The end of the ski season always comes too fast. We as athletes train so hard for our sport and all of a sudden when the season ends we dont know what to do. I guess thats part of what keeps us coming back year to year. The other motivating factor is the sweet smell of success. If that smell comes to us at the end of the year, its even more of a reason to come back in the offseason and try to get even better.

After this years Eastern High School Championships, I feel very confident about the end of my season and my chances to do well next year in college. I went into EHS with a couple of weeks break from real races, though I did have the forerunning opportunity withJustin Freeman at the J2 Championships that I took as a time trial. I hung onto him up the first hill to the water tower road and then couldnt bridge the gap that opened up. I finished about 20 seconds behind him which I thought was a fairly decent showing. But really that race was key for me to keep my fitness up before Eastern High School Champs.
Over the years my J2 and EHS places have really been pretty bad. As a first year J2 (in 8th grade) I qualified for Mass but couldnt go because of previous commitments. I think I finished in the 70s / 80s at J2s (at Black Mountain of Maine) the only year I went, freshman year. At EHS in Presque Isle that year I think I qualified almost last for Mass and finished in the high 90s and low 100s, but loved the atmosphere so much that my results didnt matter. Both J2s and EHS were tremendous fun freshman year, and thats why I kept trying to make it.

Sophomore year was my first year at Holderness and for some reason I just couldnt get to the qualifiers down in Massachusetts during the school year. Since the NH qualifying races were built into Holdernesss racing schedule, I decided to just go out for their team. I qualified about 12th for New Hampshire and had some bad luck because I got a bit sick right beforehand. My finishes were all around the 50s/60s but I didnt have as much fun at Rangeley as I had in Presque Isle with the Mass team.

So the last year I decided to attend one of the Mass qualifiers and waive my attendance at the other. I finished and qualified fourth in that race at Prospect. At Stowe my finishes were all around 30. I had just come back from 11 days in the woods on what Holderness calls OutBack, which is basically 8 days of winter hiking and camping with a 4 day-3 night solo camping period. While it was epic and I was so proud of what I accomplished out there, mentally and physically, it did nothing for my skiing. I started racing at EHS without having skied in about 13 days, and it showed. My brother beat me, among other things, and the weekend just didnt go well for me. The one claim to fame I have from EHS 08 is that I was sitting in fifth position behind winner Chris Stock and others starting the 5th kilometer on the Classic course when I noticed that my boot (Atomic classic pilot, 08 version) had come undone and my foot felt really loose. So in the S turns on the far side of the course, I crashed. Four times. About twenty people passed me. I made a valiant effort to catch the lead group again but used a lot of energy in the process and died on the last hill into the stadium. I faded from about 15th back to 25th and felt awful about myself. I must have thought about that race once a day for a year since it happened because I was so upset about it. I returned the boots to Atomic and they sent me new ones with a better QuickLace system and I was all set.
So this year I came in with an internal need to redeem myself. I didnt have any excuses going into it and wanted to have no regrets coming out of it. The weeks leading up to it I made a conscious effort to peak at EHS, skiing only two speeds: really easy and really hard. I had slow days and interval days leading up to it that were thought out by my coaches and me. Of course the forerunning was no accident either. I needed a time trial to keep my body on the racing schedule that I had been on for the entire winter. Then I threw in one more short level 4 session the Monday before and rested well. On Wednesday I found something that gave me confidence in my pre-race preparation and inspired me for the weekend. It was really quite unexpected. I was browsing FasterSkier and saw The Hunt For Gold by Bjørn Dœhlie as a series in one of the drop-down menus and decided to check it out. It turns out that a few years ago in 2002 someone did a translation of Bjørn’s book. I found it perfectly fascinating and inspiring and it got me psyched up mentally for the weekends races.

I saw the start list on Thursday night and was excited to be starting in front of Welley Ramsay, the New England JO Alternate, who I knew was slightly better than me and I hadnt beaten all year. I knew if I could hold onto him when he caught me, I would be in good shape. I did everything right to prepare for the skate. I got enough sleep, I ate all the right things, and my head was in the right place. I didnt psyche myself out, and I wasnt nervous to start. Rather, I was chomping at the bit to get out of the start wand, and that was the perfect mindset for me to be in. Starting third of more than one hundred was a new experience for me, but I loved it. I just tried to keep my eyes off of everyone watching me, so that it was just me and the skiers around me. I went out hard, maybe too hard, and I soon saw Jake Barton, the Vermonter in front of me. Then going around one of the easier tricky corners on the course, I tripped. I realized I probably was pushing too hard and decided to back off slightly. Welley caught me about midway through the first climb. I hung onto him to the top and through the next rise, and then we made our way around the tough corners. After that he pushed with ability I did not have, and I fell slowly off the back. At the top of the last climb he had about fifteen seconds on me, and probably put a few more on by going over the top and onto the flats better than me. I felt pretty exhausted and was disappointed that I had let Welley go, and thought that because of that my race hadnt gone well. I dont usually hear much during my races but I heard someone tell me on the last climb to, “Stay with him, hes the race leader!” but I gave it no thought because he was only the third person on course. What a mistake…in reality the person that said that probably had been on another part of the course earlier and had taken splits, or had a radio spotter taking splits. Shoulda listened.

Anyway I had a decent finish—I usually get pretty amped and put on a burst of speed coming into the stadium because of the crowd, and this time was no exception. I heard a lot of cheering but didnt hear the announcer. Apparently my time was initially third best on the line. Several other good JO caliber racers had yet to come in, though, and I thought I would easily drop out of the top ten. But again and again my time held up. Only three more racers apart from the original two were faster than me. I was wary of this, though. I kept waiting for others to come in and bump me down. After a while I asked the MC to read off the top ten again, and sure enough I was sixth! It was my best result ever at EHS for sure, and arguably the best of the season and of my life. In my excitement I almost missed the podium ceremony.

Saturday was scheduled to be a long day, with both the sprint and the relay. I thought the sprint went pretty well. I got out fast but was fourth going up the steep hill. All of a sudden Welley accidentally tripped Jake Barton and I was caught behind him. I had to stop for a second and move to the left of him, at which point I was a few seconds off of Welley, Paco, and a New York skier. I did the best I could to come back going up the gradual hill and finally ended up on the New Yorker, Kevin Spragues heels. I found my way down the hill and into the upper part of the stadium safely. As we made the turn into the finish, Kevin crashed and I sprinted past Paco for a second place finish in my heat, about four seconds behind Welley (It made me laugh when I realized that I was actually Second for a while on the timers computers.) When everyone was in I had secured 12th place, which is my best result ever in a sprint. It may have been better, too, if I wasnt behind Jake when he fell. We went back to the hotel, ate, hydrated, and put our legs above our hearts after the race, and prepared for the relay.

There was a whole lot of hope for both of our top two mixed gender mixed medley relay teams going into the afternoon. The first team was made up entirely of JO skiers. The relay order was Boys then Girls classical, then boys and girls skate. On the first team, Massachusetts had Chris Stock, the boys runner up for the morning, Hilary Rich, the girls sprint winner, Isaac Hoenig, a strong JO skier, and Corey Stock, Chriss sister, the third place finisher in the morning and the best J2 in the country. Our second team was composed of Jackson Rich, one of the best J2s in the country, Olga Golovkina, a JO skier and the winner of last years 7.5k classic race, myself, and Hannah Smith, a strong J2 who had finished sixteenth in the skate race. It was thought that these two teams could potentially occupy two podium spots if we all raced well. That might have been true had both teams not been plagued with bad luck. Chris fell on course, Hilary had been sick since the skate race on Friday, Isaac wasnt able to make up time, but somehow Corey was able to make up a 30 second lead on the Vermont team and still win by almost thirty seconds. Our team had its own troubles. Jackson (Hilarys brother) was also sick, Olga wasnt on form, my technique was all over the place and I couldnt make up time, and Hannah tripped at first in the tag zone and then wasnt able to make any time up. All credit to her though, she was just awesome all weekend (she led the classic race for a while) and she really wasnt bummed about tripping. I thought I had tripped her and so I was all bent out of shape about it…swearing, stabbing the snow with my poles, just beating myself up over it, etc. but she told me it wasnt my fault and that I shouldnt worry about it. I still think part of it was my doing but I admire her for brushing it off. She had to be the coolest person I met over the weekend.

My relay leg was decent. I think I had the fourth best time in the skate. Phil Tosteson (Williams 13!!) had a sick race. He made up about 15 seconds on me from behind and held me off as I charged back into the stadium behind him. His team ended up finishing a couple ahead of us instead of a couple behind, almost entirely because of his performance. He had the best time in the skate by about 15 seconds.

The night before the classic race I wasnt surprised to be told that I was in the seeded chevron that would start out in front of the lines of skiers. I thought my NENSA points were good enough. However a few minutes later I was told that I wasnt in the chevron. In the long run it didnt make much difference but I would have been pretty pumped to be considered one of the top 15 seeded high schoolers in the region. I think I got bumped by the New York skier who didnt have NENSA points but they most likely included him because of his good USSA point ranking. I would still start at the front of the Massachusetts line, and I was okay with that as an alternative.

Just before the girls classic 7.8k race, it started snowing like crazy. I got out my hairies skis just in case the temp went up a degree and a half to 32, and I was sure I would have to use them. However I was wrong. Mass boys went with some kind of orange or red klister with green under the toe, covered by toko red hardwax. I was thrilled with how my skis felt when I tested them a half hour before the race, so I didnt change anything. However when it stopped snowing and the sun came out, my skis felt like they were waxed with sandpaper. So I had to double pole down some of the hills that others were tucking, and I couldnt remain in contact with the pack that I usually wouldnt have any trouble sitting in behind. I spent all my energy yoyoing off the back of the pack and couldnt save enough for a sprint at the end. Late in the race (about 6k) my skis were suddenly running a little faster and so I began to catch Pat Joslin, Kody Spencer, Corey Hill, and my brother who had all been in front of me. As soon as I caught them at about 7.4k though, Corey tracked Patty and clipped his ski. Patty went down hard and there was no way I could avoid him. I got up and got back in line behind Pat and a New Hampshire skier and prepared to sprint past them at the finish. I chose the far right lane because that was the only one open and as soon as I got in the track, my skis caught on the dusting of snow and I lost all my momentum. I almost fell forward because the change in speed was so great. I was 29th. Not a great way to end a great weekend. Overall I was really proud of how I did. The disappointment at the end was much less than the way I felt about the first three races. I love competing for Mass because no matter how you do, they are still supportive. They pick you up after a bad race and they are thrilled to death whenever you have a good race. I cant say enough about all the coaches, and I am sad to see my Eastern High School career come to an end after four fun years.

As for my season, well. The beginning could have been better, but I could not have asked for a happier ending. Based on my results at the end, I know I can compete with the best of the JO skiers. Last year I was unsure but now I am completely dedicated to skiing in college and at the JO level. I look forward with great expectation to next years competitions.

If I had to pick some highlights from this year, I wouldnt settle on just one event.
My best race in terms of results I think was the EHS Skate. I was in there comfortably with all the best from New England, and I held my own under pressure.
My best race overall has to be the Silver Fox Trot. If I were Bjørn Dœhlie, I would say that Hanover was the perfect race. I was hungry for the next hill, the pain of normal races didnt affect me, I fulfilled all the goals that I set beforehand and then some, I had some very inspiring things happen to me during the race (hanging on to Patrick Weaver during the race was definitely one of them) and of course I had a 180 point race, my lowest ever.
I had two perfect days, the first being at Gunstock with Mr. Peck. He was so inspirational and such a good coach, and he knew the wax like it was his second language. It was my lowest-place Eastern Cup race ever (21st) and I felt good all day. Plus since it was four laps my dad was able to give me splits off of Paco DeFrancis which worked perfectly, helping me gauge how hard I should go.
The second perfect day was an hour and a half skate tour up at Waterville. Mr. Hendel took Nate and I up to help him move a TV from his condo there, and treated us to skiing and dinner. We skied a beautiful route that I had never done before, one called Cascade. the way it was laid out was just beautiful and I could have skied that loop several times and not gotten bored. We went back a way that was new to me too, which brought us through the town and past WVA. Our whole ski looked like a figure eight on paper. I was just overcome with the beauty of that area, as I so often am when I ski at Waterville. As I look back, that is probably the last ski I will do at WVV unless there is some great late spring skiing after the area has closed down. Tripoli Rd. will probably be covered until late April if there are some freezing nights left.

And so the season ends. I still have some skiing to do, but cycling really starts tomorrow because I know the Williamstown Tursday Night group will want me to come along. My senior project, which has a lot to do with skiing and will be outlined in a later post, has also yet to be completed. More updates will come on that and throughout cycling season.

Here are some things I may do this summer for training.
Williamstown Training Group. Definitely continuing my training with these guys, they were great the last couple of years.
Williams Nordics training. Now that Im on the team, I might as well follow their routine, right?
SMS Camp. My brother has done this the past couple of years and I think it would be a great way to get out of town and train with and meet some really good people for a while.
Burkes trip to Sweden and Norway? My roommate Nate Fuller went on this trip two years ago and gave it rave reviews, and plans to return this summer. He is trying everything to get me to come. Financially Im not sure if it will pan out but Id love to go and Im sure I would have a great time.

Phew, what a long post. Five pages single spaced, thats more than most of my papers for school.

It’s not generally a good idea to sign up for something like a FasterSkier blog and then not write on it for like two months. It makes some people angry. I know my friend Mr. Houseman will be happy that I posted this note, as he is my former honors chem teacher one of the frequenters of my blog.

Anyway, a lot has happened in the two months that I haven’t made the effort to type a post. Senior spring so far has turned out to be just an uncontrolled mass of homework that hits me every night. I might have something to say to a few teachers if there weren’t a former teacher reading this.

Most of the year at Lakes Region races I finished second for Holderness, being bested by KUA skier Kody Spencer. He really got very good last summer, after spending some time down in New Zealand with Alexei Sotskov. Alexei is a tremendous coach, who in my eyes is capable of producing top-level athletes if they are willing to do the work. Kody was definitely willing to do the work, and it showed. He bested me in every distance race by more than five seconds, and while I came close a few times, (a bad fall at Proctor took me out of the running in a wave-start) I never beat him. Until, that is, we raced on his home course at KUA. It was an interval start 5k classic race, and it was one of those days where the weather and the wax just did not look like they wanted to cooperate. I almost went out on fishscales because the temp was changing so fast. We globbed some KR60 on my race skis and hoped they would work at the different altitudes on the KUA course. I think Kody might have gone a little warmer with his wax, because it was getting better kick. Alexei was the chief of race and I think he put Kody behind me on purpose, so that he could have a “carrot” to chase. All of us on the Holderness team felt a little bit that that was a personal jab at us, but no matter. The race came down to the last 500m on KUA’s fields, and I came in with a time just eight seconds or so better than Kody’s. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more surprised look on Alexei’s face. ((Alexei, if you are reading this and finding it wrong, I’m sorry. I hope I don’t offend you because I really respect you as a coach and a person!!))

The next race was the New England Prep School Championships, which were held at Putney school. They did a great job over there at Putney hosting all of us. Their race course was HARD. They didn’t announce it over their loudspeaker, but I was the defending champion, so I felt like I had a target on my back the whole way. Luckily I do fairly well (I think) under pressure because I can pick out one thing that I need to do well and accomplish it. At NEPSACs, that thing was catching Kody. It ended up that I started just fifteen seconds behind him (karma?) and it was my goal to catch him early and hang on for dear life. Well, about 1.5k into the race, I caught him. I went out so hard to do it, and once I accomplished it, I had a very hard time hanging on. There were three points on the course when I felt like he would drop me, but every time I would realize that I just needed to relax and reel him in little by little, doing small things to make up time incrementally. By the last huge uphill towards the finish, I had caught him for the final time. We headed up towards the finish and I found to my surprise that I had a little left in the tank. I made huge effort to pass him and drop him. He must have known what I would do, because as I went by I heard him gasp “go for it” or something like that, and I did. I have never raced harder in my life. I must have redlined two or three times out on the course, but was able to get my heart rate under control all those times and still have a good finish. My comment after the race was that I felt “like I should have all year.” I felt like I couldn’t have done the race any better. My friend Peter Cowan beat me by six seconds overall, but I achieved so many personal goals that day and proved to myself what I was capable of. If I could just get my sloppy technique in under-10k races under control, I would be even happier.

Kody came back and beat me at Lakes Region Championship Duathlon. He deserved to win that one; I went out way too hard and got caught—just like the VA race. I always do that in small mass start races…I go out too hard, then someone catches my tail and messes with my head until they pull away on an uphill. Actually Kody had a pro tactic that day. We were racing up the water tower trail at Holderness and we were both skiing pretty evenly. I was just behind him, and he started to slow down ever so slightly, then accelerated over the top of the hill. Perfect tactics to get a tired racer off of your back.

Eastern Cups this year were a pretty wide range of both feeling awful and feeling like I should have felt all year.. Remember that sickness I had back in the fall? It came back to haunt me. Apparently I had some amount of scartissue in my lungs that was producing excess mucus and blocking up my lungs. It also caused my lungs to be in extreme pain after a few cold races here in New England. The first three Eastern Cup weekends were fairly disappointing, and I really didn’t care much about my results going into the final weekend of Eastern Cups. However I was feeling good the morning of the Fox Trot and I thought that I would give it everything I had. I went out to ski the course, which was beautiful, but other than that I really didn’t get much of a warmup. I thought that would be okay because of the distance of the race and the nature of the course—I could go out easy for the first kilometer and that would be my warmup. Well, things don’t always go as you plan. This was one of those days. I ended up feeling decent going up the first hill. I pushed it a little coming up into the big field at the far side of the course, and when I got to the top someone said something to the effect of, “great job Holderness, you’re right on the edge of the top 30.” I couldn’t believe my ears…the best I’d done at any of the other ECs was 76th, and all the other results were in the 100s. Granted, the Fox Trot was a relatively small race this year, but I was still psyched up when I heard that. I kept pushing through the far part of the course and by the lake. At this point I was pretty tired, but inspiration struck when none other than second place finisher Pat Weaver skied by on the uphill towards that flat area above the stadium. He looked really strong, but I thought about following him and eventually came to the conclusion that “what the hell, it couldn’t hurt.” So I followed him along the flat until the stadium was out of sight again, and he pulled away on an uphill. Not much of a feat, but a morale booster for sure. There isn’t much to say about my second lap except for the fact that the warmish air that day made my lungs feel like a million bucks. I pushed it fairly hard and the one thought I had at the end of the race was that I didn’t regret anything about how I skied the race. It was a beautiful day and I left it all on the course. The 35th place finish I had was only about three seconds out of the top 30, which made me very happy. However the 180 points I got for racing well made me even happier. That amount of points was around 30 less than anything I’d ever gotten before. It was a glimpse of what I would have skied like all year if I didn’t get that awful sickness in the fall. The sad thing is if I had skied like that all year, I might be an alternate for JOs.

The next day I travelled with Phil Peck to the race at Gunstock for some beautiful classic skiing conditions. The weather cooperated for most of us, though when he saw the first flurries, Justin Freeman ran by us to his car to get his zeroes (he ended up racing on them but not needing them because it stopped snowing right as the race started. We were all set to make hairies, but the snow didn’t last. About ten minutes before my start I was still deciding whether or not to use them and it was a good thing that I didn’t. We ended up on Swix 65 silver, which worked perfectly even as the temperature changed. A lot of teams went with 60, which also apparently worked well. I had four solid laps (it was a 10k on a 2.5k loop) where I felt good and was able to push myself, just like Saturday. I ended up 21st, which is my top EC finish ever. I was only a second out of 19th. My points were originally 187 (I think) but got changed to 198 after a timing error mixed up NENSA’s penalty system. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, it wasn’t like I was trying to make JOs. These two results came at a good time, because they really were the last races before Easterns. It was a good time to test out a healthy body.

Anyway those are all the highlights. There are many more that I would like to share…and might…at a later date. Today I actually have a race to help organize. The TD Banknorth New England J2 Championships are at Holderness this year. And I’m doing the PA announcing. Today is the third and final day, which is the time of the most exciting event, the relay. If you’re at J2s, listen for my voice.
Over and out,
Ian