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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Sunday, September 25, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Email Subscription
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All you have to do is click on the "Subscribe to UW Nordic News by Email" link near the bottom of the sidebar on the right of the blog. Then enter your email and do all of the verification things and voila, you will get notification when UWNN has a new post.
Trust us, its worth it.
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.
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.
Monday, February 14, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
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.
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.
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.
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