So, I know that I said on Sunday that I would post every day this week. But once you start doing something every day, and have deadlines (like midnight), it becomes more like school. And at school–at least for me, during this last year–you can get extensions, if your professors are friendly enough. Therefore, since blogging is more like school this week, I’m giving myself an extension until today for yesterday’s blog post, since my dog ate it.

I’m planning on offering a preview to this week’s Eastern Championships to offer a counterpoint to UVM’s analysis, but I’m going to wait until this evening once I’ve skied the course and have judged the lay of the land. For now, I’ll simply offer up a few choice nuggets of information and wisdom.

First, yesterday I had to call up Roger Knight at Peak Multisport in Portland to order a new pair of skate poles. This comes after the previously mentioned events at the Dartmouth Carnival, but one thing that I didn’t mention about that weekend was that I managed to LOSE a pair of classic poles in addition to breaking a skate pole, which is about the stupidest possible thing I could ever think of doing, except for maybe locking the entire Bowdoin team out of the wax room after practice, or perhaps choosing the previously unused upper lane as the best one in which to sprint my two teammates at the end of the Middlebury 10k. Seriously, though, what kind of person is actually dumb enough to leave their poles at the race venue? Anyway, what this all meant was that I only had one legitimate racing pole to my name after the weekend, which reminded me of a story from my sophomore year. I was riding my bike from my apartment to practice, carrying both pairs of my race poles, when I heard a tick tick tick tick BLAM BLAM BLAM! Yes–the loose and rusted spokes on the rear wheel of my 1985 vintage Giant mountain bike had somehow summoned enough power to slice their way right through my new Swix teams like a hot knife through butter.  I was speechless. So, Swix, any time you’re ready to sponsor me so that you can readily supply me with replacements for my lost and broken equipment, please let me know (Fischer, Atomic, Madshus: my record with skis and boots is much better).

The only other important thing, which may seem kind of obvious at this point, is that my blog is now the top google hit for huge baller (no, I did not mean “huge balls,” but thanks for asking…):
 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s…

Apologies to all of you musical fans out there, but this is not a post about Fiddler on the Roof, or even something witty and ski-related like Northug on the Roof. No, rather, this is a post about the Jewish religion. It also, much to my regret, includes Jeremy Blazar, which means that I am reneging on my promise not to mention him.

I could go into this in great detail, but I actually have a decent amount of work to do tonight, so I’m going to keep it simple. For the last couple of years, I have been outwardly contemplating (along with my teammates and coaches) whether I might be the fastest Jew on skis in the EISA, which usually evolves into additional contemplations of using the right of return to go to Israel and join the Olympic team for Vancouver. Anyway, after practice today, my coach reminded me that since I passed Jeremy Blazar during Saturday’s relay (his neighbor and my teammate Niko Kubota confirms Jeremy’s Jewish-ness), that my position as EISA Jewish Master may be secured (Yes! And I had to beat out so many people!)

I don’t know of any other Jewish ski racers in the EISA off the top of my head, so I did some quick cross-referencing just now between last weekend’s results and Wikipedia’s list of common Jewish surnames. There were only two hits: Alex Taylor of Williams, and Franz Bernstein of UVM. Now, I may be wrong, but I googled Franz, and he definitely appears to have blond hair and be German, and since Bernstein is both a Jewish and German last name, I’m guessing that he is just German, and not Jewish. If not, this is a big problem, because Franz won the race. If that’s the case, I guess he can be on my Israeli relay team in Vancouver.

As for Alex Taylor, this is slightly more confounding. According to Wikipedia, Taylor is originally an English last name, but has been adopted frequently by Jewish refugees who move to England. I googled Alex online, and couldn’t draw any conclusions either way. Fortunately, Wikipedia allows anyone to edit its pages, so I changed it, and now Taylor is no longer a common Jewish surname. Thus, I am, at least until someone changes the Wikipedia page back, the fastest Jewish skier in the EISA. 

[First--anyone have any funny pictures from EISA ski races? I'm hoping to put together a "top"-10. I have a few already, but if any of you have good ones, please shoot me an e-mail. (nherz[at]bowdoin[dot]edu. )]

            Skiers, coaches, and parents give us a lot of credit for being “scholar-athletes.” To be fair, it’s often a challenge to balance the time commitments of racing, training, and recovery with the demands of college, which are substantial. My honors project on quantum-onomatopoetic time-space continuum functions is certainly taking up a lot of my time, as is my seminar on the bovine mystique in post-colonial Franco-Scandinavian societies.

            However, this time of year I really don’t feel I deserve that much respect. If I’m not just a straight-up “athlete” for the six weeks of the carnival season, I think I have to at least own up to being at “athlete-scholar,” given that I’m pretty sure more of my time during this period is dedicated to skiing than academics.

             To more fully examine this phenomenon, I’ve decided to take you through an average February school day—last Monday, to be particular. (It was a day off—that’s why no actual skiing was included.)

7:30: Awaken.

7:35-8:30: Prepare for class, “Global Food and Agriculture.”

8:30-10: Attend “Global Food and Agriculture.”

10:00-12:30: Finish assignment for “Environment and Society in Latin America.

12:30-1: Lunch.

1-2:30: Attend class, “Arctic Exploration.”

2:30-4: Attend “Environment and Society in Latin America.”
4-4:45: Meet with advisor to discuss independent study project

4:45-5:30: Leisure time.

5:30-6:30: Dinner.

6:30-10: Study.

10-11: More leisure time.

11: Bed.

            Hmmmm. To look at that schedule actually does make it seem like I spend a decent amount of time doing academic pursuits. To really figure out what’s going on here, I think we need to go into a bit more depth.

“7:35-8:30: Prepare for class, ‘Global Food and Agriculture.’”

Okay, but how does this actually break down?

7:35-7:40: Skim new articles on Fasterskier.com and other skiing web sites.

7:40-7:47: Skim scintillating article on genetically engineered crops.

7:47-7:52: Look for sweet photos of myself on the EISA web site and other locations. Think about how much of a baller I am.

7:52-7:56: Check e-mail.

7:56-7:57: Check facebook.

7:58-7:59: Check e-mail again, in case I missed something or someone offered me a job between 7:56 and 7:58 (speaking of which, if you want to offer me a job, I’m free starting in the end of May…)

8:00-8:10: Skim article on hog farming in North Carolina (it was a real page-turner, let me tell you…).

8:10-8:20: Peruse weekend’s results for the fourth time.

8:20-8:24: Read other ski web sites, cyclingnews.com.

8:24: Go to class.

“1-2:30: Attend ‘Arctic Exploration.’”

Reality:

1-1:04: Finish delicious cookies stolen from dining hall.

1:04-1:07: Listen to professor talk about different kinds of sea ice. I wonder what kind of klister you’d need for pack ice…

1:07-1:14: Rehash yesterday’s race. Why didn’t I stick with bib 17 for longer? He wasn’t going that much faster. Could I have squeezed some more time out of those downhills? Man those Dartmouth kids are fast…

1:14-1:18: Listen to really, really annoying girl talk about how much she knows about tides and other environmental phenomena.

1:18-1:28: Think about how to make it seem to my advisor like I’d actually worked on my independent study for the last week instead of reading fasterskier.

1:29-1:33: Peel orange (it can take a while)

1:34-1:38: Eat orange

1:39-1:49: Think about how huge of a baller I’d be if I won the Birkie

1:50-2:00: Think about how huge of a baller I’d be if I won the Bogburn

2:01-2:10: Think about how sexy and shapely my legs would appear in my new pair of Bogburn tights

2:10-2:14: Ponder whether Bjorn Daehlie ever considers himself a baller, huge or otherwise. Think about what the Norwegian word for baller might be (it could just be “skier”)

2:15-2:20: Lean away from the sniffly kid to my left

2:20-2:23: Answer a really obvious question about leadership styles

2:23: Get out of class early

“6:30-10: Study.”

6:30-7:00: Hang out with roommates next door with a textbook in my lap, but actually watch Westminster Dog Show on TV. Make observation that corgis are really funny looking.

7:01-7:10: Look at results from the weekend again

7:11-7:25: Look at results from 2006 to see if I have improved at all.

7:26-7:40: Finish assignment that was supposed to be due at the start of “Global Food and Agriculture”

7:41-8:00: Read copy of roommate’s VeloNews.

8:01-8:10: Read recap of that day’s Tour of California stage

8:11-8:25: Read 5 pages of a book on environmentalism for my independent study

8:26-8:30: Read Ollie’s blog

8:31-8:35: Check e-mail

8:36-8:40: Go back to other room, find friends still watching Westminster Dog Show.

8:40-8:55: Watch dog show judge touching the dogs in weird places and remind myself that dog show judge would not be a very fun profession.

8:56-9:05: Go back to room, check e-mail again.

9:06-9:15: See if Ollie or anyone else has put anything else on their blog.

 9:16-9:30: Read 5 more pages of book on environmentalism.

9:31-9:40: Watch funny youtube videos. Some favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tJjNVVwRCY (f— it, we’ll do it live!); http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMNry4PE93Y; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB4Z0LNGBPY&feature=related; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVEGfH4s5g&feature=related (okay, just kidding about that one [sort of])

9:41-10:00: Snack time.

            So, I think you get my drift. I’m guessing that many EISA skiers probably devote a little more time than this to their studies, but then again, I’m guessing that there are also a few who rival my ability to procrastinate. (If you’re reading this before Tuesday morning, sorry, but you fall into this category…)

That’s right: one more week of EISA skiing. Ever. After I graduate from Bowdoin this spring, the collegiate skiing world will cease to exist, and the master-blaster phase of my life will begin–in other words, the sole purpose of training will be to improve my Birkie time (actually, my real post-collegiate goal is to win the Bogburn–slightly less prestigious, but probably no more realistic).

In any case, this week is the Final Countdown. And that can only mean one thing: blog posts every single day. Right now, I have to go back to writing about underdevelopment in Latin America in the 19th century, but starting tomorrow, you should expect some serious excitement: race reports from last weekend, previews of the next, slandering of other teams, and maybe, just maybe, a picture of the sultry Carni Crush the Bowdoin men received from the Colby women (it’s currently taped to the ceiling above my bed…).

The Final Countdown

(and p.s.: nowhere, and I mean nowhere, will you see any mention of aaron blazar’s little brother [sorry, it's an inside joke, but i think the use of space is merited in this case])

            People have been getting on me to write up a decent race report for a while now. Today’s race was sufficiently entertaining that I think it will be good fodder for a blog post, so I’m finally going to give it a shot. My main reason for not ever writing race reports is because I think it’s really hard to do without sounding like a weenie, so forgive me if I sound like a weenie.

            Today was the second day of the Dartmouth Carnival, and the men were slated to do a 15k mass start skate race. The race organizers had decreed that we were to do a 10k loop, followed by a 5k loop. The 10k loop began with a mass start in an open field, followed by about 3 or 4k of consistent climbing, another 4 or so k of rolling, and then a k or two of exciting downhills with sharp turns. The 5k course was 3k of ups and downs, followed by a k of climbing, and then the same final downhill kilometer. It was a hard race, but I felt pretty good and it was definitely a fun time. The end. No, just kidding.

The “snow” that we were skiing on was really more along the lines of crushed ice, as Hanover was blessed all week with the same rain and warm temperatures as the rest of New England. Thus, the skiing was really, really, ridiculously fast. Like, the kind of fast that sometimes you wish you could have been going a little more slowly.

After a pleasant warm-up with the rest of the Bowdoin men’s team, I put on my race skis and headed over to the start. Since it was a seeded start, I was towards the back—61^st out of about 70 or so starters. Unlike at Bates, where the starter couldn’t seem to locate the trigger, they sent us off fairly quickly, although the pistol was fairly quiet—not the usual terrifying crack that just about scares me out of my boots.

This was where the fun begins. After the gun went off, we flailed across the field and down a steep medium-sized hill, which was when the pandemonium immediately ensued. The first sign of trouble was in the middle of the downhill, where the people in front of me started snowplowing. Then, all of a sudden, they were snowplowing hard, really hard, and then there was snow everywhere and I was also snowplowing really hard, and then someone fell on my right, and I skied over his poles. Amazingly, I stayed upright, and at the bottom of the hill those of us still standing cruised around a right hand turn into the first uphill.

Whereupon we stopped. For those of you unfamiliar with mass start racing, there is a relatively common phenomenon called accordioning, which is where the pack stretches out and squeezes together with accompanying increases and decreases in speed. This appeared to be one of those decreases. After a few minutes (okay, maybe a second or two), things got going again, and we lurched upwards for a chaotic minute of two. The major highlight of this first climb was Dakota Blackhorse von Testosterone screaming for a pole—I was very impressed by the vehemence and frequency of his requests, given that I was struggling mightily at that point to deliver oxygen to my muscles without shouting at the top of my lungs numerous times.

Anyways, we kept going. Up. And up. And as we climbed, I drifted from the middle of the pack to the back. But not off of it. Which I was pretty psyched about, since in most mass start races I’d been dropped more quickly. However, by the time we finished most of the climbing, I was seriously in the hurt locker. As we crested the last big hill and began the rolling section, I couldn’t hold the pace of the two Bates guys in front of me. A gap opened up, and just like that I was off the back.

Fortunately, “off the back” does not mean out of the race. In fact, I’m pretty sure that pretty much everyone goes off the back at some point in the race except the winner. Anyway, all I’m trying to say is that unless you’re in last place, there will always be other people to work with. For the next three or four k, I worked with a bunch of other guys: my teammates Scott Longwell and Niko Kubota, as well as a few skiers from other schools. By the time I got to the end of the 10k loop, Scott and Niko were up ahead, and I was a Harvard sandwich between Dave McCahill and Trevor Petach.

After coming through the stadium, we started going down the same hill that had all the carnage in the start. At the bottom, the 10k loop and the 5k loop split off. I knew I was supposed to take a left onto the 5k loop, but as I cruised down the hill it seemed like I was going the wrong direction. I really, really didn’t want to go the wrong way, so I drifted to the left even though there didn’t seem to be anywhere to go on that side, and then frantically tried to reverse course. Too late. I crashed hard, slid to a stop, got up, and promptly discovered I’d broken my left pole.

 Realizing that I needed to go a little further down the hill before making the 5k turn-off, I kept going. Just as I reached the lefthand turn, I came upon two girls who I believe were students of that august secondary school located in the town of Stratton, Vermont. Breathing a sigh of relief—or, more accurately, numerous gasps of relief—I skied up to them and asked for a pole. And guess what: instead of taking the opportunity to assist a fellow racer in need, they looked at each other, shook their heads, and indicated that perhaps I had better look elsewhere. I really don’t want to dwell on it, but I will say that I was pissed.

Fortunately I was on a flat portion of the course, and a couple hundred meters later I came upon a much more friendly Dartmouth skier and one of her friends. They gave me not one, but TWO poles (they weren’t sure whether I needed a right or a left). And it was the right size (although it wasn’t a Swix Star—seriously, Dartmouth, I’m expecting a little better from you next time). Suffice to say that any future inflammatory blog posts will not target this college, and will instead focus exclusively on the aforementioned offending high school, as well as Bates.

Upper body power application renewed, I continued on my way. Unfortunately I did not manage to reel back in the two Harvard skiers, but I did take solace in the fact that I managed to pass back Colby’s sixth guy as we climbed up the hills on the 5k course (who, to be fair, does have a groin injury that I guess makes it tough for him to skate). After successfully negotiating the final k of downhills, I brought it home in 54^th (though technically there were four non-EISA skiers in front of me, so I’m calling it a top-50).

Though the skiing was finished, the festivities were not yet over: after the women finished their race, it was time to give away my carni-crush—the EISA version of a Valentine. Mine was a beautiful watercolor painting (and by watercolor, I mean washable marker) whose recipient I decided would be the 13^th finisher, which turned out to be Dartmouth’s Erika Flowers. I think she liked it—I told her to hang it up on her wall. Little does she know that one day it will be worth millions of dollars…(All photos courtesy of Niko Kubota)

I think Rosie Brennan’s jealous…

It said “13th at Dartmouth…But 1st in my heart!”

When the Bowdoin team arrived at Trapp’s yesterday, as the ladies were racing in the midst of a blinding snow squall, it seemed like it really was going to be a day for the hard men. As it turned out, our race went off in totally different conditions–sunny with blue skies–but it ended up being no less difficult than any of us had anticipated.

Yesterday was one of those days, I’m pretty sure, when it was pretty much impossible to find a wax that worked everywhere. The conditions on the course were so varied that there was no silver bullet: slush, bulletproof hardback bordering on glare ice, glazed tracks, you name it. I would stride when I could stride, but I spent the rest of the time running, double poling, and straight up willing my body around the course. Given the circumstances, I thought the race went well–I think I held a pretty good pace for all three laps.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about the last few days is just how hard it is to race when you know you’re not living up to your full potential. I haven’t been feeling that way about my own racing, but there are definitely a few guys on the team who have been having a tough go of it for the last couple of weeks. On days like yesterday, coaches, parents and teammates will praise the people who finished at the front of the field for their ability to step it up and bang one out in tough conditions. But after thinking about it, I think I have just as much respect for those people who have the guts to toe the line or finish a race when they know it isn’t going to end up the way that they had hoped. Ultimately, these guys deserve just as much credit, if not more: many of them have worked as hard as the top finishers (both throughout the year and on race day), but because of any number of factors–illness, psychology, physiology, or any other setback–they don’t get to share the same reward. When you’re having a good day, it’s easy to press the gas pedal, because you know that you’re going to get a payoff. But when you’re having a bad day, to stretch this metaphor a bit, it’s like your leg is shortening, or the gas pedal is inching farther away. To beat the metaphor into the ground, I guess it’s important to remember that racing is just as much about the engine (and improving its efficiency), as about the drive on any single day.

Ultimately, this is somewhat of an irrelevant topic, because we all have our good days and our bad days. Sometimes you’re going to be the guy killing it, other times you’ll be the one struggling to finish. That’s why we race–if the level of natural talent or number of hours trained perfectly predicted the results, then we wouldn’t have to. But there are also guys that keep going at it in the face of a string of bad results–for a whole year, even–and I think sometimes it’s easy to forget just how hard it is to keep at it day after day, race after race, in pursuit of whatever goals you’ve set for yourself.

All right, enough with the emo crap–there was actually some cool stuff this weekend that deserves to be recounted, mainly sideburn shaving. As promised, I took the right one off, and it seemed to have worked: the left one kept me balanced around the numerous righthand turns on the Trapp’s course on Sunday. So far I’ve spent one day in class with only one sideburn–I don’t anyone’s noticed, or maybe people have and they just assume that I can still only grow facial hair on one side of my face. I’m about ready to symetricize myself, but I first need to make sure there’s adequate photo documentation. Also, I need to figure out what to do with the left sideburn once I shave it–I’ve been thinking about saving the hair and giving it to someone as a Carnie Crush. Would that be gross, endearing, or both?

for the don’t-mess-with-me sideburns. Here are the numbers:

Should Nat Herz shave off his don’t-mess-with-me-sideburns?

No: 39, or 52%

Yes: 17, or 22.67%

Other answer: 19, or 25.33%

Here are the list of other answers:

He should shave one — and leave the other.
		What’s to shave??????????
		The vote was tied – shave one and keep the other
		one side
		let’s see a picture
		you haven’t already shaved??
		SO SEXY
		1/2
		stripes
		1/2….moderation is the path of righteousness
		Ballah
		Mullet!
		Your a baller don’t shave it
		Highlight them with a sharpie
		half
		nat is a weenie
		Just one
		handlebar moustche
		Keeping them wont make Bowdoin blow any less

My favorites are probably “nat is a weenie,” (I’m pretty sure that was my roommate), and “1/2…moderation is the path of righteousness.”

Thus, the sideburns will stay. However, due to the unusually large number of votes received in favor of removing one, I will race with only one sideburn on Sunday, as I am now convinced that moderation really is the path of righteousness. Further, that one sideburn will be on the left and thereby act as a counterweight, as the majority of the turns on the Trapp race course are to the right. I’m a little concerned that racing with one sideburn could throw off my classic technique and weight shift, but I’m hoping that this will be offset by the increased amount of cheering that should result from my improved appearance…

Thus far, the vote on whether to shave my don’t-mess-with-me sideburns is a tie, 2-2. On the no side, we’ve got me, and my current coach, Nathan Alsobrook. On the yes side, we’ve got my old coach (and current advisor) Marty Hall, and current Assistant Coach Ollie Burruss.

I would prefer to settle this dispute the old-fashioned way, via fisticuffs, but that would be a foregone conclusion in my and Nathan’s favor (I’m super jacked, and he’s really feisty, while Ollie is sufficiently out of shape to undermine Marty’s strength and military experience). Thus, I created a poll. Whichever side is ahead at 5 o’clock on Friday afternoon will dictate the status of my facial hair for the weekend (which, tragically, I discovered, does not include any mass starts).

Should Nat Herz shave off his don’t-mess-with-me sideburns?
( polls)

As it turns out, my last post turned out to be extraordinarily successful in creating strife on the EISA circuit:

1. Steve Fuller, a photographer who takes sweet pictures of NENSA races, created a new watermark on all of his photos containing Bowdoin skiers. See below.

2. There’s a sweet photo sequence on Middlebury Skiing’s web site (you have to scroll down a bit–I would have included the photos, but I didn’t take them) of an angry exchange between Middlebury’s Doug DeBold and Dartmouth’s Dakota Blackhorse von Jess. In the first shot, you can clearly discern Doug trying to shove Dakota out of the way while saying “Fartmouth!” I’m not sure that you can see Dakota saying anything in the next few pictures, but it’s clear from the look on his face that Doug really pissed him off. He’s clearly thinking, “man, this Middlebury kid is a HUGE hippie, and since Nat Herz says I’m a big bully like the rest of my Dartmouth teammates, I’m going to knock this hippie over while simultaneously taking out Sam Evans-Brown through the use of the domino effect, since Bates blows.” You may be thinking that my interpolation is a little far-fetched, but trust me: I go to a liberal arts college, which makes it my job to draw sprawling, elaborate conclusions from seemingly unrelated, inconsequential pieces of information.

3. Yesterday, as I was leaving Pineland, my vehicle was approached by a clearly deranged Bates skier yelling “Bowdoin blows! Bowdoin blows!” while laughing maniacally. It seems clear that these Bates students and alumni are especially sensitive and mentally fragile, so I may have to tone down my level of aggression towards their school in the future.

I was going to include something in this post about routines and superstitions, but rather than mix the juvenile/obnoxious and the thoughtful/introspective, I think I’ll save it for the next post. Also, I’m trying to decide whether or not to keep the don’t-mess-with-me sideburns for the UVM mass start, and I’m weighing the intimidation factor against the diminishing likelihood that members of the opposite sex will ever speak with me again. If you have thoughts, suggestions, or recommendations on what I should do, please let me know.