bit of a war of attrition for the Waterloo team, as Derek was out of the race after 15km and back on the IR after re-aggravating a previous injury, thus bringing a likely close to his university racing career. Additional, Nolan was also unable to finish the race after ‘hitting the wall’ or ‘bonking’ at about 23km. Unfortunately, his body was not quite up to the challenge of the day after the weekend of racing, and a solid performance up to that point was put to waste. As a result, the top Waterloo finisher was Glenn in 73rd, which is a solid performance considering it is his first year classic skiing and his first foray into a 30 km race. Ryan fought his way to the finish of the race, gutting it out over the final few laps to finish 98th.

Dupont was 8th in the classic race, and ended up placing 6th in the overall mini-tour while Shields was 7th in the classic race and finished 8th overall, and Seaton was 10th in the classic race to place 9th overall.

With these performances, the Waterloo team headed back home to get ready for a tough week of school as there is a significant amount of assignments and midterms to be done in the next week by the team members before getting to reading week.

OUs 2011

This year, the 2011 OUA Nordic Championship’s were held at Laurentian Nordic. Friday morning arrived and us Waterloo skiers were greeted by a purple bus sporting some –friendly, as Tim noted- killer whales. The Orca (as the bus will be further named) was loaded and boarded and off we were to pick up Guelph and commence the trek to Sudbury. The team started off with a 1:1 coach-athlete ratio, as there was only Katie and Glenn from Waterloo, Tim joining us from Highlands and our three coaches/ race support: Colin, Justin and Glen. Alison, Nolan and Ryan were to be travelling from Ottawa with Carleton to meet us in Sudbury, however upon arrival Ryan was missing as he took the weekend off due to sickness. Also, Derek and Jess were back in Waterloo for the IRC and surrounding events.
The format for this year’s OU’s were somewhat different (or so I was informed) from previous years. Originally it was to be composed of a continuous pursuit on Saturday, 7.5 x 2 for the Men and 5 x 2 for the Women, and the team sprint event on the Sunday. However, after two weeks of skating in classic boots or classic-ing in skate boots in preparation for the pursuit we were informed that it would in fact be changed to a non-continuous pursuit. This meant that there would be the classic races in the morning and the skate races in the afternoon- a challenging day for both wax crews and athletes. Friday night’s team meeting came around and Waterloo coaches were not to be found, either still diligently waxing or at the coaches meeting we were unsure. And as it neared our 8:30 bedtime we figured we should at least know logistics for the morning, so Richard was kind enough to give us a run-through of the next day’s proceedings.
Waterloo went into Saturday with neither a full Men’s or Women’s team, yet all athletes had strong individual results. The day started with the men’s classic race and the Waterloo Men’s results are as follows: Tim, placing the highest of Waterloo in 21st with a time of 31:01, Nolan in 22nd with a time of 31:25 and Glenn with an impressive first-ever-classic-race-result of 24th in 31:43. This proved a solid morning on the Men’s side. The Waterloo Women’s classic results were Alison with a solid 26th in 25:48 and Katie, 36th in 28:19.
The afternoon skate race was also a good result for Waterloo, although the Men were down a skier as Tim’s stomach took the better of him. The start order for both the skate and classic was the same and so skiers had a better idea of the athlete field, which generated fairly consistent results. In the Men’s field Nolan was again 22nd in 27:44, being the highest placing for Waterloo, and Glenn was 25th in 28:04. Both Nolan and Glenn showed consistency for solid finishes in both races. On the Women’s side Katie jumped into 24th with a time of 22:19 and Alison maintained a solid 26th in 23:11, despite having some knee pain. Altogether Waterloo skiers had a great day and all were ready to board the Orca and head back to the Holiday Inn for some naps and/or ice baths and a delicious pasta dinner.
Now for some team sprint…
Contrary to Saturday’s events the Women were scheduled to race first for Sunday. Waterloo, in seat 8 was scheduled to start in the first heat of the day at 9 a.m. We, along with two other Guelph skiers, headed to the race site by van ahead of the rest of the teams in order to make the start on time. The first heat of the day went off and Waterloo, up against Guelph B, Laurentian C, Carleton A and Lakehead C sprinted 3 x 1km x 2 skiers to the finish. Lakehead took a quick and solid lead with Carleton in second and Guelph bringing in third. This left Waterloo battling it out with Laurentian for the next top spot. After a few close laps Waterloo skiers were able to gain a decent lead, thus placing fourth in the heat with a time of 17:35. Unfortunately though this would not be a fast enough time to qualify for finals as qualifications were based on time and not placing. What was not known later on though was that Queens would ditch finals so that Waterloo missed a chance to race the B finals. Queen’s gets the lame points here in that three teams that could have gone into the finals missed their chance.
By this point the men’s heats were well on their way and Waterloo having an excellent (more like the best) seat from the year prior’s results were hoping for a solid race to qualify for finals. And a solid race they did have, placing third in their heats with a time of 14:32 to qualify for the B finals. In no time the B finals were on their way and Waterloo was up against Lakehead B, Carleton D, Guelph B and U of T A. Lakehead and Carleton took the lead, Guelph took third thus leaving Waterloo and U of T to fight for fourth. Waterloo ended up in fifth with a time of 14:09, a significantly faster time than the heats.
After an exhausting day of team sprinting we stuck around to watch the Men’s A final which featured the most of the weekend’s top athletes and so made for a very exciting event. Awards proceeded; Lakehead and Laurentian dominating the Women’s field and Lakehead and Carleton the Men’s. The Orca waited faithfully in the parking lot and all gear and athletes (hopefully) were loaded onto the bus to commence the journey home. All in all it was a successful OU’s and all will look forward to a week to recover and get caught up in school (?) before next week’s Eastern’s.

North Bay– Welcome to the Chill Zone

The first OUA race of the season was hosted by Nippissing in North Bay this past weekend. The original schedule for the weekend was a 10 and 15km freestyle race for the Saturday and a 6 and 9 km classic race for the Sunday for the women and the men respectively. However, the schedule for the weekend was in constant flux from the middle of the week due to the temperature forecast. From the middle of the week before, the temperature forecast for the weekend was calling for temperatures in the -20 to -25C for highs and lows in the -30C. As result, before even departing for the weekend, the races were pushed back to a noon start as opposed to the traditional 9 am start in hopes that the temperatures would be above the racing limit of -20C at start time.
The Waterloo team departed on the bus on Friday morning and then headed to Guelph to pick up their team and from there all headed towards North Bay. The bus continued the tradition of having some sweet artwork on the side, with the pattern this time being a Tiger. This was a close rival to the purple Gorilla that was the bus for a trip to Easterns last year. The drive up was a little interesting as there were multiple accidents on Highway 11, with lots of vehicles in the ditches and some fender benders slowing the drive. However, the bus driver did a masterful job of manoeuvring the Tiger and the arrival in North Bay was only slightly delayed over the original schedule.
Everyone on the bus proceeded to bundle up to prepare for the pre-ski. With everyone having looked at the forecast earlier in the week and the temperatures were forecasted to plummet from about -10C to -20C in the afternoon on Friday. Assuming that this plummeted was going to coincide with the arrival in North Bay, significant amounts of clothing was put on by most people. However, as everyone headed out, it was a balmy -12C and as such most were overdressed for the occasion.
After this, it was time to head back to the hotel for the typical pre race activities, like a delicious dinner, team meetings, and ski prep as required. Additionally, based on the forecast of a high of -19C for the next day, everyone had to mentally prepare to be racing in these conditions, along with preparing for dealing with keeping their extremities warm to avoid the potential for frostbite.
Saturday dawned with the meteorologists being correct with their forecast. It was approximately -24C when everyone arrived a little before 11am and proceeded to head out on course. Based on the forecasted temperature, the night before the organizers had decided to change the course to keeping the health of the racers in mind. The course was changed to a 3km, loop since these loop had smaller climbs and descents. With smaller climbs, the racers are less likely to burn their lungs breathing heavily than the larger climbs on the red loop. Additionally, the smaller descents mean less cold wind on the face and the potential for frostbite. With a change in the loop there was also a little change in the race distance. The men were doing 4 loops for a total of 12 km and the women 3 loops for 9km.
On the pre-ski of this new loop, all the skiers were getting their bodies and lungs adjusted to the temperature and deciding the best ways to protect their faces from the cold. This included various forms of hats, balaclavas, buffs and of course Vaseline on the exposed portions of the face.
While the race was originally scheduled to start at noon, this was pushed back to 1pm when it was determined that the temperature was not quite going to be warm enough to start at noon. This of course caused everyone to adjust their schedules and as a result, a game of ‘Janitor’ broke out on the bus.
By the time 1 pm rolled around, the temperature was officially -20C and as a result the race was a go. On the startline for Waterloo were: Nolan, Glenn, Tim R, Ryan and Derek, who despite still being on the IR, decided to start the race but classic ski instead. This was based on the facts that the organizers had guaranteed a track would be set on the entire course and the fact that the forecast for Sunday did not look promising, meaning that Saturday might be the only opportunity to race on the weekend. Additionally, Tim H was also on the startline in the Open men category. On the women’s side, Jess, Katie and Martha, who was also classic skiing for the same reasons, took to the startline.
The men got out first and proceeded to ski hard through the pain associated with racing and the temperatures. Once decent results were turned in with Nolan placing 18th, Glenn in 20th, Tim R in 26th, Ryan in 29th and Derek managing to beat some other skiers who skated and come in 31st. For the women, Katie had a very solid race and an excellent placing 14th for the best result among Waterloo skiers, Jess in 23rd, and Martha in 27th, also managing to beat some skate skiers. Full results on Zone4 (zone4.ca).
Everyone had different degrees of how the temperatures affected them, with the area around the mouth and nose obviously being cold from where the cold air was breathed in, to some having cold fingers or toes, but overall everyone came out fairly well. Additionally, everyone’s lung also felt it, but hopefully no major problems there.
After the racing and associated awards etc, it was time to head back to the hotel again to dry out, warm up and rest after a tiring day of racing.
The forecast for Sunday was much worse than for Saturday, as it was calling for a high of -26C and a low of -30C, therefore making it look like it was going to be difficult to get the race off. With this is mind, the Waterloo and Guelph team started to make some contingency plans for the next day. The decision was made to have alternative plans that, if the temperature was going to be too cold to race, then they would head down to Hardwood Hills to get some skiing in where it was forecasted to be a tropic -22C as opposed to -26C.
When Sunday morning dawned, it was -33C and the forecast was for a high of -26C around 3pm in the afternoon. With this as the temperature for the day, there was no chance that the race was going to happen and so everyone bored the bus to head south for some warmer skiing.

Qualifier Season

In the interest of getting some racing experience in to prep for the upcoming racing season, the Waterloo team participated in some time trials recently.
The first two time trials were held in conjunction with the Guelph team on January 8th and 9th. Guelph was having their winter camp at this point at Highlands, so the Waterloo team joined in for their trial trials, in order to give some more competition for both teams. Taking part from the Waterloo side were: Katie, Tim R and Colin, with Derek riding the IR and doubling as the videographer for the event.
The first of these time trials was a freestyle team sprint, to prepare for the team sprint that will happen at OU championships. The race was kept pretty short, about an 800 m loop, but it meant that everyone got some experience in this incredibly difficult style of event.
In order to allow for some good competition, the structure for the team sprint was to have a one lap qualification to seed the racers. From this the pairs for the team sprint were matched up to try and even out the speeds overall as 1st and last paired together, 2nd and 2nd last etc.
With this as the structure, it made for a lot of movement in the sprint its self as the faster skiers would attempt to build a lead and the team would try to hold this as they passed off to their potentially slower team mate.
Final results are unavailable as it was an informally time trial, but there is some solid video that can be seen below. Check out the second video, a solid crash caught on film.






The next day, the Waterloo skiers were back up to Highlands for a classic individual start time. It was 5km for the women and 10km for the men. Waterloo skiers involved included: Colin, Derek, Glenn, Jess and Katie.
It had snowed approximately 10 or 15 cm the night before at Highlands and so it meant that some of the trails were soft. Additionally, the time trial was started in the stadium and the Racer Out hill all the way up to the run-up to the glacier was ungroomed. Therefore, on the pre-ski, all involved tried to get the trail semi-groomed through self grooming. However, come race time, the climb up Racer Out involved taking it easy up the climb as it was herringbone in soft snow in order to not tire yourself out for the rest of the race.
Overall, it was a good racing experience for all involved to get some classic skiing experience in. Full results are unavailable, however the order of Waterloo skiers was: Derek, Colin, Glenn in the men’s race and Jess, Katie in the women’s race.

The final time trial was held on Sat Jan 15th and was held just with the Waterloo skiers. On the startlist were Colin, Glenn, Jess, Katie, Ryan. The format was left open, however all of the skiers decided to do the race classic. It was a mass start, with the men doing 10km and the women 5km. Overall the conditions were nice and the race was held on a 5km loop up at the glacier. The end results for the time trial were: Colin, Glenn, Ryan on the men’s side and Katie, Jess on the womens.


Colin leading the way up the first climb, followed by Glenn and Ryan.


Katie working her way up the climb.



Jess pushing her way through some striding.

Winter Camp - The Summary

With the OCUP#1 being held at the same time as this year’s winter camp, it created a slightly different atmosphere to the camp and its activities. Most years, as is typical with ski camps in general, the camp is about getting in volume and working on technique. However, since there were two races going on for the weekend, it meant that the volume training needed to be more or less cut out so that the races could at least be a useful experience. However, other than this change from volume to racing and a slight decrease in the amount of time spent skiing, this was a typical ski camp.
The camp got going on Friday, (December 17th) with people showing up at various times throughout the day. The first crew up was Colin and Alison who were bringing all of the food with them. Since there is a copious amount of food consumed at a ski camp, this resulted in a significant amount of food to pack into a not so significantly large car, along with skiing gear and waxing gear. As a result, there was a good game of Tetris that got to be played by Colin and Alison in order to fit all of the food. However, unlike Tetris they had the distinct advantage of being able to resize the pieces to make things work. This included going to the extreme of packing groceries items inside of the wax bench, under seats and wherever else they could find to fit the food in. They were successful in managing to fit all of the food in the car without having to resort to packing food in the engine compartment; however if this had been the case, time could have been saved on the cooking of some of the food ala Red Green style of cooking in his van engine compartment.
While those two managed to get up to Highlands earlier in the day and as a result get some skiing in and some wax testing, most of the rest of the crew strangled in at various points throughout the afternoon and evening. The cast of characters that arrived included: Derek, Glenn, Katie, Nathaniel, Ryan, Tim Rhodes and Nolan, who was down from Ottawa for the occasion. Also, there were a few none ski team guest with Heather (Ryan’s gf), Chrissy (Tim R’s gf) and Ian (Derek/Glenn’s brother) also making an appearance to have some time away and enjoy a bit of skiing on the weekend.
With the various arrival times for all of the skiers, the Friday night did not entail too much in the way of activities with waxing skis for the next day being the only defined task. The decks of cards got brought out and the game of Euchre was attempted to be taught to some of the members of the team. Nolan appeared to be over thinking the game, perhaps trying to determine the race results for each of the cards in his hand, which lead to a few mentions that he should hurry up and play.
The Saturday morning dawned as usually at 7am, with some oatmeal to line the stomachs of all and fuel them for the sprint races ahead. The qualifying sprint got going at 10am, so it left ample time for everyone to test their skis, warm up at their pace and get ready for the sprint. With the races being literally 200m out the front door of the farmhouse, it made for a very relaxed environment as everyone could come and go at their own pace and no sitting on the bus waiting for it to get closer to your start as either the men’s/women’s race got going, as is typically the case at team races.
The sprint qualifier is exactly that, a quick 3 min of racing and you are done. Along with some cool down and getting changed into some dry clothes; everyone was ready to go by about 11:30 for some classic technique work. With the sprint heats not going off until the 2:30 range, this left for an hour and a half or so for technique time and then lunch. With many of the Waterloo skiers being less experienced with classic skiing, Coach Rhodes was tasked with trying to help out everyone with this. Unfortunately, with the limited timeframe available, he could not get into any technique games or drills, just mostly focusing on looking at and suggesting technique improvements.
A major advantage to having some other guest with the ski team was that with proper planning, lunch could be prepared by these other guests and that the skiers could come right in and enjoy lunch, without the normal delay associated with making it after the workout or activity. The ever delicious tuna melts were on the menu for lunch and the thought of tuna melts, almost made alumni Kieran Jones, who was at the OCUP in his capacity as coach at Nakkertok, abandon the kids he was in charge of out on the course as they raced etc and come and join the team for lunch. Surprisingly, his stomach did not win the battle this time and was unable to enjoy the savoury taste of tuna melts.
After lunch was the sprint heats, with some decent results turned in from the Waterloo skiers as was described previously in the race report. After these heats concluded and associated cool down, most headed back to the farmhouse for some downtime or napping as deemed appropriate.
Dinner helped no surprises as the veteran members of the team had learnt their lesson from the Fall camp and did not let team rookie cook the dinner solo and as a result, no smoked spaghetti was experienced this time.
Saturday evening brought the arrival of assistant coach Justin, along with his three year old daughter Natalie. Of course, anytime a kid is brought into the company of those who aren’t regularly around them, they are the life of the party and Natalie was no exception, providing a great deal of entertainment. And of course Justin got the benefit of having a dozen babysitters to watch out for Natalie as well.
The rest of Saturday evening brought a night ski, and then followed by the annual gift exchange, where a $5 limit is placed on purchasing items, but other items which you did not purchase are fair game. As a result, the type of gifts can vary from items that are gifted because they were not needed in a household as they were a duplicate, to random items that have no practical use but are re-gifted through the gift exchange every year to random items that have accumulated in the barn over the years and our gifted in order pass them on to other skiers, or potential return them to the owner who originally left them there.
This year some of the items in the gift exchange included (Sorry, you should have been there) and (Can’t tell you or UWNN would have to kill you) and a really neat item, (You are invited to come next year and experience the festivities for yourself). With that, Saturday night came to a close as everyone headed off to rest up for the race the next day.
Sunday morning was prep time for the race and the luxury of being able to step out the front door for warm-up being enjoyed yet again. With the race being multiple loops, including Racer Out as the major hill, everyone was pretty tired coming out of the race. However, seeing as it was a camp, there was no time to be wasted, and so after some lunch, it was back out on skis to work on skate technique. With some more time to work with, there was a number of drills working on body position and improving skate technique all around. When it came time to work on hill climbing technique, the tired legs started to show as those who had raced struggled a little bit at the sight of Racer Out yet again. The final activity in the skate technique work was downhill balance and for this it involves going down some gradually inclines well working on balancing on one ski up with various levels of complexity. The top end of this complexity is the Zorra, where you are going down the hill on one ski and you take your other ski off and perform some tricks and then attempt to get your ski back on. There will be some video posted of this feat in a future post.
Sunday night brought Lasanga for dinner and not much else of substance as most of the skiers were pretty tired from the day and disappeared for bed at various times. As well, a few of the skiers also began to head back to Waterloo as there were some exams to be written the next day.
Unfortunately Sunday night brought some unpleasant news to a few in the farmhouse, as Glenn and Ian both had rough nights, coming down with some sort of sickness, possibly a bit of food poisoning.
Come Monday, with a bunch of the skiers having headed home and more being sick, Derek, Colin, Justin, Katie and Ryan were the ones left to head out and enjoy some more skiing and just put in some kms and enjoy the skiing. With the final clean out of the house, the camp was concluded and everyone headed back to Waterloo to enjoy the beginning of their winter holidays.

The Story of Racer Out

The second race of the OCUP weekend was a medium distance skate race, 10km for both the men and the women. And as is typical for distance races at Highlands, the course was created to feature a significant amount of climbing. This meant that the course was selected as a 3.3km loop, which meant that the Racer Out Hill leading from the stadium up towards Larry's Glacier was feature 3 times in the race, along with the associated descent back down to the stadium. This made these portions of the course very important, as a significant amount of time could be made or lost on these climbs and descents over the 3 laps.

The Waterloo racers were similar to the day before, with assistant coach Justin Faulkner also parachuting in for a start. Having come off the sprint the day before and not necessarily having rested as much the day before, owing from the fact that it was a camp and significant amounts of technique and skiing had been fit in and around the sprint, meant that the Waterloo skiers were not necessarily as fresh as some of their competitors. However, this did not deter any of the Waterloo skiers, as they all stepped to the line looking to inflict damage on their competitors and the course itself.

The race was a mass start and so all of the men gathered at the line and headed out up Racer Out for the first time. There were a total of 41 men on the startline. Justin, fresh from not racing the day before and none to happy about being seeded at the back of the field due to his lack of a CCC number and the fact that all of the university skiers now have them, took the opportunity to double pole on the outside of the track around three quarters of the field and get a good position leading up the first climb. This would appear to be a little overzealous of a move on his part, as his arms would let him know later in the race. Something about being a stay at home day and not having time for a significant amount of training leads to decreased ski specific strength and endurance.

The rest of the Waterloo skiers settled into the field and worked their way up the large climb for the first time and in their minds did the tally; Me: 1, Racer Out: 0.

Over the top of the hill, the field would start to string out as each skier was left settling into their pace and trying to lead a pack or stick with a pack around them.

The women then started off to attempt to chase the men down the course. It was a smaller field, with only 21 taking to the line. Up the first climb for the women, the pace at the front of the group was noticeably slower and this led to most of the skiers bunching up on the climb. It was clear that the women were determined to not let Racer Out win overall and were saving a little bit for the next couple times that they encountered it.

As the men lapped through, the different groups of skiers were clearly starting to form in the race with a lead group of about 5 skiers, a first chase group of about 8 or 10 and then a second chase group of another 8 or 10. Nolan had settled himself into the back of this second chase group and was skiing a fairly strong race. Tim and Glenn were then a little bit back of this group, with Glenn skiing hard to make contact with Tim and settle in behind him. The two coaches, Justin and Colin were also skiing together and were trading leads back and forth over the different sections of the course. Colin, with significantly more training under his belt on the year was holding his own over Justin on the climbs, who was clearly feeling the wrath that Racer Out was dishing out. Ryan was skiing on his own a little ways back of these two, trying to find a good pace and have a sound technical race.

On the woman's side, the pace had settled in over the course of the lap and all were skiing a more consistent pace for the second lap. Both Alison and Katie were skiing around the middle of the pack as they headed up the climb a second time.

It was clear that the second time up Racer Out was significantly harder then the first, as the toll of the first loop and trying to find that proper race pace was having an effect on the racers. For some of the racers, Racer Out won that second time, exacting some revenge and leading to some tired looking technique and struggles getting up the hill. Me: 1, Racer Out: 1.

Coming around for the third lap, the racers had started to string out significantly more, with less defined groups beyond the first lead group and more skiers on their own, trying to keep their pace up. Tim and Glenn were still skiing together and working their way up the field picking off a few skiers ahead of them, as they managed to work together. Justin and Colin were also skiing together and were exchanging leads depending on the point in the course. Justin would manage to sneak by Colin on some of the downhills, and the area in and around the stadium, where as Colin had a little more to give on the uphills and the top portions of the course.

On the third lapped, the skiers were more prepared to deal with Racer Out, as they had experienced its wrath on lap 2. Having settled into a consistent pace and being prepared for it meant that the skiers were able to successfully climb the hill for the third and final time. While the technique and tempo may not have been perfect, the fact that it was about 7 km into the race meant that this round went to the skiers. Me: 2, Racer Out: 1.

Finishing up the last loop and then heading into the finish, the skiers attempted to pick off that extra one or two skiers in order to improve their finish. Or in the case of those skiing together, like Tim/Glenn and Colin/Justin, they were still jockeying to see who would come out on top. In the pairing of Tim and Glenn, they both went hard over the top of the climb and Tim had more to give, ultimately gapping Glenn and besting him by 8 sec and two places as he got an extra skier at the line. In the Colin and Justin pairing, Justin tried to use the same strategy as the previous two laps where he went by Colin leading into the downhill and led into and around the stadium area. Colin however was not going to have any of that, knowing that he did not have another uphill to go around Justin again. As a result Colin lead Justin to the line, taking him by 2 s.

In the final standing, Nolan had the best results of the Waterloo man's group, skiing a respectable race into 20th place. On the woman's side, it was Alison in 10th place.

Nolan: 20th
Tim: 21st
Glenn:23rd
Colin:20th
Justin: 30th
Ryan: 35th

Alison: 10th
Katie: 14th.

Full results can be found at Zone4.

Winter Camp - Race Reports

The timing of the UW winter camp this year corresponded with OCUP#1 held at Highlands Nordic on the weekend of December 18/19th. As a result, the format for the weekend was a little bit different than a normal camp, with a bunch of racing involved.

So UWNN will start with a race report from the skate sprint and the medium distance skate race and will follow up with more comments on the weekend. While this report is dated, things like Christmas break got in the way. So read it anyway, even if you already know the results and what happened, we will attempt to provide something humorous or insightful (the latter is probably not going to happen).

On to the race report...

The Saturday morning got going with a skate sprint qualifier 1.3 km for both the men and the women. The sprint qualifier was a new experience for a number of the athletes and so it was treated as a learning experience for them. 4 men (Tim R, Glenn, Nolan and Ryan), two women (Alison, Katie) and one head coach took to the start line.
Some decent results were turned in from the group with Nolan placing just ahead of Tim, in 7th and 8th place respectively in the Senior Male field. In the same field Colin placed 16th, just edging out archrival and U of T head coach Hans Fischer by 0.7s. Glenn placed 10th in the Junior Male field, while Ryan followed up in 14th place.
On the womens side, Alison was 7th and Katie 9th in the Junior Female field. Full results can be found on Zone4 (zone4.ca)

As a result of less than full fields in the junior and senior male and female fields, there was some deviation from the standard sprint heat set up. With 17 or 18 racers in each of these 4 fields, it meant that the set-up was 4 heats of 4 or 5 racers in each of the categories. Top 2 from each heat advanced to the semi-final. From the semi-finals, top 2 went to the A Final and 3rd and 4th from each semi-final went to the B final.

With this as the set-up, the heats got off to a start. In one of the senior male heats, Tim, Colin and Hans were all matched up, which resulted in a very interesting heat for Waterloo supporters. Tim skied to a fairly convincing victory to move onto the semi-final, while Hans and Colin battled it out for supremacy. Overall the last climb and entering into the final 150 m home stretch, Colin manage to open a small gap over Hans and managed to hold it as the both struggled towards the line. Both obviously realizing that sprinting is hard, especially when you get less hours of training than you would like as a result of things like full time jobs and being a ski coach. Neither was available for comment after the race to determine if they wished that they had just stayed on the sidelines and coached or whether the sprint was worth it.

Nolan also managed to ski well and move onto the semi-final, while all of the other Waterloo skiers were unable to advance past the quarterfinal heats.

Now some our competitors over at the University of Guelph had a little bit more of an interesting sprint experience. The four categories were the last events of the day, which meant that the schedule was off slightly by the time the races got to this point. So, after having heard that the heats were running behind, they went with the estimated time they had heard for the delay and did not bother to check back in for the actual timing. So when one of the senior male heats rolled around which had all 4 skiers being from Guelph, 3 were nowhere to be found. The organizers delayed this heat and just before they were going to start the heat with 1 skier, the other 3 decided to show up and proceeded to try and get to the start line. Organizers, for some unknown reason, require that the racers have bibs so that entailed some more last minute scrambling. The heat managed to get going eventually, with most of the racers on their warm-up/rock skis. Hopefully, this punctuality things does not carry over to the travel arrangements on the bus this year...

And on to the semi-finals. From the UW side of things, Nolan and Tim were both unable to get in the top two and therefore were on to the B Final.
In the B Final, it was a tight race between 2 UW skiers and two Guelph skiers. Down the hill into the sprint hill at Highlands, Tim, Nolan and one of the Guelph skiers were battling for second place. Coming up the hill into the finishing stretch, only Nolan emerged, apparently having won some sort of roller derby over the sprint hill. Tim then emerged with a pole grip sans shaft and an extra pole in one hand and finally the Guelph skier emerged as well after a delay.

What had transpired was a typical sprint racing crash, which had been few and far between on the day, with a pole being stepped on and the shaft coming out of the pole grip, resulting in those two skiers going done and Nolan emerging looking like someone you don't want to mess with...