Eastern Cup At Rikert

This past weekend Coach Jay and I headed to the Eastern Cup Opener at the Rikert Nordic Center in Ripton, Vermont.  We left Williamstown fairly early Saturday morning - at 5am.  A quick pitstop at Dunkin Donuts for breakfast proved to be a big mistake, as whatever mystery "breakfast sandwich" I ate didn't quite sit that well, and the coffee (as per usual) was scalding hot for the entire two and a half hour drive...Nonetheless! We made it to Rikert right on time to obtain the final parking spot to plug the wax truck into the grid.  Apparently, the current trend is to get a trailer and park it at the race venue overnight so as to take up several parking spots and allow no other team to park near the trail for grid access.

Saturday morning sunrise - view from the wax truck across Rikert stadium.

Coach Jay getting ready to test some kick wax!

Pretty legit wax truck set up!

Saturday seemed like a complete blur.  After testing several different kick and binder combinations, the team arrived ready to kick some butt!  The women did a 5k classic, and the men a 10k.  The tracks were solid, and the downhills were fast.  In the women's race, we had Hannah Benson and Olivia Meyerson skiing to impressive 10th and 11th place finishes.  Sarah Becker skied to a solid 54th place, with Rebecca Smith in 71st, and Jenna Maddock in 96th.  For the men, Jordan Fields finished 25th, Eli Hoenig 33rd, Luke Costley 57th, and Josh Harrington 74th.  Before I knew it, we were packing up the wax truck after a solid showing from the Eph's, and preparing for Sunday's mass start skate races.

Jason and I didn't really get a chance to watch any of the races on saturday, so after making everyone's skis faster than rocket ships, we headed out on course to cheer on our athletes!  I must say, I don't think I've ever seen a pile-up quite like the one's that occurred in both the women and men's races.  Two hundred meters into the race, on a short decent out of the stadium, it seemed like the front ten racers decided to just lay down across the trail in front of the other 150 racers as they all skied into each other.  Add on some of the iciest downhill s-turns I've ever skied, and I think it's safe to say that most of the racers spent more time rag-dolling and wrapping themselves around trees, than actually skiing.  Ok, I'm exaggerating...a little...Anyways, the Eph's had another great day of racing!  Benson skied to her second top-fifteen race of the weekend, finishing in 14th.  Olivia made a huge comeback after crashing pretty hard early in the race to earn 27th.  Becker wasn't far behind Olivia, skiing to 33rd.  Rebecca and Jenna finished strong to earn 72nd and 75th respectively.

Start of the Women's race

Becker - Cruisin'!

Olivia - Charging!

The men also turned in some impressive results!  Jordan skied to an impressive 10th place.  Eli finished the day in 19th, Luke skied a great race to finish 38th, and Josh skied to 67th.

Start of the men's race

Jordan getting tall!

Luke and Josh skiing out of the start!

I'm am SO impressed with everyone's racing this past weekend!  I can tell that there's good things to come this year from the Eph's!  Huge thanks to all the parent's that helped out and provided some delicious food.  I wish everyone the happiest of holidays, and I'm looking forward to regrouping in Quebec this weekend!

Perry