The day after I made the spring break post, I got an e-mail from Chris Hall, director of nordic racing for Fischer Sports USA. I was very hopeful that I was finally about to be sponsored, but this was not the case. Chris had apparently been reading my blog, and was concerned that I’d been having some serious problems with Fischer skis (I’d complained that I noticed that Fischer bases sometimes don’t stay flat).

I explained my problem to Chris, and he wrote back with an informative e-mail that explains why this happens, and why it’s probably worth the minor inconvenience when waxing. I figure most people would be interested in reading it, so the relevant portion is below (don’t worry–I got his permission…).

“From your comments, it seems that this is not affecting the overall performance of the skis. I may be able to shed some light on to why this may occur occasionally in our skis.  As you move out toward the tips and the tails of the ski, the height of the ski is smaller, as compared toward the middle section, where the height of the ski is larger.  So, there is more core material in the center of the ski as opposed to the ends.  Because of this, there is sometimes a tendency for the tips and tails to move out of “flat” and become slightly convex.

This can be considered a trade off for many reasons.  One, it is important to use less material in the tip and tail so the swing weight of the ski can be as light as possible.  Two, the camber of the ski is created by the carbon fibre layers and the core material in the center of the ski, so again, less or no core material is needed in the tips and tails.  Three, the actual running surface of the ski, meaning the area of the base that is actually in contact with the snow and receiving the skiers body weight when gliding or kicking is typically further back from the ends of the tip and tail, so these extremities are rarely in contact with the snow, if at all.  It would be possible to insure that the ski base remained perfectly flat throughout the ski for the life time of the ski, but would the trade off be worth it?  It would probably mean increasing the weight of the ski and increasing the swing weight of the ski.  In the end, this trade off would not increase the gliding characteristics of the ski.”

It has taken me a while to assemble all the necessary components, but I’m finally ready. Here it is–the long-awaited spring break post!

Spring Break Cali ‘09 actually started last year, on the way back from Spring Break Colorado ‘08, when I obtained a free plane ticket from Northwest Airlines in exchange for spending a pleasant night in a Detroit Hotel. This allowed me to purchase a plane ticket from Portland to San Francisco for the low low price of $60. Sweet.

Last Thursday, Nick and I awoke bright (well, actually dark) and early at the hour of 3:30 AM (well, actually, I awoke at the hour of 3:30 AM–Nick would have slept until 3:30 PM if I hadn’t been around) in order to catch our 5:45 flight. Things started out really well when I slammed the bumper of my roommate’s parents’ van into the curb in the parking lot, but fortunately no harm appeared to be done. Two flights later (with my head exceptionally well protected by my helmet [see previous post]), we were pleasantly awaiting our baggage in the Portland airport. Oh yeah–I forgot that I had managed to acquire a miserable cold the day before (the first since Thanksgiving!), which didn’t really bother me, but I’m quite sure infected everyone within a 10 foot radius.

Upon arriving in San Francisco, Nick and I waited for a pretty long time for Morgan (another roommate) and Leah (former ski teammate). This would have been boring, except for the fact that directly adjacent to our bench in “loading zone” appeared a large contingent from the Colavita Women’s Cycling Team, fresh off their planes for a training camp in Napa Valley. Needless to say, this was a morale booster.

Leah and Morgan picked us up accompanied by In ‘n Out Burger, which instantly restored my respect for them. We piled our skis and gear into Leah’s rad station wagon, and set off for Tahoe. We passed such exciting landmarks as the Bay Bridge and Marine World. I’ve always wanted to go to Marine World, but everyone else was seriously lame, so we kept driving.

After a long time, and a very large hill, we arrived in the Tahoe-Truckee-Junior Nationals area. Unfortunately, we didn’t really know any specifics of where we were going beyond that, so we drove around in circles for a while before we decided that it might make a little more sense to drive up to the Auburn Ski Club, where we finally rendez-voused with our hosts, the Mid-Atlantic team. Leah skied for the Mid-A JN team for like 16 years, so we were welcomed very warmly by the coaching staff of Brooker, Marge, and Jason. We helped finish up the waxing for the next day’s race, then headed down the hill to Donner Lake for the night.

I cannot envision any possible scenario in which any team would have better food than the Mid-A team. In addition to a coaching staff, Mid-A had another two people along whose main purpose was cooking, so when we arrived at the place we were staying, dinner (make-you-own burritos with some pretty delicious ingredients, including guacamole and steak) was ready to be eaten. We ate it.

Then we went to bed. Ostensibly, we were there to help out with waxing for the two classic races on Friday and Saturday, so the team was putting us up in a hotel room. I don’t have any pictures, but the first night was pretty amusing (we moved into a different building for the second night). Leah and Morgan on each bed and Nick and I were on the floor, and as soon as we turned off the lights around 10, a family of 600 rolled into the adjacent room, which I’m pretty sure was actually the same room separated by a little balsa wood.

The next morning, this same family of 600 had to get up at 5:45 in order to have time for someone to shower AND BLOW-DRY THEIR HAIR (are you kidding me? I challenge anyone reading this to come up with an activity that requires you to get up at 5:45 that also requires blow-dried hair). After this pleasant wake-up, we went over to breakfast.

Normally, breakfast wouldn’t require a new paragraph, but in this case it does, because, since I wasn’t racing, I could eat whatever I wanted. This included bacon, eggs, oatmeal, sausage, more bacon, and maybe a pancake or two. At this point I was pretty psyched about beginning my coaching career.

Then we headed to the venue, the Auburn Ski Club. The trails were open for a bit when we got there, so we skied around a bit on the race course before it was closed. Given that we were at like 7000 feet, that I had a pretty miseable cold, and that I had been awake for 25 of the last 33 hours, skiing made me want to die. Nonetheless, I’m retired and there are no consequences to my actions, so we did some good hammering. I was trying to skate off to the side of the classic tracks, which is pretty amusing when you’ve got a lot of very serious (anal?) coaches and parents around.

The Auburn Ski trails are totally baller. Windy (as in twisty, not blustery), with a few good steep climbs and great views of the mountains.

After scoping the scene, we determined that our help was not actually needed in the wax shed, so we cruised back out onto the trails to check out the individual start classic races, which were very fun to watch. We spent some time with one of my old assistant coaches, Adam St. Pierre, who’s now out in Boulder and was coaching the Rocky Mountain team. He gave us some good advice on giving splits (“yeah, sometimes I just make stuff up…”).

We did some pretty good shouting at the Mid-A kids and at our New England buddies, then retreated back down to Donner Lake for lunch. Afterwards, just in time to prove that old saying (“there’s no such thing as a free lunch”), it was finally time for us to get to work:

Our job for the afternoon was to de-klister all 25 pairs of Mid-A skis, wax them with HF Moly, and scrape. Which we did. It took a while. Here are some observations from the waxing process:

1. The Midwest wax techs appeared to be living exclusively on a diet of Tecate (really, really bad California beer), Mountain Dew, cold pizza, and inhaled fluoros. Good work, guys.

2. There are a whole bunch of things you take for granted as an athlete that you really appreciate when being a wax-tech or a coach (speaking from my day’s worth of experience). Like well marked-out kick zones.

3. Aggravating thing #1: NIS plates do not work well with old-school forms that clamp from either side of the middle of the ski. 

4. Really aggravating thing #1: It turns out that it’s not just my Fischer skis that are concave (or convex, I can’t remember)–most of them are. Trying to wax the Mid-A team’s Fischer skis was probably the most annoying part of this whole process. I mean, seriously Mr. Fischer–Mr. Shus and Mr. Atomic have the whole flat ski business figured out–why can’t you do it?

Basically, I’m very impressed that my coaches aren’t regularly pulling out fistfuls of their hair in frustration. Perhaps most people are a little more patient than myself. Although maybe this explains why Nathan and Ollie can be so ornery sometimes…

A few hours and flouros later, we completed this task and headed back down to dinner (lasagna with roasted red peppers–booyeah!). As we settled in for a relaxing evening, Brooker gave us the instructions for the next coat of wax. Yeah–the next coat. Oh. Darn. We headed back up to the wax shed after dinner, blew through some sweet HFBW, and then headed over to the Sugar Bowl (a nearby alpine mountain) to join the rest of the coaching staff. We took a sweet gondola up to a weird, mid-mountain lodge, where there was a bar–although everyone seemed to just be drinking the Tecate that one of the coaches had brought up in a backpack. By the way, taking a gondola at night is absolutely terrifying–when we went flying out of the loading area I thought my life was over.

The next morning we got up in time for another delicious coach’s breakfast, then drove up to catch the mass start relays. These were totally baller, and really fun to watch, especially given the thromping that New England dished out. I managed to snap a few pictures of the J1/OJ women before Morgan’s camera died.

Race start

The leaders, from afar (I believe that’s Adele Espy getting ready to deliver the Maine knockout punch to an unsuspecting Intermountain girl)

The rest of the field–I was going to get some sweet close-ups, but then the camera battery died…That’s why there are no men’s photos.

However, to make up for the lack of men’s photos, I decided to help out the Alaska J2 girls cheer on their guys.

After the men’s race was over, we packed up and drove to Royal Gorge. We’d heard that they were uptight squares about trail fees, but as four attractive, fit former college racers, we figured we could probably talk our way into a student rate.

One thing that it’s easy to forget as a college racer (especially in Maine, skiing at Maine Winter Sports Center venues) is that most areas are actually businesses, and require you to pay. However, I’ve learned over time that there’s somewhat of a spectrum. There are some areas–Stump Sprouts, for example (Nick’s family’s ski area)–that are family-owned operations, and are therefore usually very sympathetic to students and are usually willing to make compromises on trail fees. Then there are the clearly business-oriented places like Great Glen and Bretton Woods, who are clearly in it for a profit, but at least try to act in the community interest by offering clearly-defined student rates, putting on fun races, etc.

Then, there’s Royal Gorge, which thus far in my experience is one of a kind. No student rate, no compromise from the person at the cash register, $25.00 for a half-day trail pass. We got there at 2:00, and after failing to sway the desk attendant opted to wait until 2:30 for the “twighlight pass,” in hopes that they might cave and let us start skiing at 2:15 or 2:20. No such luck–the cash register “wouldn’t punch in” the twilight pass until 2:30 on the button.

I could say more, but I think I’ll stop here. As much as it was a pain in the ass to get onto the Royal Gorge Trails, once we were in, it was totally kick-ass, and I could totally understand why they don’t need to offer student rates.

We opted for a sweet trail on a narrow ridge called Razorback. It was really, really painful, but also unbelievable, and I got the KOM points. I think the pictures speak for themselves.

The top.

Sweet cliffs–this part was a little dicey…

Big snowbank, huh?

Rope tows are sweet!

We finished up our ski, then headed back down towards the San Francisco Bay Area, where Leah lives (she’s in Loma Mar, about an hour south of San Francisco). We made one stop each at In n’ Out Burger and at Trader Joe’s, and made it home for a solid night’s sleep.

Sunday morning we woke up and went for a four hour bike ride, which was totally sweet–I got to use Leah’s friend’s rad old-school Klein. We rode up Tunitas Creek Rd., which was on the Tour of California, and did a few other cool climbs, along with some roads with ocean views. Sorry, no pictures–there was a good bit of rain. We finished up, then drove down the hill into Pescadero for some INCREDIBLE burritos. Life was good.

The next day was pretty rainy again, so instead of riding, we opted for a hike in Big Basin Redwood State Park. The trees in this place create a whole definition for the phrase “huge baller”:

Really. Big. Trees.

Not messing around. That’s a pretty big gall, too, huh?

She turned me into a newt! (it got better)

Mmm…banana slug. Delicious. (By the way, these are one of the most aptly named creatures out there. There’s no mistaking a banana slug when you find one…)

Sweet waterfall.

On the way back from the waterfall, my knee gradually got more and more sore. By the time we made it back to the car (11 miles later), I was not in great shape. Unfortunately, this meant the end of biking and hiking for me for the vacation–it was ice and Advil for the next couple of days.

Thus, that was about it for my spring break gnar shredding. We did manage to have one fun morning at the beach, along with a bunch of fun other activities that I’m too tired to recount.

I’ll send a postcard to the first person who can tell me what this says…

Also, Leah, Nick and Morgan got to go for a few more sweet bike rides–Nick and Morgan had a pretty good one the morning we left:

Golden Gate Bridge.

The flight back was pretty fun–we rearranged our seats so that we were all sitting together (Morgan flew in to California a few days early) on the last flight, and I continued my coach’s diet with a gigantic swiss melt cheeseburger with french fries at the Detroit Airport.

Unfortunately, the sore knee took me out of contention for the Sugarloaf Marathon. I saw the doctor on Friday, and she deemed it serious enough to make me get x-rays (I gave it a pretty good whack back in one of the Colby carnival races), which on one hand makes me feel like less of a wuss, but also puts a bit of a damper on the upcoming cycling season. Hopefully it’ll be okay soon. Look for some accounts of some bike racing once it’s better…

As a cantankerous individual once said, “keep ‘em pointed straight ahead.”

Okay, so I don’t have all the pictures from California yet, and I don’t have time to make the full spring break post right now. However, I just got twitter, because it seems like everyone who’s important has twitter, and I want to be important. So check it out, early and often:

twitter.com/hugeballer

(please keep in mind, the views represented in this internet phenomenon of the twitter account do not represent the views of bowdoin college, my coach, or anyone else on fasterskier or the bowdoin ski team [and why on earth wasn't the name hugeballer already taken?])

And, the Detroit airport is sweet. Especially with my helmet (I didn’t want it to get crushed in my bag, so I wore it around…)

“Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold.”

Don’t worry–I didn’t learn this in school. Instead I found it after googling “patience” and “quotes” together.

In any case, please be patient. An epic post recounting epic spring break adventures is coming soon (for high school boys, who I’m pretty sure make up the majority of my audience, sorry, I didn’t go to Mexico, so no Girls Gone Wild). I’ve been to JO’s, I saw the future, and it was good. Trust me–I’ll tell you about it soon.

To whet your appetites, however, I give you the following–a letter that I and my spring break companions just sent to Dave Zabriskie, founder of DZ Nuts Chamois Cream:

“Dear Dave–

This message is from four college cyclists on spring break. Fortunately, spring break for us is not Cancun; rather, it is the roads and hills surrounding La Honda, California, including but not limited to Tunitas Creek Rd., which you climbed during the AToC–you may remember it as being steep as balls.
Speaking of balls, the purpose of this e-mail is to represent our resident “baller,” Nathaniel Herz. Nathaniel, or “Nat,” is an aspiring Cat. 3 cyclist, whose palmares include a 9th place in the local Scarborough training criterium. This was especially notable given the Zipp 404s being ridden by most of the masters in the field. I hear you like them, but in your case it does not make you a weenie master-blaster given your huge baller status, so don’t worry.
In any case, Nat’s huge baller status is widely recognized in the nordic skiing community, as he has a blog on the most popular (okay, the only) nordic skiing news website on the internet  fasterskier.com–Nat’s blog is blogs.fasterskier.com/natherz). Nat frequently discusses such terms as “baller,” and “huge baller,” and also discusses cycling events at some length, such as the time he got dropped by Ted King at the Tour of the Hill Towns and ended up getting a free swordfish kebab about 20 miles from the finish. It was delicious.

I’m at home, which means that:

a. I have no friends around, since I went to boarding school (okay, this may also have to do with my poor social skills, but whatever)

b. Pineland is far away, meaning that going for a ski is out of the question (although that’s mostly because I have a lot of work to do on c.)

c. There’s only so much work I can do on my independent study without losing my mind

d. At a certain point, there’s nothing left to do besides post on the blog

Today, I’ve decided that I’m finally going to quit being subtle and using subliminal messaging. Instead, I’m going to come clean about the purpose of this blog–it’s actually a recruiting tool, and has been since I started it. Thus, I am now going to stop beating around the bush, and provide readers with

10 reasons why you should ski at Bowdoin

1. No other college has a blog on fasterskier. Okay, okay, I know that’s not true, or even close to true. But, UVM’s is written by a coach, which by default means that it can’t include anything baller like trash talk, funny pictures, or even emo introspection. And there’s Mark Johnson, I suppose, but he’s in Scandinavia, which implies irrelevance.

2. Next year, I will be gone, which means that the most annoying and/or difficult person on the team will be gone (unless Ollie’s still around…)

3. Unlike like if you go to Dartmouth, you will never have to worry about being squeezed out of an NCAA spot by your own teammates.

4. You will have huge baller coaches.

That dude at the back, skiing with (okay, slightly behind) the lead pack, which includes former Olympian Justin Freeman? Yeah, that’s right, that’s my coach. Now, some of you might say, “oh, yeah, whatever, Paul Stone or Tracey Cote could have totally toasted Nathan had they been in this race.” Which may be true. However, in terms of skillz during college skiing career compared to skillz as a coach (especially with no time for training), Nathan totally takes it, given that it seems that he has actually improved since he was a student (this gives me hope).

5. You have the opportunity to learn tricks of the trade from one of the oldest, wisest practitioners of the sport out there. It’s basically like being on a team with Yoda. (He’s taking a year off next year to qualify for the Olympics, but he’ll be back when you’re a sophomore in 2011.)

6. Excellent recovery thanks to three-time Div. 1 NCAA champion in food: http://www.bowdoin.edu/dining/ (scroll down to read about Bowdoin dining domination–with 27% coming from local sources!)

7. Friendly, gold-medal winning alumni are always willing to offer support  (one time, she beat me in a running race, and then cooled down with me and some friends, and I almost got dropped).

8. Though some might see a Maine location as a disadvantage for EISA competition, our optimal distance from Manchester, New Hampshire means that the late van always gets to eat at Luisa’s, which is without question far and away the best possible place to eat the night before a race (unless you get a large broccoli and hamburger calzone, in which case you will feel really good while you’re eating it, but then when you wake up to get ready for the classic sprint the next day, you will feel like there is a gigantic brick in your stomach).

9. Dance parties:

10. Your mascot will kick everyone else’s mascot’s ass. First of all, two of them are colors. I don’t think I really have to say any more about that. Others are various types of cats, which everyone knows are unfriendly and less cool than dogs: bob (Bates), wild (UNH), and big (Middlebury and UVM). Then, there’s the feeble, pathetic, and sometimes sterile mammal division, which consists of the Williams Ephs (purple cows), and the Colby Mules. Finally, there are the  Purple Knights of St. Mike’s and the Saint Lawrence Saints. The only thing sillier than a purple (and therefore sexually frustrated) knight is a college that can’t think of a word for a mascot that isn’t already in its own name. In any case, all of this provocation is totally unnecessary, because I don’t think that there’s a single person out there who would honestly try to deny that the polar bear is far and away the coolest, most ballin mascot out there.

This weekend I officially started the master-blaster phase of my life. This dramatically affected my preparations for the Rangeley Loppet 50k (note: if you get to item three and realize that I’m describing your standard pre-race behavior, you might want to stop reading before you get pissed off, lest we have another Ollie Burruss-Birkie scenario on our hands…):

Monday: Get very little sleep. Don’t train. Send skis off via overnight mail to Zach in Whistler for special Rangeley grind.

Tuesday: Get very little sleep. Train for one hour in zone 2.5. Sharpen pole tips and elbows.

Wednesday: Get very little sleep. Train for 1.5 hours in zone 2.5, with special focus on flat and downhill v1 technique. Receive skis from Zach in the mail. Apply base layers of LF 6.

Thursday: Sleep in a little bit. Take the day off. Apply initial HF layer. Wash race suit from Craftsbury.

Friday: Prepare. Mix correct ratios of Hammer Heed with water, and staple GUs to water bottle belt. Apply additional HF layers. Calculate percentage back from last year’s winner and file this away for mental safe-keeping during the race.

Saturday: Arrive at race venue ready to rock’n'roll!

This brings us to the race. Last year, I did my first 50k at Rangeley, and it was really fun, but also really miserable. I cramp really really easily (one time I had to jump off my bike within sight of the finish line of a 70-mile road race because I was about to fall off…), and at last year’s marathon, by the time I got to 49k I was cramping in muscles that I didn’t even know existed. This year I had plenty of Cytomax, a Clif bar (yes, I did manage to eat the whole thing during the race, which I was pretty psyched about), and a few gels, and I was hopeful that fitness and fatigue would be my limiting factors.

I lined up on the far right side behind Colby’s Matt Briggs and Wyatt Fereday (who is currently rocking a heinously sweet mohawk). It was no EISA mass start, but I thought I was still moving at a pretty good pace until Ida Sargent almost skied over my skis, which made me resolve to go a little bit faster. For the first couple k’s, I hung with the lead pack, until I decided that going at the same speed as Eric Packer and Eli Enman wasn’t a good idea, even if it was pretty fun. It was tough to let those guys go skiing away, but I knew that I’d pay for it if I tried to ski with them for too much longer. I let a Dartmouth guy come around me and settled in with my teammate Tom Cook, Ida, 2010 Israeli relay teammate Jeremy Blazar, and a few others at a pretty comfortable pace (I managed to exchange a few words at one point with Colin Reuter about being an internet-celebrity). We cruised along for about 10k, taking turns working at the front.

At about 15k, an older dude in a pretty cool-looking suit came up from behind us on a climb and just kept on cruising. I was pretty sure that I remembered him passing me at about 40k last year, so I figured he was probably a good ride to catch.  For about four k I stuck right on his heels, hoping that at a certain point we were going to catch some people and things would get easier. Sure enough, we managed to latch onto a group of four or five masters and a couple of Dartmouth skiers, and relaxed.

This was somewhere around 20k. We came through for the lap, I picked up a new waterbottle from my coach, and then we headed out again.

One thing I’ve learned from bike racing is that it’s generally a bad idea to do work for other people when you’re racing. So for the next 10k or so, I took a few pulls, but tried not to do too much work. The pace was good, but pretty easy. Nothing too exciting was happening at this point. At 30k, one of the Dartmouth guys broke his binding, which must have really sucked.

30k to 40k was where a few amusing things happened. First, the remaining Dartmouth guy led our pack for just about this entire time. At a certain point, I was thinking to myself, “man, these masters sure are wily–they’re totally taking advantage of this poor Dartmouth kid. Then, I realized that I’d been at the back of the pack for this entire time, and hadn’t taken a single pull myself. Hmm… Also at about 30k, I noticed the first hint of a cramp, in one of my triceps. For the next few k’s I drank Cytomax, ate, and stretched out my arms like it was my job. I managed to stave off serious hurt for a little while, but things only went downhill for the rest of the race.

At about 40k, the older guy who I’d followed up to this pack decided to attack. At first he opened up a gap pretty quickly, and it seemed like he was going to get away. Then, the rest of us accelerated, the poor Dartmouth kid who’d been leading us for the last 10k got dropped, and we managed to hold the older guy at about 5 or 10 yards. After another 2 or 3k, despite our efforts, he’d disappeared. I didn’t try to chase him because I’d started to cramp pretty bad, and didn’t think I could do much more by myself than we were already doing as a group.

At 45k though, the cramping had seemed to plateau at a point where it was only at a moderate level in both triceps, one shoulder, and one thigh. I figured it probably wouldn’t get much worse, and since I’m a horrible sprinter (I’m not doing a victory celebration in that video–I’m nearly falling over while getting beaten by a no-poles Walt Shepard [also, the fact that 579 people have seen how stupid I look is really disturbing]) and I’d already been beaten in a sprint on this course before (albeit in the 25k), I decided that I needed to make a move on the three masters remaining in my group. Iin retrospect, I probably should have had confidence in my ability to outsprint a bunch of old fogies. But in any case, I went to the front and started going as hard as I could without setting off full-fledged cramps, which at that point was slightly above level one. I worked hard for about a minute before I realized that there was absolutely no possible way I was going to make it the rest of the way by myself, and slowed down. Lesson learned, at least for today. Oh yeah–the one good thing that came of this was that we caught the older guy that had been dangling off the front of our pack for the last 5k.

At this point we were coming through the stadium, which was pretty sweet, because I got to drop my hat and water bottle belt, which made me feel about 15 pounds lighter. As we headed back out onto the final 3k loop, nobody seemed to want to come around me, so I sat on the front and skied at a speed that probably wouldn’t have been enough to win a Bill Koch league race. Not surprisingly, my master friends still stayed behind me. Finally, a big Canadian in an ESPRESSOSPORTS suit came by, and I slotted in behind. He pulled up until about 48k, then moved over to the side of the trail and gestured for me to take a turn. I didn’t. He slowed down….I slowed down. Finally, one of the other guys in the group pulled up alongside us and told us that “we have to keep going! otherwise Andy is going to catch back up!”

No! Not Andy! The only thing I  wanted less than for Andy to catch back up was for this dude to beat me, so I decided that this was probably as good a place as any. I put my head down and went for it. When I looked back, ESPRESSOSPORTS was still behind me, but I had a slight gap on scared-of-Andy guy and the other three guys in the group. At 49k, ESPRESSOSPORTS went around. I tried to match the pace, but my muscles were exploding at that point–it probably would have been pretty funny to watch, since I was trying to mitigate the cramping by poling with my elbows locked. I struggled up the last little hill, 5 yards ahead of scared-of-Andy and 5 yards behind ESPRESSOSPORTS, and thrashed my way to the line. Ouch.

Other than my finish, Bowdoin had some pretty solid performances–I think we took 5th, 6th, and 9th (if you count Ollie), and I was 11th in the men’s race. Our women did pretty well, too, but I’m too lazy to figure out their placings since the only results are still split up into age groups. All in all, a very pleasant day.

I think my next post will probably come from JO’s. However, a final note: if you live anywhere on the eastern seaboard, COME TO NCAA’s and cheer for eastern skiers. Many of them are quite friendly, and almost all of them are American, unlike those mercenaries out west. Also, Rumford is a very pleasant town with many hidden treasures like the Mexico Chicken Coop (okay, okay, it’s in Mexico, but it’s still sweet). Finally, if eastern skiers ski well, then next year we’ll be able to send 80 guys to NCAA’s like the west, which would mean that people like me would be able to participate. Sweet. And even though Bates blows, you should probably cheer for them–they need the moral support more than anyone since they have low self-esteem…

            At the beginning of the season I would not have predicted that I would have been able to win the biggest, most important race on the EISA circuit. On Saturday, everything finally came together, and I did. This is my story:

            After the race on Friday, it started to rain. And rain. And rain. As I trudged my way across one of the downhill ski trails on the way to the banquet, I wondered how this mess was going to turn out the next day.

             Saturday morning, we miraculously awoke to frigid (15 degree!) temperatures, and a skating rink for a parking lot. After a breakfast of two eggs, Teflon (yay nonstick pans), and bagel, we departed for the Sugarloaf Outdoor Center for what was to be the final day of racing of my college career.

            The warm-up revealed that the trails were certainly icy, but still skiable. The course was fast, but not too technical—the loop was the same as the day before, done four times instead of twice. The start was to take place on a bog, which provided for about 100 meters of frenzied double poling before a quick right onto the narrow trail system. I’d heard some discussion before the women’s start of whether the ice on the bog would hold up or not after the previous day’s rain, but apparently the race officials had deemed it safe. In any case, the women had gotten off without a problem.

            Due to my underwhelming performance in the previous week’s relay, I was relegated to bib number 62 for the mass start, which turned out to be the very last spot. In retrospect, this was extremely lucky. At the time, I figured that it shouldn’t be too much of a problem, since my position would probably give me enough time to react to the inevitable carnage that I could avoid it. I slotted myself in at the back of the field, listened to some unintelligible instructions from the starter, and took some deep breaths. Bang! The pistol fired, and we were off.

            Since I was at the back, I don’t know exactly what happened next. But according to my parents, who were watching the race, the combined force of Simi and Sylvan’s double poling was so powerful as to punch a huge hole in the ice, and before they knew what hit them, the whole front row of the field was neck deep in the bog being devoured by freshwater sharks. I don’t have the numbers at this point (they’re still dredging for bodies), but I’m pretty sure the whole Dartmouth team perished, as well as most of the Middlebury guys. There were some pretty valiant attempts to save these poor saps as they were being torn limb from limb, but rescue attempts faltered when the Stratton girls refused to drag people out of the water using their ski poles.

            The middle of the pack managed to snowplow to a stop before falling into the hole in the ice, and most of these guys tried to ski around on the glare ice on the outside of the trail. Unfortunately, this ungroomed portion of the bog was so slick that anyone who tried to ski on it immediately found themselves on their backs sliding downhill towards the Carrabassett River. Fortunately, there were a few alpine skiers mysteriously huddled in the woods who managed to corral most of these wayward glissaders.

            As for me, by the time I realized what was going on, I had built up a pretty good head of steam and had only about 20 meters before I reached the hole in the ice. Decision time. Do I stop and walk around the hole, ensuring the continued attachment of all of my limbs, but also giving the middle of the pack enough time to climb back out of the woods and catch me? Or do I go for it?

            The next 3 seconds seemed to last 3 hours. I saw my whole life flash before my eyes—my parents, my sister, my dog, my teammates and coaches, my Carni Crush. And then, right after I noticed that there was a small spruce tree on fire on the side of the trail, everything seemed to fade away. A floating pair of eyebrows appeared in the darkness, and I heard a booming voice speaking from far, far away. It said: “KEEP ’EM POINTED STRAIGHT AHEAD…” Then, all my senses came flooding back, and I was two feet from the edge of the chasm.

             I pointed my skis forward, leaned back, and shut my eyes. When I opened them, I was on the other side, with nothing but 22.3k of open white trail between me and victory.

I definitely didn’t take the rest of the race easy. There was a large crowd to please, and who knows, some of those smarty-pants Harvard kids had probably figured out a way back onto the trail. But once I had 1k to go, I realized that no one was going to catch me, so I took the opportunity to tighten up one of my boots that had been bothering me. Then, with 200 meters to go, I may or may not have stopped when one of the Bates girls asked me for my number.

As I crossed the finish line, I did my best Petter Northug impression, then fell to the ground, completely spent. A wave of emotions flooded over me. I thought of all the people that had ever doubted me, or tried to step on my dreams. There was that kid in high school who cut me off that one time. The coach that told me that my spandex was too smelly to allow me to succeed at the EISA level. And then, finally, there were those annoying people on my team from New Hampshire, who said that people from my state would never amount to anything.

Well, haters, I proved you all wrong. And you know what? I’m a huge baller, and I’m going to Disneyworld! Well, actually, that’s not quite true. I am, however, going to be at JO’s in Truckee next weekend (apparently I’m helping wax for the Mid-Atlantic team), and I will be signing autographs.

            This blog entry concludes the chronicles of Nat Herz in his quest to be a competitive collegiate skier. For those of you who actually want to know what happened in the race, it was fairly average, and I ended up 52^nd. At a certain point in the next few weeks, I’ll probably post some sort of a season/career recap, but not right now, since my copy of Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America is staring me in the face. I do plan to keep updating this blog indefinitely (as long as Fasterskier will still have me), but at this point the frequency will probably diminish, at least slightly, given the amount of schoolwork that I’ve put off over the last six weeks. Keep checking, though, because some good stuff is still happening in March—I’ve got the Rangeley Loppet this weekend, JO’s next weekend, and the Sugarloaf Marathon after that, so there should be some good stories. As I’ve already told you a wise man once said, “keep ’em pointed straight ahead.”

Also, here’s a pretty funny story from today, in the form of an e-mail to the Bowdoin ski team from Walt Shepard, the crotchety senior member of our team (FYI, Whittier is the place where we keep our skis boots poles etc.)

“Hi All,

Funny story – Nat’s an idiot.  Here’s why…

So, let me give you the day’s events surrounding the Whittier incident in bullet-form/chronological order:

9:00 – Walt tries to leave condo, finds his car stuck under 9 inches of snow – for the third time in like, 14 hours.  Crap.

9:25 – Walt is finally able to get out of his driveway. Walt is  really annoyed. 
9:30 – Walt arrives at Whittier.  Locked box has no key.  Walt is really pissed. 
9:31 – Walt calls 725-3000 because he doesn’t know the number for security.  “Is it an emergency?” the operator asks.  “No.” Walt replies. 

9:39 – Operator discovers that if it’s not an emergency, she doesn’t know the number for security.  “You don’t know the number for security?  Are you even at Bowdoin?” Walt asks.  “No.” operator replies.  “Well that’s helpful.” Walt says.  “I think I’ll be hanging up now.”

9:40 – Walt calls Nat Herz to get the number for security.  “725-3144″ Nat says.  “What do you need that for?” he adds.  Walt explains the key predicament.  “Haha!  That sucks for you man!” Nat exclaims.

9:50 – Security can’t make it over for a while.  Walt has successfully wasted twenty minutes.  Damn-it! 
2:45 – After some class and a heat seeking email to the Bowdoin Ski Team regarding missing keys, Walt walks to Whittier hoping to find Ollie with keys.

3:00 – Ollie finally shows, after Walt has been standing in the cold for 15 minutes creeping out the neighbors. Ollie forgot his keys. 

3:02 – Walt, Ollie, and Matt drive back to Ollie’s place to find his keys in the snow outside his apartment.  Bad day for keys.

3:10 – Finally inside Whittier, no keys.  Walt is so F-ING pissed he can’t control himself. 
3:20 – Walt sends heat-seeking email #2 to entire team saying what an idiot Chris Sanville must be. 
4:20 – Walt recants on Sanville lynching after a pretty accurate and hilarious reply. 
4:55 – Walt heads over to Nat and Nick’s place to try and get to the bottom of these shenanigans. 
5:00 – In recounting the events of the day to Nick and Morgan, Nat (who overhears this conversation next door) realizes that he, in fact, is the one who has the missing Whittier keys (approximately 7 HOURS AND 20 MINUTES from original notification!!!)

5:01 – Nat spontaneously combusts from extremely high levels of idiocy.

Nat is an idiot.

Best, 
Walt”

–mainly because it kills polar bears, but also because it results in such situations as the one below:

Friday morning at Sugarloaf I headed out to warm up on my rock skis on a violet/blue mix. The conditions were quite pleasant—cool and powdery—and my skis were kicking nicely. With about a half hour to the start, I cruised back to the start area to test out my race skis. I was getting pretty warm, too, so I took off my long underwear top (in retrospect, this might have been a sign of rapidly rising temperatures).
Nathan handed me my skis, and told me that I might have to ski them in a little bit before they would start working. I put them on, and it was quite clear that they did not work at all—it felt like I was trying to stride on skate skis. I went about 200 meters before I brought them back to the coaches.

Fifteen minutes later, I returned to the starting area. Nathan handed me my skis, and told me that I might have to ski them in a little bit before they would start working. I put them on, and it was quite clear that they did not work at all—it felt like I was trying to stride on skate skis. I went about 200 meters before I brought them back to the coaches.

With five minutes to the start, Nathan handed me my skis, and told me that I might have to ski them in a—no, just kidding—he told me that “we really nuked your skis this time, so let ‘em cool off a bit before you start.” Hmmm. Since at this point I had only a few minutes to go, I elected not to try the skis again before the start, since there was no point in freaking myself out if they weren’t working if I couldn’t fix them. With two minutes to go, I kicked the snow off my boots, stepped onto my skis, got in line for the start, and started shuffling my skis around. They felt disturbingly slick.

The race was two loops of a 5k course, which was basically a 2.5k gradual uphill with about 1.25k of downhill and flat on either side. The start sent us up a short little hill that connected to the race loop. My skis had nothing on the starting hill—I flailed over it and spent the next five minutes contemplating just how I was going to get around the course. 2.5k of herringboning seemed like a pretty miserable prospect.

When I got to the first little rise, I gave a few tentative strides to see what would happen. The suspense was so great the world seemed to stand still. Unbelievably, and against all odds, my skis worked! I kept going up, and the skis kept working. At a certain point, I turned a corner to see number four in front of me, a UVM skier within striking distance! This was going to be a great race.

As I continued my way up the hill, I noticed that my right ski seemed to be getting better kick than the left. Gradually, as I got higher and higher, “getting better kick” began to evolve into “getting more iced-up.” I wasn’t too concerned—the icing wasn’t bad, and for the most part I was able to kick my skis off whenever I crested a rise. They were getting stickier and stickier, but the UVM kid was getting closer and closer.

If I were Peter Graves, here is how I would have called the next minute or two of the race:

“Cole Talbot leads Nat Herz by a few seconds as they near the top of today’s first big climb. Talbot appears to be having some problems with his skis, and yes—he’s stopped to take them off to scrape off the snow and ice. Looks like UVM didn’t quite hit the wax today—that’s a real bummer for Talbot. Here comes Herz over the top—he’s looking quite strong, and doesn’t seem to be having nearly as much trouble with the wax, although here you can see him trying to kick off his skis. Yes, he’s switched into that elegant kick-double-pole technique and OH Herz is down! Right on his face! That’s GOTTA hurt! And now Herz is scraping off his skis, too!”

Yeah—so that was a bit of a blow to the day’s hopes and dreams, but the problems had only come near the top of the course, so I was only mildly crushed. Plus, there was still one more lap to go, and I was still close behind Cole, and if UVM was having a rough waxing day, everyone else probably was too, right?

I cruised pretty quickly through the flat and rolling terrain in the middle of the course and arrived at the bottom of the climb again. I assumed that my wax was going to work again, just like it had on the first lap. Unfortunately, everyone knows what happens when you assume (especially when the temperature has climbed 20 degrees in the last hour), and the kickwax on my skis basically ceased functioning—for the first half of the climb. A number of people passed me like I was standing still, but there were also a couple who I managed to catch, notably one SLU skier who complained to his assistant coach that “the skis are terrible!” This cheered me up considerably. On the second half of the climb, I had the same problem with icing, and again had to take off my skis at the top to clean them off, alongside my old friend from UVM, who seemed to be having even more trouble than me. We put on our skis again around the same time and dueled it into the finish.

To the credit of the Bowdoin coaching staff, Friday was the first time in more than two seasons that I think I was actually hindered by the waxing. However, aside from the lucky (if you want to be charitable you can call them better-prepared) few guys that raced on zeroes, I don’t think that my skis were significantly different than anyone else’s—everyone struggled, albeit some to a greater or lesser extent. There were about four different kinds of snow on the course by the time I was done skiing, and there was no magic bullet that was going to work perfectly in every one. Even though I was going so horrifically slowly that it seemed like there was no possible way to go any slower, there were actually plenty of other people out there going at a similarly miserable pace—people finished within 15 seconds of me in both directions.

After a pleasant cooldown (skating on the warm-up skis with violet-blue kickwax), my day was finished. I spent the rest of the day preparing a job application, and then at the banquet. For the record, it’s really funny to see all the college skiers when they’re not in their ski clothes—a comparable example might be running into Barack Obama wearing spandex while out for a skate ski on the Sugarloaf trails.

Stay tuned—a report from the final race of my college career is coming. As for the few posts that I was supposed to write for last week and didn’t—I hope that the next few I write can make up for it…