Record Turnout at the BKL Race at Breadloaf

From Bruce Ingersoll

We had a fantastic BKL race at Rikert Touring Center at the Breadloaf Campus of Middlebury College on January 25th. Almost 80 skiers for the day double our last year's turnout. The snow was excellent for a classic race. Teams from Mansfield Nordic, Woodstock and Ford Sayre joined the Frost Mountain Nordic team for a great day.

Craftsbury Marathon

left: The Cold Start. Photo by Jim Rodrigues/NENSA.

An intrepid group of Frosties ventured forth in the sub zero weather for the Craftsbury Marathon. The tour was postponed due to the rain earlier in the week, but the 25K and 50K races went off as scheduled. Frost Mountain Nordic had strong showings in the 25K with both Mia Allen and Andrew Gardner winning their age groups in the Masters National Championships. Andrew was also second overall. Yay Frosties!

Bill Hegman had the unfortunate or perhaps comic experience of stepping on a packet of energy gel left on the trail. The chocolate goo affixed itself to his green klister and stopped him dead in his tracks, which sent him tumbling head over heels. Bill picked himself up, scraped the mess off and skied on to place a respectable 12th in his age division.

New friends were made in the course of the day and sometimes in unusual ways. Dia Jenks introduced herself after the race to a woman she did not know wearing a red Frost Mountain hat.

"You have got to be kidding," the woman exclaimed as she whipped off her hat to show the name Dia Jenks magic markered in the inside. "My husband picked this up in the lost and found at Trapp's." A new acquaintance and a hat returned...

From Nensa:
Craftsbury, VT -- It was cold for the start of this morning's TD Bank Craftsbury Marathon. Most athletes covered their faces, wore mittens instead of gloves, and added an extra layer under their spandex racing suits. The lead pack of men included 2006 Olympian Justin Freeman, home-club athlete Jeurgen Uhl who is a recent graduate of UVM where he was an NCAA all-American, and another home-clubber Crafsbury Green Racing Project standout Tim Reynolds (a Middlebury alum and forever a Frostie, finished 2nd overall! Go Tim Go!). The lack of wind and absolutely perfect tracks made everyone quickly forget the -4F temperatures as the gun sounded to start the race.

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Frosties at U.S. Masters National Championships

On Thursday, January 28th, the first race of U.S. Masters National Championships was held at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center in Craftsbury Common, Vermont.
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Photo on left of our Frostie, Mia Allen, flying down the trail.

Two Midd Alums Named to 2010 Olympic Nordic Team

Andrew Gardner, Head Coach of the Middlebury College Nordic Team, writes:

We're pretty proud that Middlebury College has 2 alums on the Olympic team, Garrott Kuzzy and 09 graduate Simi Hamilton!!!

http://fasterskier.com/2010/01/one-more-spot-for-us-hamilton-joins-2010-olympic-team/

Paintball Biathlon 2010

by Sophie Hodges, a Bill Koch League participant.

Today a lot of people from Frost Mountain went to the Paintball Biathlon at Mountain Top, Vermont. It was a freezing cold day, and unfortunately, I was only wearing one pair of socks. It was a skate race, and super duper fast. You would start out with a small loop and come into the shooting range, shoot five targets about the size of dinner plates, and ski off down the hill. At the bottom of the hill, you would either finish, or go off for another loop. Camille and Malia go first, and they both have really good races, really, I'm not just saying that to be nice. Sam, Nick, Tom, Rowan, Oliver, Harlow and Morgan all had good races too. I didn't get to see a lot of them, it was too cold to stay outside for a really long time. But some how, my dad, Barney Hodges stayed outside the entire day, and has told me personally that he did not get cold once the entire time. The way the race worked was you would start in 15 second intervals and race against the clock. Then you would go up a hill and ski down a flat into the range. They had eight stations and would tell you to go to one of them. You would have to take a bunch of deep breaths after skiing hard up the hill, but luckily Mike Hussey and Barney Hodges had taught us how to do it right the day before. Then you line up the top of the gun to the bottom of the target and pull the trigger. Do that five more times, then put on your poles and V-2 off down the hill. At the bottom, you either head right under the blow up finish line or go off for another lap around the course. It was a really fun race!

Viking Night Race

by Sophie Hodges, a Bill Koch League participant

Last night a bunch Frost Mountain Bill Kochers went down to Southern Vermont's Viking Ski touring Center. There we had a very fun kind of race, a night race.

The experience was very interesting. Some had been the year before, others were newbies. The race-course was lit with lanterns, which made it look a little bit like Narnia. It was really exciting to go whooshing through the woods in the darkness trying to catch the person ahead of you.

It was a classic race, and pretty warm, so we used klister. Our coaches, Bruce Ingersoll and Barney Hodges did a very great job finding the right stuff to put on our skis. I don't think anyone from Frost Mountain was complaining about how their skis were too slippery or too sticky.

Our first racer was Malia Hodges. She was the youngest of the group and had to race first. Next was Sam Hodges. He tells me he had great wax, very nearly beat his friend, and chewed his gum throughout the entire race. Then Rowan Warren and Nick Wilkerson raced. They did very well, and had a great time, I believe. The next racers were myself, Sophie Hodges, and Amelia Ingersoll. I know from personal experience that we had a fabulous time. Finally Oliver Clark raced his race, the last one, and did a great job as well.

Afterwards, we were all starving. It was already 9:00 at night, much to the adults disappointment, and we still hadn't had dinner. So, it was decided that we were going to have sandwiches on the drive back. Altogether, the race was a complete success!

How Do I Wax for a Marathon

This post originally appeared on Ski Post's weekly emails. To subscribe, send a message to weanswer@skipost.com.

How Do I Wax For a Marathon?

I've been waxing successfully for shorter distance classic skiing for many years but when skiing marathons the kick wax doesn't last. What can I do to better prepare my kick wax to last longer? Note that given my slow speed I'm on the trail for several hours and thus have to expect that temperatures will climb significantly during the day, so the softer wax I need later in the marathon would be a hindrance to glide early in the day. I've seen recommendations for ironing on multiple layers of wax, but doesn't scraping off the excess after ironing on each layer negate the effort of builiding up layers? And if you are building up layers in the kick zone, doesn't that detract from glide?

Please help me understand how to improve my waxing for marathons!

Thank you!

Hello,

There are a few things that can certainly be done to help you improve the overall durability of your wax for a long race. You hit on one when you mentioned ironing in a base layer. Swix VG35 Base Binder is a great wax to get on the ski with the help of an iron the night before. The VG35 wax has a range that is wide, and if you get down to that layer you will still have something that will kick. However, the primary responsibility of this wax is to hold the wax you put over it on your ski base.

Often times a layer of Swix Blue Extra is your next best layer. Blue Extra has a unique characteristic in that it will physically harden when the temperature gets cold, and soften as it gets warm - a wax with a brain, if you will. This helps a great deal as you begin to experience temperatures rising over the course of a long race, and it is not a wax that we've seen have too much icing happening when you are near it's large range.

Here's the trouble with your question: it is nearly impossible to cover a super soft (warm) wax with a cold wax. It can be attempted, but the nature of your warmer waxes will often result in a combining of your colder layer and your warmer one. This will almost always result in slower skis in colder temperatures. We would have to suggest that if you know the temperature is going to warm up during the course of a race, you're happy with the line of waxes you have chosen for your early-race layers, and you're willing to sacrifice a few minutes to get them back you bring a warmer wax and cork along for the race. Re-waxing happens even at the elite level if the course conditions change, and it can often be the person who stopped to put a new layer down that comes out on top.

Finally, if you have doubts that your skis are stiff enough to keep your wax pocket off the snow, you should have them flexed. We see many skiers skiing on skis that are simply too soft for them. During a shorter race you might be able to get away with this, but in longer races a properly flexed ski is going to be the ticket to success!