Bend JOQ Race Report

We had a great trip to Bend this past weekend for the Sunnyside Pursuit JOQ races, with four SNC Team racers making the trip.  The Mt. Bachelor courses are tough, with some of the highest elevation gains on our circuit, and with the start/finish area at about 6000 feet elevation.  With a couple new inches of snow Friday night, the courses were in great shape even with the low snowpack, and cold temperatures kept the tracks firm.  The SNC racers turned in some great times, and were competitive with the other clubs, a fantastic outing for a full-on early season qualifier.

cold racers on Saturday getting ready for the skate start

Here were the unofficial times for our SNC competitors:

Racer             Sat. Skate      Sun. Classic     Distance
Magnus             11:58              11:15              3km
Amelia              35:13              32:44              5km
RuthMabel        23:20              22:30              5km
Elise                  21:07              20:54              5km

Yes, you read that right - all the Classic times were faster than the Skate!  We had some great times, including a 5th place by Magnus on Sunday - only 20 seconds off the podium.

Saturday night there was a Taco Night dinner catered by Longboard Louie's restaurant, and it was a nice chance to meet some of the other teams, including racers from Australia and the Lake Tahoe area that came up for the races.  Looking forward to more good racing at the next JOQ weekend coming up in Leavenworth.  Here are a few more pictures to enjoy, and I'll see you all on Saturday.

Magnus lining up for the Classic start

Tim scores the best seat in the house

Amelia getting ready to throw down a good Classic time

it was in the low 20's both days at race time

lined up for the Skate mass start on Saturday

great weather both days

I was very proud of the efforts put forth by all our racers, you did great!

Coach Paul

New Season!!

Howdy racers,

Finally getting around to the first blog post for the new year.  We have had two early-season workouts already, a first for the SNC team.  We had 5 racers on 12/10 for our initial skate workout, and 4 on 12/17 for a classic workout.  Looks like we will have about 10 racers on the team this year, about half returning and half new members.

Several team families will be going to the Mazama Ski Rodeo on 12/31, but my family will not be going this year (combination of Shannon's broken foot and her mom's 80th birthday on 1/1/12).  So for those racers that will be "hanging around" the Seattle/Hyak area this year, I will try to set up a workout locally for 12/31 in the morning.  Watch for details on that to follow.

Our first January event is the first JOQ (Junior Olympic Qualifier) of the season, in Bend, OR.  We will be setting up accomodations for those looking to share with the coach, and a schedule of events.

Welcome, or Welcome Back, looking forward to a great season!

Bavarian Cup Videos from Jan 29/30

I've got the videos from the Bavarian Cup weekend uploaded to YouTube, here are the links:

3k Skate Race, start.

3k Skate Race, Hanne uphill

3k Skate Race, Emma and Louisa uphill

5k Skate Race, start

5k Skate Race, Elise, RuthMabel, Meg, uphill

5k Skate Race, Amelia uphill

3k Classic Race, Ben start

3k Classic Race, Hanne start

5k Classic Race start

5k Classic Race, RuthMabel and Elise, uphill

The V1 uphill shots all look pretty good - watch how everyone is stepping up the hill and making the early move to the recovery ski for the most part.  Feet are still a little wide in some cases, you can step forward over the front ski without swinging your feet wide - saves energy while on a climb.  Watch the Classic starts too, to see if you are collapsing on the double pole or driving the poles without sinking at the knees.

Nice racing, with almost the full team on Saturday - way to go Snoqualmie Nordic Team!

Cool Bavarian Cup Video!

John Stacy created this video covering Saturday's freestyle race at Leavenworth, 1/29/11.  Pretty cool John!


Untitled from johnee jumpup on Vimeo.

Jenteloppet report

placeholder till I copy in the results and other stuff!

Kongsberger Classic Races

We lucked out on Saturday, with the feared rainshowers holding off until after we finished our post-race warmdown ski.  Nice job racers, as you will see from the timing analysis below, everyone improved over their previous year's time (when we only skied one lap instead of two).

Racer         2011 4k        2010 2k      (2010 4k est.)
Elise           23:01             n/a               n/a
Natasha      23:41            12:10           24:20
RuthMabel  24:02            12:30           25:00
Amelia M.   29:55            13:51           27:42  [but there was some skating last year :) ]
Emma         32:20             n/a               n/a

Racer          2011 2k        2010 2k
Hanne         11:38            12:36

and for Sunday's race

Racer       2011 10k      2010 10k
Elise         50:22            50:59
Hanne      1:03:28          n/a

As you can see, with just doubling the time from last year and not considering any 2nd lap dropoff, everyone STILL beat their time from last year!  Way to go!

Amelia charging for the finish

Emma getting into perfect
double pole position

Elise, Natasha, and RuthMabel
cruising on the 2nd lap

Mazama Ski Rodeo!

Howdy racers!

We had a great turnout in the Methow over New Years, with many team members and SNC friends in the valley. It seemed like every other person that Shannon and I saw on the trails or at the race was a friend from teaching or racing. We had some fun get togethers, including a New Years Eve potluck, a swim session at the River Run pool, two nights of Sticks 'n Pucks at the Winthrop ice rink (what a blast!), and of course ski outings and the race on Saturday morning. Congratulations to all the SNC racers, some of whom skied a full 9km on Friday and then raced 5km on Saturday!

Full results can be found at this link: http://www.mvsta.com/winter/results.html

5km race results for the SNC team were:
FJ3
1 330 Carolyn Lober Seattle 0:31:55
FJ2
1 319 Andi Zontek Wenatchee 0:16:56
2 315 Olivia Ekblad Winthrop 0:17:38
3 310 Elise Putnam Winthrop 0:17:56
4 322 Kealani Paton Cashmere 0:18:52
5 302 Meg Englert Seattle 0:25:31
6 306 RuthMabel Boytz Seattle 0:27:40
7 323 Amelia Miller Seattle 0:28:54
8 313 Sarah Lober Seattle 0:30:14
FJ1
1 307 Helen Miller Seattle 0:25:34
MM3/MM4
1 305 Paul Nelson Carnation 0:31:55


Everyone turned in a great effort and laid down some base times to shoot for over the rest of the season. It was cold, about +10F at race time, and the snow was a little slow and scratchy, but what a beautiful day for racing! We waxed up six pair of skis with blue glide wax the night before, and that helped get us a little better glide than we had the day before during the workout. I was very proud of all our racers, and also the family members that braved standing around in cold weather to ring cowbells, hold jackets, and take pictures!

There are lots more photos available at the MVSTA website, and we'll get a few more up on the blog later. Thanks for a great pre-season outing, and I'm looking forward to our official Week 1 workout this Saturday. Updated schedule post will be up later tonight (this morning?).