Week of 2/4 Update

The MCN skiers showed their strong presence on Saturday at the Sassi Memorial Classic in Rumford. Case in point, MCN ladies took 5 out of the top 10 spots. Adele Espy, Holly Whitney, Allison Hall, Amy Lones, and Rachel Hall placed 1,4,5,9, and 10 respectively. Congrats to the Wayneflete skiers for having two finish in the top five and Greely for having 3 skiers in the top ten. Rachel Hall finished the race as the second freshman and will lead the charge for the Maine team at the J2 festival in March.

On the boy’s side, two MCN skiers finished in the top ten with Will Woodworth in 6th and Russ Morazzini finishing 8th. Sam Humphries and Nate Niles finished 1-2 in the J2 category. First year MCN skier, Erik D’Agostino should also be commended for finishing 14th in the J2 category. Scott Ross and Jackson Bloch, finishing 23rd and 24th, will serve as alternates on the Maine J2 team. It's great to see the skiers continue to show improvement as the championship races approach.

There is an Eastern Cup this weekend in Vermont. Please let me know who plans to attend. I realize that this conflicts with WMC’s on Saturday, weigh this out with the EC rankings found at http://results.nensa.net/res08/event_joq08.htm. So far, I have the following confirmed:

Holly Whitney both Days
Adele Espy both days
Nate Niles, Sunday
Sam Humphries, Sunday
Rachel Hall, possible but not definite for Sunday

With the Eastern Cup this weekend, I will not schedule a practice this week.

We’ve had a great winter! It’s a bit frustrating right now with the thaw. It’s early February and warm wet weather is expected. It’ll snow again this winter, I promise. Most of you have been on snow for over 2 1/2 months, probably more snow time than all of last winter. It won’t be the end of the world if we have to pull out running sneakers and roller-skis for the next week or so. Adversity is a big part of being a Nordic skier. If relegated to dryland training, embrace it! If you maintain your fitness while off snow, your skiing will not suffer. The skiing of some of your competitors will suffer; they’ll not be mentally tough enough to deal with the adversity of limited or no snow. Use this to your advantage!

Have a good rest of the week. Good luck at the WMC’s!