Updated Schedule

Re-posting to get the edited schedule at the top of the pile.

Updated Schedule (edited 1/27/10)
Jan. 2--Kick-off Workout--Summit Nordic Center (Hyak)
Jan. 9--Skirennen race--Leavenworth
Jan. 16--Workout--Hyak--Iron Horse
Jan. 23--Gunnar Hagen Kids' Races--Cabin Creek
Jan 24--Gunnar Hagen race--Cabin Creek
Jan. 30--Workout--Summit Nordic Center (Hyak)
Feb. 6--Chicks on Sticks race--Leavenworth
Feb. 13--Jente Loppet race (women)--Cabin Creek
Feb. 20--Workout or JOQ Weekend--TBD or Spokane
Feb. 27--Workout or Hogloppet--TBD or Mission Ridge
Mar. 6--End of season workout--Hyak (Summit or Iron Horse)

Supertour Pictures

Here's a few shots of Snoqualmie Nordic racers at the Methow Supertour classic race on 1/17

Galen!

Nathalie!

Jeff Borg!













Way to go, racers!

Cabin Creek videos from 1/23

I can't for the life of me figure out how to post videos to the blog page (yeah, I know I managed to do it on my VERY FIRST POST...button seems to be missing now - maddening).  So, it's YouTube time!

Here is the double pole drill.  We're looking for good forward lean at initiation, driving the poles into the snow and through with an agressive move, starting with the abdominal crunch, proper pole angle, follow through, flat back at finish, recovery and smooth transition to the next stroke.
Double Pole Drill 1/23/10

And the striding drill.  We're looking for kick DOWN (not back) good reach and forward lean to the gliding ski, balancing on each new ski, proper pole angle, and delayed pole timing to get the 4-count.
Diagonal Stride Drill 1/23/10

2K Race Start!
Cabin Creek 2K Race Start 1/23/10

2K Race Finish Part A (Natasha, RuthMabel, Meg)
2K Race Finish part A

2K Race Finish Part B (Amelia & Amelia)
2K Race Finish part B

Gunnar Hagen race report

We had a great time last Saturday at the Kongsberger Ski Club hosted classic races!  The weather held off, and when the groomer made his pre-race pass over the course we had perfect classic track conditions.  We started the day with some technique work on double-poling and stride timing, and were able to preview the course during our warmup.  After lunch we were ready to go!  Despite a slight mishap at the start line, everyone did great!  I forgot to re-iterate that there is NO SKATING in a classic race (sorry Amelia!), but no harm done.  Kudos to Amelia Brown for skiing the entire race with a twisted ankle after the start-line crash.  I was very proud of everyone's effort, and we saw some great results (and here they are...):

2K course – up road, around Berg course, PK loop
Place Bib # Name Age Time

1 5 Lydia Youkey 11 10:49
2 16 Liam Voorhees 11 12:07
3 18 Natasha Dietz 12 12:10
4 30 RuthMabel Boyntz 13 12:30
5 22 Hanne Boveng 11 12:36
6 23 Uhuru Hashimoto 10 12:37
7 32 Meg Englert 13 12:46
8 31 Amelia Miller 13 13:51 some skate?
9 29 Amelia Brown 13 13:57
10 21 Karsten Hendrickson 12 14:01
11 1 Magnus Melbourne 10 14:39
12 2 Nils Melbourne 8 14:40
13 17 Blair Vorhees 9 14:46
14 15 Dominic Mathias 10 15:04
15 19 Katrina Hendrickson 9 15:26
16 6 Arryn Owens 9 15:36
17 9 Heidi Seemiller 9 15:59
18 25 Apollo Hashimoto 6 16:15
19 12 Annika Repsher 9 16:18
20 10 Isak Larson 8 16:39
21 37 Max Hanscomb 8 18:45

Galen's brother Liam and cousin Blair also had great races.

On Sunday, Nathalie and Elise raced in the 10km division, and both placed 1st in their age groups!  Here are their results:

10k Womens - Overall Results

Class Place BIB Name Hometown Finish Overall

J2 1 137 Andi Zontek Wenatchee 0:33:09 1
SR 1 113 Kira Peterson Walla Walla 0:34:13 2
OJ 1 107 Aurora Bowers Walla Walla 0:35:01 3
M4 1 117 Lisa Newton Seattle 0:36:23 4
J1 1 116 Nathalie Cushing Shoreline 0:37:06 5
J2 2 133 Becca Wells Leavenworth 0:37:40 6
M1 1 110 Jessica Kleiss Seattle 0:39:30 7
M5 1 118 Joy Cordell Seattle 0:42:41 8
J1 2 153 Jennifer Schmidt Seattle 0:42:58 9
J1 3 155 Rebecca Myhre Seattle 0:46:02 10
M2 1 121 Ida Ottesen Seattle 0:48:50 11
M3 1 135 Anne Johansen Ellensburg 0:48:57 12
J2 3 146 Jillian Gerke Seattle 0:49:59 13
J3 1 127 Elise Stacy Seattle 0:50:59 14
J2 4 157 Riley Mehring Seattle 0:51:33 15
M5 2 111 Susan Main Bothell 0:52:23 16
M3 2 131 Cindy Tsuji Kirkland 1:04:46 17
M1 2 128 Danielle Wain Seattle 1:04:51 18
M3 3 126 Jennifer Lucas Kirkland 1:07:06 19
M3 4 120 Ellen Aagaard Seattle 1:19:04 20
M3 138 Sevin Bilir Seattle DNF
J2 152 Grace Stonecipher Seattle DQ

Congratulations to everyone!

Updated schedule for the next 3 weeks

Here is our updated schedule (I will also be editing the original schedule posting to match):

Jan. 30th - team workout at the Summit Nordic Center (Hyak) - meet in the lodge at 9:30am, bring both skate and classic gear.  We will be starting on skate gear on the upper trails, unless conditions warrant a change.

Feb. 6th - Chicks on Sticks race in Leavenworth (8km skate) Event details and registration:
http://www.skileavenworth.com/event/chicks
This will be a great opportunity to ski a slightly longer distance race, on a relatively flat course that will allow us to focus on technique and pacing.

Feb. 13th - Jente Loppet race at Cabin Creek (5km skate) Event details and registration:
http://www.kongsbergers.org/Jente%202010a.html
There is also a 10km option for older kids who want to do two laps instead of one.

See you all on Saturday!

Holly makes it!

Holly Brooks was added to the US Olympic Team yesterday, and is on her way to Canmore for world cup racing this Friday and training for the Olympics.  Woo Hoo!  No word yet on which events she might be skiing in, but as an all-distance performer this season she could be on the start list for any/all events.

Story in the Anchorage Daily News is here:

http://www.adn.com/sports/olympics/story/1110936.html

Way to go Holly!

US Olympic Team Announced

Here's a story in the Anchorage Daily News about the ski team selection

http://www.adn.com/sports/olympics/story/1100366.html

Cross your fingers that Holly Brooks can still get a spot on the team!

Interesting article at FasterSkier about the possibility of extra US team spots

http://fasterskier.com/2010/01/additional-quota-analysis-us-and-canada-to-gain-spots/

Survey says?

I sent an email to the group to see if we want to hit the kids' CLASSIC race this Saturday at Kongsbergers instead of skiing at the Hyak nordic center.  Please send me an email back or leave a comment here on the blog.  Race info at http://www.kongsbergers.org/.  I have copies of the waiver form that I will email out shortly.

Congratulations to Nathalie and Galen for their race performances at the Methow Super Tour this past weekend, and also for skiing the headlamp race at K-berg this week.  Can't wait to hear the stories!

Skirennen Race Photos!

Thanks to Robin for taking these great photos at the race last week!  I'm going through the video snippets that John took, and will get those up soon.

http://picasaweb.google.com/sncpix/Skirennen201002#

Galen and Nathalie will be at the Methow Super Tour this weekend - good luck and have fun!

Skirennen Recap

We had a great day for racing yesterday in Leavenworth, with some recent snow, excellent grooming, and cooperative weather. I was really proud of all the girls and the way they skied. This was the first 5km race ever for several, and the first of the season for all. I thought everyone paced themselves pretty well, and we learned how it feels to ski hard for 25-30 minutes in the midst of a swirling competitive atmosphere. I haven't been able to download the video yet (still looking for my datacard reader), but will put a few of those up on the blog with comments later on.

Here are the age group results for the 5km:

F 12-13 (J3)
1) 0:20:34 Charlotte Massey
2) 0:20:36 Kate Whitten
3) 0:23:15 Elise Stacy
4) 0:26:23 Meg Englert
5) 0:33:52 Amelia Miller
6) 0:34:23 Emma Thomas

F 14-15 (J2)
1) 0:16:49 Andi Zontek
2) 0:17:33 Kealani Paton
3) 0:19:31 Rebecca Wells
4) 0:21:11 bettye eifert
5) 0:24:51 Galen Voorhees


It's expected that the Leavenworth and Methow kids will be faster than us, especially at this time of year, as they can ski 7 days a week and have much more on-snow time than we do at this point. But as you can see, we are not that far off - shaving just 10 seconds per km would improve everyone's time by nearly a full minute, and 20-25 seconds per km would put us right in the mix. Think about it this way: 25min for 5km is 5min/km (=300sec/km), so knocking off 20sec/km is a reduction of only 7%, yet this would result in an overall time of about 23:20, a reduction of 1min 40sec.

I hope you all had as much fun as I did yesterday, congratulations to you all! Watch for some video later on, and notes on the upcoming schedule.

Holly Brooks 2nd at Nationals today in the 20k Classic!

Following up her 4th in the freestyle sprints, and 7th in the 10k freestyle, former SNC racer Holly Brooks made the podium today at the US Nationals and Olympic Trials! Will this be enough to get her on the US Olympic Team, coupled with her "second by a boot length" finish at last year's Birkie, and outstanding showing at the West Yellowstone races?

Official website and results at: http://www.anchoragenordicski.com/nationals10/results.html

V1 Take two - 1/2/10

Here's the second video session from Saturday, after we worked on pole position and duration (rotation and move to the recovery ski while the poles are still in contact). Notice how much more continuous glide is happening, without the loss of momentum that we saw some of in take one. This is the kind of thing that makes our skiing more efficient, free extra glide as a result of proper positioning - and no additional energy required to do it!



A few more tweaks (reach up, step up, skis and hands closer depending on terrain), and then repeat, repeat, repeat....

Snoqualmie Nordic Club Jr. Racing Program!

SNC Junior Racing is a 10-week program designed to allow the continued development of young skiers age 13-19 who are interested in high performance technique and racing. Workouts will include instruction in both skating and classic techniques, some work with waxing and equipment care, and video analysis. We will take advantage of some of the local races, so those who are interested can participate. The goal of the program is to be fun, instructive, and challenging, so that young skiers will find something new and exciting about Nordic skiing every year.

Updated Schedule (edited 1/27/10)

Jan. 2--Kick-off Workout--Hyak—Summit Nordic
Jan. 9--Skirennen race--Leavenworth
Jan. 16--Workout--Hyak (Summit or Iron Horse)
Jan. 23--Gunnar Hagen Kids' Races--Cabin Creek
Jan 24--Gunnar Hagen race--Cabin Creek
Jan. 30--Workout--Summit Nordic Center (Hyak)
Feb. 6--Chicks on Sticks race--Leavenworth
Feb. 13--Jente Loppet race (women)--Cabin Creek
Feb. 20--Workout or JOQ Weekend--TBD or Spokane
Feb. 27--Workout or Hogloppet--TBD or Mission Ridge
Mar. 6--End of season workout--Hyak (Summit or Iron Horse)

V1, take one - 1/2/10

Here's the first video I shot of our V1 technique early in the workout. Pretty good base technique (especially after a long off-season). Some small timing issues and some "arm swim", and a bit of grinding down (loss of glide). Compare this to the 2nd take, which was about 45 minutes later.