Holiday Camp Agenda

WARNING - the weather in Fort Kent will be a lot colder than anything we have had yet this winter.
PLEASE make sure you have extra warm clothing for the Nordic camp, extra gloves, hat, heavy coat, warm socks, and bring a buff or neck warmer to protect your face and ears.


Fort Kent agenda.
The agenda may change as the week progresses.

Wednesday Dec 27

7:30 meet at the High School

8:00 Leave Freeport - I would like to leave right at 8:00am so we have time to ski

2:00 Arrive at the Outdoor center

2:00 – 4:00 Skate ski

4-4:30 Check in at Northern Door

5:30 Dinner at UMFK

10:00 lights out

Thursday Dec 28

7:15 wake up

7:45 breakfast

8:30 wax classic

9:00 put skate skis and bags in vans to be driven up to Outdoor center

9:00 - 11:30  classic ski at the Outdoor center

11:30 Lunch

1:00 skate skis

2:00 - 3;00 Biathlon clinic - or skate skiing for anyone not dong biathlon

5:30 dinner UMFK

7:30 wax skis for Friday races

Friday Dec 29

7:00 wake up

7:30 breakfast

10:00 Classic race

11:30 lunch

1:00 skate race

7:00 night ski

 

Saturday Dec 30

7:15 Wake up

7:45 breakfast and load vans 

9:30 - 11:30 skate skiing at the Outdoor center

11:30 lunch

12:00 leave Fort Kent
7:00  arrive Freeport

SATURDAY DEC 23

All School activities are canceled for today, per Craig Sickles email yesterday.


With that said I will be at Pineland at 10 am to ski if anyone wants to join me.
BUT make sure your parents are comfortable driving in these conditions.
You can also just stay home and go for a ski or snowshoe from your back yard.
Please get out and do something for an hour, even if it is jst a walk with your poles.


Happy Holidays and I will see most of you early Wednesday morning
I will post the entire Holiday Camp agenda here later today.

Week of Dec 18 and more

We will be heading to Pineland and we will be skating all week, unless we get snow and Pineland can set tracks.




Some of you may be traveling for the weekend, but I will still have practice Saturday for anyone who can make it.
My Christmas present to you is Saturday's practice will be at 10:00am :)




It is a good habit to stay after practice for 10 minutes and wax your skis. The more you wax your skis the faster they get. I'll let you know what wax to wax with each day.




Also, I would take advantage of the LL Bean free hot box, just make sure you have the discount card with you to prove you are on the ski team. I have more if you did not get one.
Make sure they are clean before you drop them off. If you are dropping off classics skis for a hot box then make sure to clean the base and the sides of the skis, NO kick wax can be anywhere on the skis.


Sundays are a very important day to get out and ski on your own. Skiing should be low level/easy, but longer duration, 90 minutes. Keep the intensity low so you can focus on working on technique.
Think of what we tell you to work on during the week.


Elysha and I really appreciate the hard work you have been putting in at practice. Let's keep the energy going and get ready for our first race Jan 3.

2017/2018 ski season

Welcome to the 2017/2018 ski season. It was great to see everyone today.
I posted the ski season calendars so check them out for practice and race schedules.


Remember we will have practice at 2:30 Tuesday through Friday at the high school and 9:00am Saturday at Pineland
Sunday will be on your own.
More posts will be coming.

How to make your skis fast

If you start now you can make your skis faster and faster over the next few weeks. It will be important to go into States with the fastest skis as possible.


This is from Roger Knight at BNS...

How to ensure fast skis the rest of the season:

People overlook that fast skis are made not on race day, but during every other single day during the season. If you don’t take care of your skis on the average day you ski on them they will gradually slow down through the year. Here are some tips we have found to increase ski speed on a day to day basis.

1. Always CFC Glide clean your skis at least once a week. Snow is inevitably dirty and has contaminants in it. These substances get on your base and eventually will get ironed into the base. This does NOT help ski speed on the snow. Our recommendation is to clean your skis using Holmenkol Nano CFC glide cleaner https://www.bouldernordicsport.com/shop/p-1456-holmenkol-nano-cfc-cleaner.aspx at least once a week. Proper procedure to glide clean skis is simple: Wet a piece of Fiberlene  https://www.bouldernordicsport.com/shop/p-1518-skigo-fiberlene-40m.aspx with Nano CFC cleaner and rub it up and down the ski to get the ski covered. It does NOT take much cleaner to get the entire ski. Let this dry completely (2-3 minutes)and then brush out with a firm bronze or steel cleaning brush. This cleans the skis glide areas but does not remove the base wax leaving the skis overly dry.

2. Skis have a percentage of graphite in them and we have found that using graphite as a base layer for race waxing or just to put in the skis once a week helps keep the skis in top shape by replenishing this and acting as an anti-static and hardening agent. I personally cannot stress this enough, if you are not using a hard graphite in your skis at least once a week you are giving up easy ski speed. We like the SkiGo XC or LF Graphite https://www.bouldernordicsport.com/shop/p-724-skigo-lf-low-fluor-glider-200g.aspx due to it’s ability to harden the base. This wax is truly phenomenal and we start every race wax job with this as a first layer. Rex and Start also make very good hard graphite waxes.

3. Wax your skis after every time you ski on them. This one seems obvious, but it doesn’t happen as we all know. The way skis get faster is skiing and then waxing immediately after skiing. The smart coaches build in a bit of time at the end of practice to have athletes quickly wax their skis before putting them away. It can be hard, but the return on investment by doing this is quite remarkable.

4. Use good brushes for race day. It is important to have good brushes for race day no matter what your team brushing protocol is. We highly recommend using a fine steel or bronze brush as a first brush after waxing. Two favorites are the Holmenkol Micro Finish Steel Brush https://www.bouldernordicsport.com/shop/p-644-holmenkol-steel-microfinish-brush.aspx and the Ski*Go Fine Long Steel Brush https://www.bouldernordicsport.com/shop/p-568-skigo-steel-brush-longfine.aspx  These brushes have laser cut steel bristles that are very fine and penetrate the structure well to remove excess wax in a hurry. The next brush we use is my favorite brush in the entire world, the Holmenkol Horsehair Brush https://www.bouldernordicsport.com/shop/p-643-holmenkol-base-brush-horsehair.aspx If you haven’t tried this brush yet you are doing a disservice to yourself as a ski technician! It is an amazing brush that thoroughly cleans the skis and does it in a hurry. It is also the best brush for those hard waxes that are tough to get out of the ski, it makes quick work of the brushing process. We always recommend finishing with a stiff nylon brush in a polishing fashion.

Thank you and let us know if we can be of any assistance or help to your teams in any way. 

Roger Knight
BNS East
Team and Wax Sales

Ski Room Doors Left Opened

The outside doors to the ski room have been left propped open when no one is there.
Please do not leave the doors propped open as this is a safety and security issue.


If the doors are found open again without anyone there we have to change the way we use the ski room.
Please check the door if you are the last one at the ski room.


We know the room is not the best situation but it is working pretty well so far.
Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

Telstar

Great job to everyone yesterday! You guys skied well and hopefully had a fun time. Thanks to everyone for the teamwork especially around the start area - grabbing coats, watching for teammates , cheering etc.  Special thanks  to Yacob for helping some of the underclassmen warm up - great leadership!

Of course, the most important, tights! John won some super cool peppered tights:



Get some rest, see you Tuesday!