UW Nordic Team Does Eastern Canadians – Round 1

This past weekend, January 30 and 31st, much like every other cross country skier and their Grandmother in Eastern Canada, the UW Nordic Team headed off to Ottawa, Ontario/Cantley, Quebec for a non-stop adrenaline-filled weekend, otherwise known as Eastern Canadian Championships.

The race weekend began much like any other – the team arrived at the University of Waterloo’s Physical Activites Complex doors to find a big purple bus with gorilla’s on the side, and members of Waterloo’s illustrious indoor track team on board. After a short discussion, in which several track athletes came to realize that the Purple Gorilla was in fact headed to an outdoor venue with an advertised high temperature of –18 degrees Celsius, the bus was left to the UW Nordic Team. The UWNT settled in comfortably for the short ride over to the University of Guelph to pick up our best friends, biggest rivals, and fantastic travelling companions, the University of Guelph Nordic Ski Team. Ed – Guelph team members reading this blog – this is an earnest statement, meant with the best intentions. Please avoid rancorous diatribes in the comments. Also, you have your own blog now, so go read it instead.

A Gorilla

 

  Purple

After a quiet ride in which quickly improving rookie Ry-An McNamara proved that it is in fact possible to be skunked in back to back games of cribbage, the Purple Gorilla disgorged it’s contents onto the bustling parking lot of Nakkertok, the site of Eastern Canadian Championships, located in Cantley, Quebec. Fortunately everyone brought their passports, so the border crossing between Quebec and Ontario went smoothly, with only one strip search of Tim Rhodes.

On the pre-ski day, Nakkertok was sunny, frigid, icy, and contained roughly 600 athletes jostling for space around the 5km and 7.5km loops creating an extremely fast and somewhat dangerous situation. The University Men prepped by skiing the 5km loop, of which they were to do two the following day, while the women only had to do one. As most of the team had never experienced the exhilaration/misery that is Nakkertok’s race trails, the first trip around the loop was an exciting one. Highlights included the skating rink at the bottom of Beep Beep, the pit in the stomach feeling from the multiple G’s experienced during the descent of Dirk’s Dive and the lactic-acid build up that occurs when herring-boning up Montee McCarthy.

But more importantly – race day! With temperatures suspected to be quite frigid on Saturday morning the race start was delayed until 11.00 AM. This presented the UWNT with the unprecedented bonus of being able to accrue a purely disgusting amount of pre-race sleep. As coaches and members of the Eastern Canadian’s Coordination and Volunteer staff were outraged to learn, the average amount of athlete sleep on Friday night was roughly 10 hours. Normally the downside of this ludicrous amount of sleep and lethargic start is the amount of time spent at the race site, however with the 600 competitors starting at 15 second intervals the incredibly efficient Nakkertok race organisation crew moved things along at a quick pace.

For Alison Stephenson (that’s with a ‘ph’), rookie, female, air miles collector and class attender extraordinaire, and Heather Foley, also rookie, also female, working on a degree in drug dealing and race car driving, a mere 5 km skate was in order. Although most admitted it was a little chilly, the UWNT women took off their warm ups, made sure their buffs were on, and got down to the serious business of racing. Stephenson, a product of Nakkertok Nordic’s racing program and a native of the Ottawa area used her familiarity with the course to finish 84th in Open Women (25th OUA). Foley, who has had a strong season returning to racing after a layoff (not pregnancy, despite popular opinion, women CAN take time off skiing for things besides procreating) showed she continues to improve, finishing 109th in Open Women (31st OUA).

Post race quotes:

Alison Stephenson: “It’s fast. No really, it is.”

 

Up next were the men, something the UWNT has several more of, but are significantly less important. The lads were instructed to do 10 km – two laps of the 5, and luckily everyone heeded those directions, as well as the common knowledge that wind briefs were to be considered worth their weight in gold. As has been the case all season, Henry Reich, over-age rookie and American, led the way, posting the 29th fastest time in Open Men (5th OUA). Reich was followed by Kieran Jones, who our readers should all be quite familiar with at this point, who placed a respectable 76th in Open Men (21st OUA). The first rookie finisher for the UWNT was Tim Rhodes, who also moonlights as team chef, team porter and team DJ, in 103rd Open Men (30th OUA). Nolan Beanlands, a second-year phenom with a coop job in Ottawa, a few tickets to the Olympics and an axe to grind followed shortly thereafter in 110 Open Men (33rd OUA). Ryan McNamara, a resent resident of Ottawa and rookie had recently contracted a nasty 2 day cold, but refused to be daunted by a little snot, posting a placing of 152 in Open Men (48th OUA). The injured Derek Hartman travelled with the team, however decided to take an extra day to rest for Sunday’s classic race. Andrew Jeffrey was also absent, selfishly choosing to further his career goals of saving lives and helping people instead.

Post race quotes:

Henry Reich: “Are we in Quebec right now??”

Kieran Jones: “My skis were so fast, it was like a slalom on those down hills I was going by so many people. Just call me Manny Osbourne-Paradis!”

Ryan McNamara: “My throat hurts.”

 

With the skate day all wrapped up, the team hit the bus, and headed back to the hotel for an afternoon of relaxing, snoozing, eating, or wondering why the heck all the Canadian buildings look so weird. Stay tuned for Day 2, which will actually get written.

 

Please note, all OUA results are unofficial. For full results please see Zone 4.

 

 

 

Confusing colloquialism: “Happy as a clam” ?? Why are clams happy? All they do is get eaten.

In the 8 Track: Human – The Killers. Sure, the line “Are we human, or are we dancers” doesn’t make sense, but since when does that matter in music?

On the ‘Tube: 

Newell X Ski from Andrew Newell on Vimeo.

That’s Andy Newell. THE Andy Newell, the USA’s best hope for a medal in cross country skiing in Vancouver. That would be the first medal a US man has won in the sport in 35 years. And he just back flipped on skinny skis. What was it that you did for the sport of cross country skiing recently??