Tad Elliott (CXC TEAM), Men's 15K Skate Champion!

Today the CXC Team had their first win of the season with Tad Elliott dominating the men’s race by 14 seconds!  Bryan finished 14th place in a tight group with less than 30 seconds out of the money (which is top 6).  A good start to the season.  Garrott Kuzzy took 6th on his birthday.  Brian Gregg also squeaked out a top ten for the men’s team, finishing 9th.

Bryan Cook, 15K Skate

Check out the full results HERE (both men and women).

HERE is an awesome photo set courtesy of Ian Harvey at TokoUS.com.

Brook Gosling had a great race, leading the CXC women’s squad with a 7th place finish.  I was next in 11th and Jennie Bender was close behind in 13th.  I felt great today and had my best Yellowstone Ski Festival finish ever.  I just got pushed out of the top 10 by my former NMU teammate Morgan Smyth who is on track to have an awesome year.  Welcome back from illness and injury Morgan!

Maria Stuber, 10K Skate

Maria (CXC Team) followed by 8th place Joanne Reid (#40, University of Colorado)

Ian Harvey’s photo set from the women’s race can be found HERE.  Thank you Ian!

The West Yellowstone sprint races happened today and it was COLD.  I don’t think my feet have ever been so cold for so long.  I’m really looking forward to it warming up a little bit for tomorrow’s race.  Unfortunately, I don’t have much to report.  I can tell you that I went hard, and I still have some work to do.  I felt a little rusty, but nothing some more time on snow and some more racing under my belt won’t fix.

The results are not up yet.  Rumor has it that the back up timing will need to be used and it could take some time.

Here are some awesome photos taken by Toko’s Ian Harvey.  You can see more photos of the CXC Team at tokous.com.  Thank you Ian!

Maria in the Classic Race (Ian Harvey Photo, TokoUS.com)

Bryan in the Classic Race (Ian Harvey Photo, TokoUS.com)

Bryan in the Skate Race (Ian Harvey Photo, TokoUS.com)

It’s that time of year again.  I am out in West Yellowstone, MT getting ready for the first races of the year.  We were supposed to start racing today, but it has been snowing so much that lots of people had trouble getting into town…including the timing company.  I have never seen so much snow in November.  It’s been dumping snow for the past 4 days.  Tomorrow there will be two sprint races, one classic and one skate.  They will be run back to back, and very challenging.  Friday will be a 10/15K Skate and Saturday will be a 5/10K Classic.

Results should be posted at www.summittiming.com

For several cross-country ski racers, Spring Break 2010 (SB10) started with an outdoor, double elimination, 2 vs. 2, basketball tournament held at the Kaeding residence in Worcester, VT—also known as The North Central Vermont Basketball Championships.  As one might expect, an organized outdoor basketball tournament in March is risky, especially in Vermont.  Leading into the tournament, the forecast was an unwavering 100% chance of rain.  Instead of canceling the tournament, we spent two days building a tarp canopy over the hoop and sweeping water off the court.

The tournament was awesome.  We had seven teams of two.  You can try to follow the bracket below.

The Bracket

Sunny Skiing at Bolton Valley, VT before our trip to Maine

The 2009/2010 SuperTour ended last week with a grueling pursuit racing format.  There were three races in a row: a 7/10K mass start classic, a classic sprint, and a 5/6K hill climb.  Each of the first two races had time bonuses at various places.  Then, start positions for the last day were based off of your times from the previous two races so that the winner of the the whole series crossed the finish line first at the top of the final hill climb.  Money was awarded to the top six racers overall, making things pretty exciting.

I thought the series was a lot of fun, but slightly favored sprint racers.  A longer, interval start, race would have evened out the playing field significantly.

Unfortunately, I had two major crashes in the initial mass start classic race and was never really in the overall contention.  My best race was the hill climb where I finished 9th place overall.  I even think I could have done a little bit better in this race if I did not have so many people to pass (from the pursuit format) on such a narrow trail.

The CXC Team Vertical Limit’s best finishes were Bryan Cook in 7th place and Rebecca Dussault in 2nd place overall.  Rebecca was also the Hill Climb Grand Champion!  Full results can be found HERE.

Women's SuperTour Final Overall Champions

The racing season is officially over and we are looking forward  to a restful spring back in Marquette.  Before flying home, we spent a few days on vacation in Worchester, VT at the Kaeding residence.