Giant Squid

The first ever video of a giant squid has been caputured by Japanese scientists. Truly a great day for us squid chasers everywhere.

See video here

Running on the Solstice

Crosby and I celebrated the shortest day of the year today by...(drum roll)... running on 1/2 inch of snow! Yes, he in his t-shirt and I in my shorts headed into the woods for a dark winter jaunt, when what to our wondering eyes did appear, but a barren mud puddle insulting us skiers. Where is the snow? Can you all please take your snow tires off your cars? Can you bring out your golf clubs and pack shorts for our (ski?) camp in Canada?

Nelsons rip up Great Glen Sprints (well, Alice did at least)

The Nelson siblings had so much laundry in their car coming home from exams that they didn't have room for their skis. Imagine their surprise when they heard that Great Glen would be holding their sprint race on Sunday! Calls were made to fellow Ford Sayre club skiers Lizzie Torkelson (Middlebury '07) and Will Anderson, and they managed to find a ride and one pair of skis for the both of them (those of Will's older brother, Tyler, significantly shorter than both Alice and Jack).

Great Glen had a .5k loop (barely) covered in slushy man-made snow but it was skiing! There were a bunch of skiers from UNH, one from Colby and some from area clubs and high schools like Gunstock and Kennett. Future Eph Keith Kantack was there as well. The sprint was run in heats, with everyone guaranteed 2 heats. Each heat was 2 laps of the tiny course, and while it got kind of old after a few hours, it was great training and some good speed work. Alice advanced all the way, winning all her heats and taking the victory (and a pair of Atomic skis!). Jack was knocked out in round 3 by UNH's Jeffrey Beal, who ended up taking 4th.

All in all, the long drive was worth it. A new pair of skis, experience sprinting in heats, and a little skiing too:-)

photos: Alice Nelson '10 in cow suit, Jack Nelson '07 in Ford Sayre suit.

Ski Camp

For those of you who haven't been to Quebec and want to see what its like, or for those of you who have and want to remember what snow looks like, here's the movie from last year. Can you believe its been viewed 450 times already? Enjoy

Purple Valley by Night

After finishing exams last night, Ben and I needed to get outside. We left greylock at around 4:00 (I wanted to go a little earlier, but he is slow to get going) and ran up through hopkins forest to the taconic crest. we reached the top just after sunset, with the SE sky lit up in a low wall of red. The best view was down the Shepards well trail a ways where it opens up to look out on Petersburg, Berlin and Greylock. The sun was barely lighting up the sky and the hills were a deep purple. We got back to campus in the pitch dark after taking the road down the second half. Great run though in the warm weather.

On a totally different note: Vegetarians are smarter than meat eaters. Hah!

Dec 13th: 4x4s on Bulkley St. aka How to Not Study for Exams

Emily and I decided to take advangtage of the beautiful December weather (44 degrees and raining) and the fact that we would rather be doing anything but studying for exams, to do some 4x4 skate intervals on Bulkley St. We left Greylock at 9 this morning and received some interesting looks from the brain-fried Williams students who were leaving breakfast. What are you doing? What are you wearing? And why aren't you studying? The downpoor began just as we left but that only made us feel really hard core, and we got some bonus points when Bud drove by us. With the power of positive thinking, the raindrops turned into fat white snowflakes, Bulkley St. turned into a massively hilly ski trail in Europe, the intervals became just another day on the World Cup, and Bud was transformed into a crazed Norwegian ski coach yelling "faster, faster, faster." (The last one didn't take too much imagination). I would say all in all it was an A+ effort and a great workout. Emily overcame being attacked by a very large crazed dog and the stealing of her water bottle holder by the crazed mailwoman to finish the workout. After the last interval was finished we were exhausted, but Emily managed to find the strength to chase down the mailwoman so that she could hydrate and be reunited with her cell phone and ID card. The End. -Alice

Sunday Ski at Prospect

More pictures! The skiing was great! Early season conditions for sure, but it was wonderful to get back on snow again. Sunday was warm and sunny and the tracks had been skied in from all the traffic, creating a little less slipping around and more of a workout than Saturday's ski. Our team was out there along with the Greylock high school team, geo profs David Dethier and Paul Karabinos, and, as Jack mentioned, US Ski Team sprinter Andy Newell. Sadly, judging from the extended forecast, it might be some time before we get back for a ski like that.

The annual yankee swap party was on Saturday at Bud, Barb and Andrea's house with lots of yummy lasagna, a super salad by the guys team and make your own sundaes. Hot gifts of the year included the second coming of the tucker tucker tucker present, an imitation bota bota bota package, two Victoria's Secret bags and multiple other pink gifts which exchanged hands at least a dozen times.

Photos: [top left] Mark Johnson '10, Emily Olsen '09 and Coach Aubrey out near Four Corners.

[middle left] Tucker Sawin '07, Melissa Bota '07 and Greg Rahmlow '07 at the Yankee Swap party.

[bottom left] Lots of snow on the Troll Road Trail.

Middlebury's Comparative Advantage

Elissa Rehm points out that Middlebury might be involved in actions intended to create an advantage over other teams. She thinks its a matter of honor for all members of the Williams ski team, past and present:

"I'm thrilled about our decision to do this[go carbon neutral]," explained Middlebury College Nordic Ski Coach Andrew Gardner. "I also believe there is a competitive advantage to knowing we aren't causing any further global warming as a team." link

Now whatever that competitive advantage is, I think we need to look into it. After all, we are planning on beating them this year and we need all the help we can get!

Skiing at Prospect

Prospect Mountain, our home ski course, has some snow and we finally got in some eastern skiing Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was an easy 1.5hr classic ski and conditions were suprisingly good (although

definitely rock skis). The new skiers explored the trails and learned the names and the lucky few who have paid for their new jackets were looking pretty snazzy.

Favorite moment of the ski: Sam Sterling '09 and Jack Nelson '07 were returning to the lodge after an awesome ski, with Jack trying to convince Sam to study abroad in Norway, as opposed to Siberia (Jack's unfortunate choice for Junior Fall). As they were double poling along, a skier appears on the crest of a hill coming towards them. "Oooh, someone's got a spiffy US Ski Team suit," Jack says, mockingly, thinking that the skier is a poser. Said skier passes them very fast. Jack and Sam realize that it is Andy Newell. Jack is ashamed.

Sunday's ski was reportedly even better than Saturday's according to Ben Byrne '08, now that he can find his way to and from the lollipop tree. Other skiers chose to be gluttens for punishment and did threshold skate rollerski intervals up Petersburg Pass. Tucker Sawin '07 reported that he could taste the salt when trucks went by.

Others of us were cooped up all day working on last minute papers and procrastinating studying for looming exams....
looking forward to the Nensa season opener races...if we have snow anywhere . . .
Pictures from top to bottom: Liz Kantack in stride; Sam S and Mark J throwing snowballs; Sam S, Emily, and Jack at the trailhead

Pete Leonard '04 and Middlebury blog

Hey, so while perusing around the online nordic world, I came across the middlebury nordic team's blog (a bit more sophisticated than ours, but give us time...) and I saw a great picture of alum Peter Leonard '04 leading the charge (as per usual) out of a double pole mass start. Its at the top of the page http://www.middleburyskiing.org

Why I love the team

I love the ski team because tonight, after returning home, the 9 emails I received were all from the ski team for some function or another. The first few dealt with team business and a whimsical Gentleman's Team reading club selection, which for the purposes of this blog will remain unnamed. The literary dialogue was interrupted by an invitation to an art show (spencer art studio, monday, 7pm) before it was resumed as a cross over Gentleman's Team and ladies ambassador, as she wanted to contribute a few tasty tidbits of her own. This inspired more sharing of literary greats by other members of the team before the stream of email trickled off as they all made their way to bed before 11:30.
Aahhh, the life of Williams Nordic

Yellowstone Recap & Looking Forward

We're still waiting for more snow here in Williamstown! The last few days here have been wonderfully cold, but with only enough snow to tease us and keep us all dreaming of the extra blue days we had in West Yellowstone. Twenty three of us spent Thanksgiving break in Montana where we were able to get eight sessions on snow, including the NCAA-mandated participation in the opening Nor-Am sprint. The Yellowstone Ski Festival is a great way to start your ski season; everyone there is just bursting with energy and excitement to get on snow, most for the first time of the year. It became difficult to ski for more than ten minutes and not run into someone we knew. We had a fabulous time getting in some long, easy distance on the Rendezvous ski trails, checking out the competition in the sprint, bonding with our teammates and cheering former purple cows (Anders Haugen, Mel Scheefer) and friends in the classic races on our last day. What a way to celebrate Thanksgiving and (though he never wanted to acknowledge it) Sam Kapala's 20th birthday! Up next: classes end tomorrow, the yankee swap at Bud's on Saturday, finals all next week, break with our dearly missed families and then we're off to Quebec on the 27th for our Christmas camp!

--Liz

Photo: Ali Demarchis '10 leaping for joy because she's ready to dominate the SuperTour sprints with her teammates in West Yellowstone. Click HERE for more photos from our trip from Coach Aubrey.

Starting off with a bang!

Jack, great idea of starting this. Now people like Tucker all over the world can follow our exploits and see how awesome we are. There should absolutely be a section of this devoted to giant squid and other gentlemenly icons.

Added some fun stuff like a picture and some links, but this looks good so far. Now we just need some snow to take better pictures of skiing.

SNOW!

It's official. Winter has begun in the purple valley. We woke up this morning to several inches (?) of white stuff and nice, cold temperatures. Mont Sainte-Anne has opened nordic trails and hopefully we'll be skiing soon. Somewhat ironically, the nordic team was rollerskiing today, despite the snow, putting in some suffering on Bulkley St. with 4x4 minutes level 4 skating intervals.

Purple Cows DO Wear Spandex

Welcome to the Williams Nordic Ski Team's official blog!
This will be a team page where members can post pictures, musings, questions, ideas for pump-up mixes, and recipes for aubrey smith's famous cakes from scratch...among other things. This is a place to let family, friends, alums and any folks interested in Williams skiing know just what's going on here in the purple valley and just how much we're rocking the cow on the trails.

Most of us have never blogged before, so this will be somewhat trial and error. Let any and all fans of Williams nordic know about this site, and bear with us as we get it off the ground and running.

-Jack Nelson '07