SNOW on Tuesday, so practice moved to Monday

Check the forecast: 18-24 inches on Tuesday!!! See below.

Because Freeport will cancel everything on Tuesday, we will not have practice Tuesday and it will be our rest day for the week.

Instead, we will try to practice tomorrow (Monday). I understand that some of you will not be able to make it due to other commitments, but if you can make it, great.

Monday practice will be at Pineland, SKATE. It turns out there will be a bus, so leave from High School at normal time.

Please let me know if you will not be able to make it.

-Dan

P.S. Here is the latest National Weather Service warning as of 4pm Sunday:

...BLIZZARD WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 10 PM MONDAY TO 4 AM EST
WEDNESDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GRAY HAS ISSUED A BLIZZARD
WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 10 PM MONDAY TO 4 AM EST
WEDNESDAY. THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

* HAZARD TYPES...HEAVY SNOW.

* ACCUMULATIONS...SNOW ACCUMULATION OF 18 TO 24 INCHES.

* TIMING...SNOW WILL BEGIN LATE MONDAY IN SOUTHERN NEW
  HAMPSHIRE...AND BY EARLY TUESDAY FOR THE MOUNTAINS INTO
  CENTRAL MAINE. SNOW MAY BE HEAVY AT TIMES DURING THE DAY
  TUESDAY. SNOW WILL WIND DOWN LATE TUESDAY...BUT LINGER INTO
  WEDNESDAY.

* IMPACTS...SNOW COVERED ROADS AND LOW VISIBILITIES WILL LEAD TO
  DANGEROUS TRAVEL CONDITIONS.

* WINDS...NORTH 15 TO 25 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 45 MPH.

* VISIBILITIES...ONE QUARTER MILE OR LESS AT TIMES.

* TEMPERATURES...8 TO 21 ABOVE.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A BLIZZARD WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE
EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. FALLING AND BLOWING SNOW WITH STRONG WINDS
AND POOR VISIBILITIES ARE LIKELY. THIS WILL LEAD TO WHITEOUT
CONDITIONS...MAKING TRAVEL EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. DO NOT TRAVEL. IF
YOU MUST TRAVEL...HAVE A WINTER SURVIVAL KIT WITH YOU. IF YOU GET
STRANDED...STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE.

Saturday Trip to Rumford is ON

Craig confirmed that we will be able to go to Rumford tomorrow. We will have to be back by 4pm.

See everyone at 7:35am!

-Dan

Friday and Saturday

To confirm plans for today and tomorrow:

Today's practice (1/23) is at the Pineland Visitor's Center. No bus, meet there ready to go at 2:45. We'll be doing Classic on the Access Loop.

Tomorrow (1/24) we will be going to Rumford to preview the Sassi course (also Classic). They updated conditions today and are claiming to have 25k tracked with frozen granular conditions. Be ready to go for the bus at the high school at 7:35 Saturday morning.

Sunday it is very important that you get out and ski on your own. Skate or classic (whichever you prefer, possibly based on snow conditions) 15k with 4x2min intervals.

-Dan

No Buses This Week, Practice Thursday at High School

A couple things to be aware of this week.

First, because of the midterms there were only 5 people were on the bus today, and there was a strong push to skip the bus and have skiers drive and carpool. That means for Wednesday and Friday you'll need to find your own ride, or let Dan know that you do not have one. We will meet at Oak Hill at 2:45pm.

Second, on Thursday we will stay at the high school and do a strength and core workout in the weight room. Bring running shoes in case we want to go outside, but there will be no long runs.

If you do not have access to the Google calendar, send me your Gmail address or an address you want to be associated with the calendar (you'll need to create an account and log in). All practice and race schedules are in the calendar, and it will be updated regularly with changes!

Tomorrow is skate and Friday will hopefully be classic, though if conditions do not improve at Pineland we may change that.

-Dan

Results from Wednesday's Race

Congratulations to everyone for a great race yesterday! Here are the results:

Boys' Individual Results
Boys' Team Results

Girls' Individual Results
Girls' Team Results

Special congratulations to Elizabeth Martin (1st) and Lily Johnston (2nd), and the girls' team overall (2nd).

1/15 Practice: Skate, after school
1/16 Practice: Skate, 9am-Noon
1/17 Practice: Classic, 9am-12:30pm
1/18 Individual Skate Ski 20k w/ 5x4min intervals
1/19 Stark's Hill WMC Skate Relays

-Dan

Monday WMC Race at Stark's

Here is the info for the skate relay race Monday at Stark's Hill from John Weston. Be ready to go for the bus at 7:20am (Doug, that means you!).

The format will be the same as past years, which has worked very well!

Each school will be limited to 2 boys teams and 2 girls teams (4 on a team).  The rest will go into an individual race.  Everyone will get a split on the same course for comparison.

Loop = 3.93k Skate per leg. View the Course Map.

4 person teams – same gender.  Each school limited to 2 boys teams and 2 girls teams.

All others will be in a mass start race on same course.

Boys Relay at 10:30

Girls Relay at 11:35

Boys Individual - Mass start at 12:45

Girls Individual - Mass start at 12:50

BOYS' RELAY TEAM
Kyle
Jacob
Nate
Bennett

GIRLS' RELAY TEAM
Lily J
Jasmine
Virginia
Liz M

The remaining team members will participate in the Mass Start races.

A reminder that we are hosting and will need adult volunteers to hand out bibs, etc. Contact Doug Martin if you can do this!

-Dan

Freeport Winning Streak Continues, Schedule This Week

Congratulations for an outstanding performance in Saturday's Hornet Classic at Stark's Hill. Each and every team member gave all they had and Joel and I are very pleased.

The top highlights include a 1-2 finish for Lily Johnston and Elizabeth Martin leading to a 2nd-place overall finish for the girls' team, and a 4th-place finish overall for the boys.

See all results on MaineHighSchoolSkiing.com.

The Week's Schedule
Here is the schedule for the rest of the week:

Tuesday, Jan. 13: Classic practice at Pineland after school.

Wednesday, Jan. 14: Scheduled classic race at Pineland. This snow may ensure that this can be classic. Pineland will decide tomorrow about the course, and if there is enough snow to do classic (if not, the race will be skate). Boys start at 3:30; Girls will follow immediately after last boy.

Thursday, Jan. 15: Skate practice at Pineland after school.

Friday, Jan. 16: NO SCHOOL. Skate practice at Pineland 9:00am-12:30pm.

Saturday, Jan. 17: Classic practice at Pineland 9:00am-12:30pm.

Sunday, Jan. 18: Individual Ski 20k w/5 x 4 minute intervals to get heart rate up day before race.

Monday, Jan. 19: NO SCHOOL. Skate relay race at Stark's Hill. We are race hosts and will need parents to volunteer -- contact Doug Martin! Bus at 7:20am, race at 10:30am. Details to follow.

Practice/Race Calendar
I will be sharing a Google Calendar of all practices with all the athletes. If parents want to have access, send me a Gmail address if you have one, or I can give access to another e-mail address if you prefer.

-Dan

WMC Results from Wed., Jan. 7: Freeport Rocks!

The results from yesterday's 5.4km race at Pineland are in.

Girls' Results
Boys' Results


GIRLS

• Elizabeth Martin wins! Extremely strong performance -- great job!
• Lily Johnston (3rd), Jasmine Olins (6th) and Virginia Fullager (7th) mean Freeport took 4 out of the top 7 spots.
• Freshman Maya Egan put in an extremely respectable 15th-place finish out of 39 skiers (2nd among freshman).
• Taylor Schenker looked solid on her way to 22nd place.
• Abby Smith was impressive in her first skate race ever, and Elizabeth Kolle finished strong in her second skate race ever!

BOYS

• Sophomore Bennett Hight wins! Very impressive victory over lots of older skiers -- great job!
• Sophomores Kyle Dorsey (5th) and Yacob Olins (7th) round out the top ten.
• First-year skier Nathan Smail is continuing to amaze, with a 14th-place finish.
• Brother John Smail was close behind in 16th.
• Josef Biberstein showed his excellent technique on the way to 22nd place.
• Perrin Davidson rounds out the team in 27th out of 43 skiers.

While the scorers did not assign points based on finish position, it's clear by looking at both the boys' and girls' results that Freeport won both sides of the meet.

Congratulations everyone! Your hard work is clearly paying off, but we still have a lot more hard work ahead of us. Be sure you're doing your own core workouts every night before bed!

-Dan

Wednesday (Jan. 7) Race at PINELAND

Tomorrow's race has been moved to the Pineland Campus Loop. It will be a skate race with Greely, Cape, Gray/New Gloucester, Waynflete, and Portland.

Forecast for tomorrow's race is 16 degrees at 3:30pm, so we will wax with blue.

The race will be wave start by grade. The original plan was for a 5k but this may no longer be correct. These are the original start times provided for the Twin Brook race, so this may change:

3:30 Senior Boys
3:33 Junior Boys
3:36 Sophomore Boys
3:39: Freshman Boys

3:45 Senior Girls
3:48 Junior Girls
3:51 Sophomore Girls
3:54 Freshman Girls

Today we will practice on the Pineland River Loop because they have asked us to stay off Campus and Oak Hill to conserve snow for tomorrow's races.

-Dan

Results from Telstar & Updates for this Week

If you get only one thing out of this post, it should be: Plan to skate-ski for practice on Tuesday.

Congratulations on an excellent performance at Telstar yesterday, including a third-place finish for Bennett, Liz, Yacob, and Lily! And thanks very much to the folks at Telstar and Gould who worked very hard to make it happen with very good fun and fast conditions.

Here is the writeup for Telstar, with results, on MaineHighSchoolSkiing.com: http://mainehighschoolskiing.com/index.php/8-cancellations/218-merriconeag-wins-telstar-relays

Some notables for the team:

WAVE A:

• Liz Martin's 7:29 was second only to Lily Koffman's (Orono) 7:27 in the second leg. She passed a lot of girls out there.
• No other team had all 4 times under 7:34. The closest two were Merriconeag, whose slowest time was 7:49 (Olivia Skillings); and Yarmouth, whose slowest was 7:50 (Emma Torres).
• Bennett Hight's 6:33 was good enough for 7th in the first leg and 8th overall.
• Lily Johnston's 7:34 placed her 4th in the fourth leg and 6th overall for girls.
• Kyle Dorsey posted a very respectable 7:06, placing him 13th in a very competitive first leg.
• Jasmine Olins's 8:31 was good enough for 8th in the third leg.
• Yacob Olins's 7:10 placed him 10th in the third leg.

WAVE B:

•  Nate Smail's 7:48 is very impressive for only his second ski race.
• Virginia Fullager came through with an 8:40, only 9 seconds behind Jasmine.

SNOW/RACE UPDATES
In case you haven't looked outside today, we got 4-5 inches of snow overnight. The best part is that it never warmed up during the day like they had forecast, so most additional precipitation fell as sleet and freezing rain and there was little to no loss of snow.

Freezing temps will come in overnight and the snow will stay for the foreseeable future.

Pineland has rolled most of their trails and is reporting decent conditions at Oak Hill. Plan to skate-ski for practice on Tuesday.

Jackson reported 8-9" overnight and never got above freezing today.

While we have no definite word yet on Wednesday's race, we are almost sure to have it (though perhaps not at Twin Brook). I think Stark's Hill and Pineland are the prime candidates. I will keep you posted as I learn more. Remember that this will be a skate race.

This Saturday's race is the Hornet Classic at Leavitt H.S. (in Turner). This will be a 5K classic race. Full race info: http://mainehighschoolskiing.com/index.php/20-latest-post/198-leavitt-hornet-classic-info


PLANKS AND CORE
Be sure you folks are doing your planks and other core exercises in the evening. You should at least be comfortable doing 2.5- to 3-minute planks. We won't be able to reach our goals if we don't keep working hard. Congrats to Perrin for his 9-minute plank during ski camp!

-Dan

Jan 2 Practice & Telstar

Thanks for a great Holiday Camp!

As we mentioned on the last day of camp, there will be no practice today, Jan 1.

On Jan 2 we will hold practice at the High School at 2:30pm. If you have not waxed your skate skis for Telstar, bring them with you so we can wax.

On Saturday we will meet ready to go at 7:45am for Telstar Relays. Expect to return by 6pm. This is a skate race.

Dan