The Great Glensby

The first real race of the year is always an interesting experience. Even though the Great Glen Sprint is less formal than most of the races we will be competing in this season, there is a certain feeling that comes with putting on a bib- for some its manifests itself in subtle anxiety, for others its increased concentration and focus, for others still its increased bowel movements...
No matter the race or the athlete, everyone feels the excitement that comes with stepping up to the start line (made of blue powerade?) for the first time in the season. Pete and I have been talking to the athletes about pre-race warm up routines recently and their physical and mental importance. We arrived at the course with plenty of time to get bibs and socialize with friends we haven't seen since last season before getting out on course. There were definitely possible distractions (OMG Sylvan!!) but everyone was super focused and made sure they got out for solid sprint warm ups. Maybe some were even a little too eager and if anything started the warm up before they really needed to! By the 12:00 start time everyone was warm and feeling pumped up to sprint, so at 12:10 when the prelim heats were posted, and most of the kids weren't scheduled to race for another 45 minutes, we all got that friendly beginning of the season reminder that flexibility is another important aspect of nordic ski racing! Mitch was looking good in the pink suit today, but after getting a little excited in his first start and forgetting to use the beautiful technique he's been developing all year, Pete decided this might have to be the last showing of the pink suit tradition, as seen in the picture above (behind Mitch in the black coat).
The level of the races was actually pretty high- the whole UNH and Bates teams came out to play, along with some other good high school teams, so the Burkies certainly had some competition. Today's sprint was formatted to give everyone their moneys worth of race... There was first a round of randomly seeded heats of 5, from there the winner advanced to round three, while the other 4 advanced to the second round. The winner of round two advanced to round four, while the 2nd and 3rd placed finishers in round two advanced to round three. The top 2 from round four went on to the semifinals, and the top 2 from each semifinal went on to the final. Whew! did you get all that? All the Burkies were racing really well, Lucas usually had pretty tough heats full of UNH guys to contend with, but skied like he was the real Wildcat, advancing to the Semi-finals where he met up with Sam to race still more of the UNH guys (see top picture). Mitch won his second round heat, advancing him to the fourth round, and Corinne won her first round, advancing her to the third. Now the race format is admittingly a little tough to follow, and if you look at it carefully, its actually somewhat flawed. For example: if you win your first round, you automatically advance to the third round, but if you lose the first round and win your second round, you advance to the fourth round ahead of the people you lost to in the first round. Corinne found herself up against some stiff competition in her third round heat, specifically the eventual race winner, Marlijne Cook. She still skied well and came in right on her tail, which should have qualified her for the fourth round. However, when she looked at the board to see her next position, she wasn't on it because some girls she beat in the first round had advanced ahead of her in their second round to the fourth round, displacing her from the race. As we were looking skeptically at the board figuring out that she was being cheated out of advancing, one of the officials standing next to Corinne patted her on the shoulder and said "Just don't think about it too hard, life isn't always fair." Bad move. Anyone who knows the competitive spirit (to put it lightly) of nordic ski racers knows to never tell them to lighten up about not being able to ski in a race they want to win.
As long as that tirade might have been, its still a bit of a sensitive subject, so I thought I would explain it on Corinne's behalf so you know how we feel about the results sheet.
I think it goes with out saying that the small quirks of the day in no way put a cloud over what turned out to be an excellent day of racing and much better than expected snow conditions! Congrats to Sam for his 3rd place finish overall!!!

Sam with Mt. Washington in the background

heats in the late afternoon sun

Lucas lines up