Hazen Track and Field Meets

Decided to bust out the Flip camera for the last couple of track meets. Go Hazen!

Training at Hazen!

      

        

    

No Track, No Field, No Problem!

As I mentioned in my last post I have begun working with schools in the Northeast Kingdom, or specifically in Hardwick, VT. Hardwick is a small town halfway between Stowe and St. Johnsbury on Route 15, and home to Hazen Union High School. Hazen Union has a track and field team, and starting two weeks ago I began working with them as an assistant/conditioning coach. I don't know a whole lot about track and field (I was never on a track and field team) but I can certainly help them with conditioning and getting in the right physical shape to perform. The team is great and I am excited to work with them. Only one small issue with the track and field team; Hazen Union doesn't have a track or a field. Needless to say we won't be hosting any events. However, this far from deters the kids, in fact they embrace it. Their team shirt from last year reads "no track, no field, no problem!" Pretty sweet.

To be accurate Hazen does have a jumping pit and a throwing area for the discus and shot put, and at the end of last week they have a semblance of a track. Roger, an older gentleman who is also volunteering his time, and I began marking up the school parking lot with a white spray can measuring out distances for all of the events our athletes would be competing in. So far we have the 100m, 110m hurdles (men) and 100m hurdles (women), and the 4x100 relay which is actually two laps around a 200m track. Measuring out the 200m relay track was especially challenging as Roger and I were trying to keep as much of the turn/straightaway proportions the same as a 400m track while staying on the slab of asphalt. It was actually lot of fun, and instead of being bummed out about our unique situation, the kids were psyched to have fresh distances measured out for them (turns out our 100m dash from the beginning of the week was only 90). Also, this also may have been the first time in my life that I have actually needed to use Pi in a real world situation, thank you high school geometry class.

We have our first meet this Thursday about an hour south of Hardwick. If anyone has some helpful tips for the team let me know!

A Tradition Unlike Any Other

I really like watching the Masters. Every March during the men’s NCAA basketball tournament, Jim Nantz’s low, quite voice comes on during a commercial break to remind me that the Masters is only a few weeks away. I consider it a quasi-holiday, knowing that on a Sunday in early April I will be devoting more than a couple of hours to watching golf.

I’m not quite sure why this is so relaxing but it is. Maybe it’s because around this time of year I am (supposed to be) surrounded by the last snowfields on the planet trying to get in the last ski race of the year. So to see the absurd amount of green grass and bushes of Augusta National that dominate the television lets me know that summer activities are coming quickly, and that for other people it started a while ago. This year the amount of coverage that Tiger received leading up to the event made the Masters a different spectacle, but in the end sitting on the couch and watching the Masters was just as relaxing as I hoped it would be. By the end of the weekend I even stopped noticing the ridiculous requirements imposed by Augusta National on CBS and ESPN in order to broadcast the event: the fans are referred to not as a crowd but as “patrons”, commercials basically don’t exist (4 minutes every hour, no one is complaining about that), and announcers never utter a bad word about the place for fear of losing their job (Gary McCord was banned by Augusta from covering the event after using some colorful imagery to explain how closely groomed the greens were). It’s a tradition unlike any other, and one that for some reason I really enjoy watching.

On the work side of things I am excited to announce that beginning this week I will start working with schools from the surrounding area of Wolcott, VT where I am currently living. I don’t have all of the details ironed out as of yet but plan to be up and running shortly, working as an instructor both on the field and in the classroom with local grade school kids. After a week of meeting with school principles and volunteer coordinators it is clear that my help is appreciated, and I am fired up to start working. I’ll let you know how things shake out. Until next time, go Mariners!

A Fitting End to a Fitful Season

This season has been riddled with injuries, and apparently March was no different. Last week at North American Cup Finals in Waterville Valley, NH, I fractured my clavicle in the second run of the slalom. About 8 gates from the bottom of the run I got a little behind and hammered on my downhill ski, causing the left tip to catch in soft snow and catapult me forward. I landed on my stomach, not really a normal ski fall, and rolled to a stop. Initially I didn’t think anything was wrong, and even joked with the coaches on the side of the hill that at my age I needed to make sure to do a full systems check after each crash to confirm that my body is still in tact. But when I pulled off my bib I heard a crunch in my chest and felt things shift around just below my neck on the left side; immediately my chest began to tighten. X-rays showed that it was a double break of the left clavicle.

To say that I am bummed out about this is an understatement. This season began with a lot of promise and an outside chance to qualify for the Olympics. Unfortunately, injuries have played a major role in what I have been able to do on the race course (when I am healthy enough to be in one) and I was not able to come close to reaching my potential this season. In the weeks leading up to my latest injury I had a great training session at Burke and was ready to capitalize my recent improvement and a hungry mental attitude. March is a time when some people are mentally checked out after such a long season, whereas I was chomping at the bit after so much time off throughout the season. Things were going to plan, my best races of the season in GS and SG took place during the three days prior to this event. It’s an unfortunate part of the sport that injuries occur so frequently, but not something that I can change if I intend to keep pushing the line and trying to land on the podium.

I spent the last week relaxing in Boston with my girlfriend while I healed up and figured out what to do with a cleared schedule for the next month. I was able to have a very productive meeting with Amory, the Director of ITA, and am currently working on expanding my role with ITA throughout the summer. Not exactly sure where I will be living/working, but if anyone has an opportunity that I need to hear about feel free to let me know!

Powder Day at the Ski and Ride Program!

  

Wintery Mix

New England weather at its finest. I am currently living in the Northeast Kingdom, making my way through a training block that has gotten off to a bit of a slow start due in part to the snowy and rainy weather, or as they say around here "wintery mix". This descriptive phrase was unknown to me before my voyage out East, but after 5 years or so of dealing with this slush from the sky I have learned to factor it in a couple of times every winter. The good news is that the temperatures are slowly dropping back below freezing and snow fall is beginning to dissipate. Pretty soon the race track up at Burke Mountain, my training site and home of some important upcoming races in the next couple of weeks (NorAm Finals, Eastern Cup Finals), should turn rock hard as it gets colder, making for some great racing conditions.

Tomorrow the Vermont schools return from vacation meaning I will be back at work with the Ski and Ride program after training or during some off days. My ankle is not yet fully healed so some relaxing skiing should be just what the doctor ordered, allowing me to excercise the ankle in a compressed atmosphere and activate the muscle (good) without jamming it from a rut on a course (bad).

Finally, nice job USA! I can't decide if I am more impressed by the medal haul of the US alpine or nordic teams. My only experience watching nordic races is from rooting on my teammates at various NCAA Championships, so to watch so many races over the last couple of weeks has been pretty cool. I'm not sure how nordic skiers feel about the coverage from NBC, but it seemed pretty good. I can't say the same  for the coverage of alpine skiing, which was never aired live and canned into spotty 15 minute segments. Hopefully by the time Sochi rolls around whoever is covering the Games will have figured out how to get good ratings and allow viewers to see more than the top 3 and a token American racer. Of course, if I am a competitor I won't have to worry about it!