Technique Videos

Here are three short technique videos that Ezra and I put together:



Dryland Drills



Classic Drills


Skate Drills

All-Sports Banquet

Last weekend's All-Sports Banquet was a chance for all Bowdoin teams to get together to celebrate a successful year and honor our athletic award recipients. The big highlight for the ski team was John B. Hall's Academic Achievement Award - John has the highest GPA of all senior male athletes. This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows John and the way he balances athletics and academics with seemingly effortless grace. It's an honor to have a skier win this award among a group of such outstanding student-athletes - I hope we'll see many more in the future.

It's been a great year for Bowdoin teams - one of the best ever. We had 11 teams qualify for NCAA competition, highlighted by the field hockey team's national championship. A quick glance down the evening's program shows winning records for all but one or two of the teams that keep track of won-loss records, as well as a number of All-Americans. As I've said before, this is an exciting time to be part of Bowdoin Athletics - our athletes and coaches have the resources they need, and we're getting results. With a new fitness center on the way, things will only get better.

Incoming

After months of uncertainty, we finally know what our incoming first-year class looks like. We did well - this group includes eleven of the top high school skiers from Utah, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts, and of course Maine (no Vermonters, sadly - this has to change). With so many talented skiers joining the program, the competition for the carnival team will be fierce - everyone should benefit from this. I'm hearing good things about everyone's spring training - can't wait to get everyone together in the fall...

Season Wrap Up

It's spring for real now in Brunswick. Campus is entering its glory phase, with rapidly greening grass and leaves on the verge. We've had lots of sun and warm temps, and my team is spending half its time playing wiffleball on the quad and the other half hosting recruits. We had our break-up dinner a couple weeks ago - a classy Bowdoin Dining Service affair (here's some well-deserved good press for BDS). Now we're looking ahead to the future - we've elected next year's captains (Elissa and Nick), we're designing new uniforms, and we're putting together training plans for the summer and beyond.

So - a few thoughts about this past season as we leave it behind. It's been a good one. The men had their best season ever as an EISA team by any measure: we had our best ever team finishes (4th - Bates skate; 5th - Midd skate; 6th - Williams skate) and individual finishes (Walt - 5th twice; Forrest - 8th; 5 skiers posting regular finishes in the 30s or better), and our percent back figures show all of our skiers closing the gap on the race winners. The women's team showed steady improvement throughout the season and individual flashes of brilliance from everyone. We have 4 of our 5 women coming back next year, so there's good reason to be excited about the future of our team.

Some other highlights, in no particular order:

- Snow: Stellar conditions at Pineland from the beginning of December through the end of March and groomed trails on campus as well.
- Maine: fall camp in the western mountains; island time trial on North Haven; pre-season camp in Fort Kent; beach run at Morse Mountain - in short, we experienced some of the best training that the state has to offer.
- Fall semester grades: 7 skiers at 3.5 or above, and only 3 Cs from the entire team combined.
- Persistence: Only 1 DNF (and with good reason - trailside vomiting).
- ECT: This group did a nice job of pulling together the details of race trips outside the carnival circuit. I'm glad that we were able to provide some resources to get them started, and even more glad that the older skiers showed great leadership to make things come together.
- Race season health: Only 4 carnival races total missed due to illness or injury (3 of those were from the residual effects of the January camp plague).
- Judgment: Good decision-making by our skiers all season long.
- Parents: Cheering, photos, and great food at every carnival, not to mention some housing support for the ECT.

As I compile this list, I'm finding plenty of reasons to feel good about what we accomplished this year. But this wasn't a perfect season, and there are some areas where we need to improve. Here are a few:

- Consistency/peaking: The plan wasn't perfect - some skiers made gains throughout the season, while others were up and down. Our February taper took a long time to have its effect, and some of our skiers weren't "on" for the races in the middle part of the month. We saw a nice bounce at Middlebury, but some of our best results didn't come until March (Rangeley, Sugarloaf, & biathlon races). That's great if we're sending skiers to NCAAs and JNs, but we need results in January and February to get there.
- Fall health: Our health in the fall wasn't terrible, but it needs to be better. We had a few skiers who were just snakebit - constantly in and out of training with nagging colds, etc. For some, this was a season-killer.
- Split practices: We held a lot of split practices, where skiers would choose between a morning or afternoon session. This was a good thing, because it minimized missed training time due to class conflicts. However, this also meant that we rarely had the whole team together at once, which is too bad. We'll have to think creatively to get around this one.

None of these challenges are insurmountable. We're learning from the good and the bad of last season - we'll put some thought into our planning this spring and come up with ways to address them. I'm super fired up about the future of this team, and I feel lucky to be here during a time when the program has momentum and is moving up. I can't wait to see the team next fall - I know we'll see some big gains over the summer. For now, we'll relax and enjoy spring at Bowdoin - a beautiful thing.

Biathlon Photos

Some photos from Walt's trip to Canadian Nationals:

Representing Bowdoin at the Olympic venue - nice.
Walt had the highest shooting percentage of any athlete at the Championships - 38 for 40 in three races.
It's not every day that you see a man with an axe presiding over the flower ceremony.

Canadian Nationals Relay

Today's race was a 3x6k mixed relay - Walt was teamed up with two other US biathletes, Sara Studebaker and Jesse Downs. Walt scrambled and tagged off in third, just behind Tim Burke and the top Canadian team, which is where the team ended up. He shot clean again with no extra bullets and had one of the fastest range times of the day. Today was a better skiing day - he was a bit tired but put up a solid ski time - a great way to end the season. These last couple weeks have really motivated Walt, and he's fired up for the future - just the way you want to feel going into a long off-season.

And with that, the season is officially over (unless Nat has another 75k race planned that I haven't heard about). It's been a good one - we made a lot of progress, but there's more to be done, as always. I'll post a some thoughts about the season in the next few days - in the meantime, I'll be busy enjoying the great spring skiing at Pineland!

Canadian Nationals Sprint

Walt was 10th in today's 10k sprint race at Canadian Nationals. He was the only skier in the field to shoot clean - 10 for 10. He was feeling good today, but unfortunately he picked the wrong grind for the conditions, and the slow skis held him back. Even so, he was just 30 seconds out of 4th in a field with several World Cup guys. One more race tomorrow - a mixed relay. Hopefully everything will come together.

Results here.