Rabbit, Rabbit...

It is hard to believe that we are finishing up February and entering the final full month of the season.  With March comes "March Madness."  Not just the NCAA Basketball Championships, but the madness that is ski racing in March.  Athletes will be traveling all over New England with hopes of finishing the season with some solid results.  Over the course of the last week and a half, we have been continuing with a couple of different progressions.  In SL, we pushed the girls hard in short section training courses.  Each course was unique in vertical distance, rhythm  length, and terrain.  In most of the sections, the girls were to go as hard as they could to continue getting comfortable going fast and many of them made great changes in their skiing over the 4 day block.  In GS, we have continued to push the technical free skiing with drills and training on moderate terrain.  We were also able to get in two very productive days of SG training before the snow came in mid-day Wednesday.

The girls headed to Proctor Academy to race two FIS Open SL's on February 21st (night race) and 22nd.  Many of the girls had some of their fastest FIS moments, posting great individual runs!  Some saw success over the 4 individual runs and the overall.  The coaching staff was very pleased with the way the girls performed in a high level racing environment.

FIS Open Night SL at Proctor, February 21st

Kelsey Chenoweth - 1st

Alita Rogers - 3rd, 2nd for U18's

Elly Bengtsson - 21st

Emma Sahn - 25th

Denali Balser - 28th

Linley Shaw - 29th

Sophie Leiter - 45th

Sarah Rowse - 54th

Overall Podium - Kelsey 1st, Alita 2nd

FIS Open SL at Proctor, February 22nd

Alita Rogers - 1st

Emma Sahn - 14th

Linley Shaw - 17th (5th second run!)

Elly Bengtsson - 30th

Sophie Leiter - 32nd

Caroline Armbruster - 41st

Molly Danzig - 43rd

Denali Balser - 46th

Sarah Rowse - 47th

Overall Podium - Alita 1st

Sandra Schoepke traveled to Killington for the first weekend of U16 State Championships, competing in 2SL's.  They raced the girls on the challenging trail, Highline.  With soft conditions, it made for two difficult days of racing.  Sandra skied well on day 1 but had some issues and had to hike.  On the 2nd day, she executed her plan well and finished 2nd overall.  She races this weekend at Sugarbush in the final weekend of U16 State Championships with 2GS's.

For dryland Thursday, we were invited to go sledding on Inspiration and off the side of it.  There is quite the natural jump and we all got in a nice core workout from all of the laughing!  We finished off the night with two races down Inspiration.  In race one, it was a "sled"away victory for Kelsey, followed by Denali and Lucy in 2nd, and Sarah rounding out the podium in 3rd.  In race two, Sarah teamed up with Neza for the victory, and we had a tie for 2nd between Kelsey and the team of Harrison, Katharine, and Topher (YES!)  The prize giving ceremony has not yet taken place so photos are not available.

This weekend, majority of the girls will be headed to Bromley for a VARA Open SL to see if they can be crowned the 2013 "World's Best Skier."

Kelsey and Alita will be headed to Mammoth on Sunday for the 2013 U18 National Championships where they will compete in DH, SG, GS, SL, and Parallel SL from March 4th through the 12th.  GOOD LUCK GIRLS!

Below are some pictures from free skiing this week...

Court deep in thought...contemplating her next run.

Cruising through February

February 19th...just about 6 weeks remaining for the season.  We are entering the final push and craziness that is ski racing in March!  We finished up the last of the qualifiers for U18 Nationals and Eastern Junior FIS Finals this past week at Sunapee.  As our loyal bloggers know, the girls have been putting quite a bit of time into free skiing and training GS, trying to be productive with the difficult weather we have faced.  The girls all had moments during the two day GS series that they can take away as positive moments.  They all received a great compliment from one of the other coaches on the hill.  As the first run went on, this coach told me, "As girls would come down and I would think, 'yes, this girl is getting it, that is good skiing!' and I would look down at my start list and nearly every time I would see MMSC next to her name.  Your girls are doing great things!"  What a fantastic compliment for all of our girls to receive, especially at an event we have been working hard to change.  While it is still a work in progress...progress is certainly being made, way to go!

FIS Devo GS at Sunapee, February 14th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 7th

Courtney Hayden - 20th (won the 2nd run!)

Emma Sahn - 38th

Sophie Leiter 46th

Elly Bengtsson - 54th

Linley Shaw - 60th

Neza Stefanic - 72nd

Caroline Armbruster - 75th

Molly Danzig - 80th

Sarah Rowse - 88th

Denali Balser - 90th

FIS Devo GS at Sunapee, February 15th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 9th

Alita Rogers - 27th

Emma Sahn - 33rd

Sophie Leiter - 39th

Elly Bengtsson - 41st

Linley Shaw - 49th

Caroline Armbruster - 68th

Neza Stefanic - 75th

Molly Danzig - 77th

Sarah Rowse - 78th

After completion of the second GS, USSA East announced the Women's U18 Regional Team for U18 National's, naming the top 15 girls in the rankings to the team.  Kelsey ended up the 2nd ranked U18 in the Eastern Region and Alita was named as the first alternate for her ranking of 16th.  Qualifying from MMSC on the boys side are Griffin Brown and Ryan Collopy.  They will all represent the Eastern Region and MMSC/MMWA at Mammoth Mountain, CA next month.

U18 Eastern Regional Team

We have had an entertaining last few days of training SL on Main Street.  The snow has been absolutely perfect and we have been training a variety of shorter courses with different distances, different terrain, and different lengths.  The girls have done a fantastic job getting comfortable stepping on the gas in SL and going fast whilebeing very productive in some brutally cold temps and high winds!  They will be racing two FIS Open SL's this coming Thursday and Friday with a night SL followed by a day SL.  Sandra will be heading to Killington this weekend to race in the first of two weekends of U16 State Championships.  Good luck to all!

Lucy trying to stay warm...

I will end this blog with something for your viewing pleasure.  A few of the girls took sometime on one of our free skiing days to be a bit creative with their skiing and I must say I am quite impressed with the outcome!  I was going to embed the video but I think they would appreciate the increased views if I just post the link...enjoy!  Just a heads up, there is some VERY mild bad language in the song.

MMWA Ladies Music Video

More powder - less training!

Well, the weather has certainly been causing some training issues but it has been creating ample opportunities to free ski on some great snow!  This past week we were able to get in 3 days of GS progression starting with free skiing/drills on Tuesday, training on Exhibition Hill on Wednesday, training on SL Hill Thursday, followed by some great powder skiing Friday/Saturday, and finished the week with a full day of GS training on Main Street.  The girls are heading to Sunapee for two FIS Devo GS on February 14th and 15th...yes, a Valentine's Day race!  That means two things, 1) They will have to be each others Valentine's and 2) Some seriously discounted candy at stores on the way home!

While we were skiing powder, Kelsey and Elly were up at Sugarloaf for Speed Week.  The girls raced in 2SG's and 2DH's and both had some great results.  Kelsey dropped the hammer on the women's field winning both DH's by nearly 1 second each and Elly got her feet wet racing in her first ever DH's!  One of Kelsey's DH wins was in the long time running Rand Stowell DH.  She joined many big names on the trophy, one of those big names being Lucy's mom Eva!

FIS Eastern Cup SG at Sugarloaf, February 4th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 11th

Elly Bengtsson - 18th

FIS Eastern Cup SG at Sugarloaf, February 5th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 9th

Elly Bengtsson - 21st

FIS Eastern Cup DH at Sugarloaf, February 7th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 1st

Elly Bengtsson - 15th

FIS Eastern Cup DH at Sugarloaf, February 7th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 1st

Elly Bengtsson - 9th

On Sunday, we sent a group of girls to race in an Eastern Cup SL at Middlebury with a stacked, collegiate field.  The penalty for the race was 13, that is a serious field!  They all had some great moments although we had a couple of DNF's for Lucy Merriam and Denali Balser.

FIS Eastern Cup SL at Middlebury, February 10th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 22nd, 1st for U18's

Alita Rogers - 26th, 3rd for U18's

Courtney Hayden - 42nd

Kelsey and Alita on the U18 Podium at Middlebury

Sandra Schoepke raced SL at Sugarbush on Sunday in her final NVC race of the season.  She had a solid performance with a 3rd place second run and finished 4th overall.  She also finished as the 4th ranked girl in the NVC this season!

Lastly, we had another exciting gym competition.  This week we set up a circuit which consisted of sit-ups, body weight squats, hurdles, jump rope, more hurdles, and push-ups.  The girls were split up into 4 teams of 3, and they treated the circuit as a relay and a two run race.  The combined time results are...

1st - C4's (Chubby Cheesy Chunky Chispa's) Molly, Lucy, Linley - 5 minutes 15.9 seconds

2nd - FAATT (Fun Activities All The Time) Neza, Denali, Sandra - 5 minutes 25.1 seconds

3rd - Ba Na Na Naa - Alita, Courtney, Sophie - 5 minutes 27 seconds

4th - Brunette Betches - Emma, Sarah, Caroline - 5 minutes 58.7 second

Circuit Podium...classic Denali.

Good luck to the girls at Sunapee this week and we will have a handful of girls heading to Waterville to race two USSA SL's on February 16th and 17th.  Til next time...

Training? No thanks, we're all set.

We had a bit of a tough week as far as training goes...we had temps in the 40's and 50's, rain, wind, pretty much everything that makes training not possible and not safe.  We managed to stay productive with some sessions in the gym, extra study time for midterms, as well as a chance to get some extra rest before heading into the final two months of the season.  We were able to get on snow Tuesday for a free skiing morning and then we were not on snow again until Friday for some SL training in preparation for two VT Cup SL's at Bromley and Pico.  We took a group of 12 girls down to battle it out with the Southern VT teams and we came away with some great results.  Overall, each girl had some positive moments to take away from the weekend...even if it was grabbing the bullet in a delay in SL!

USSA VT Cup SL at Bromley, February 2nd

Alita Rogers - 1st

Denali Balser - 2nd

Emma Sahn - 4th, 3rd for U18's

Linley Shaw - 7th

Lucy Merriam - 10th

Neza Stefanic - 12th

Molly Danzig - 18th

Sarah Reilly - 19th

Caroline Armbruster - 24th

Sarah Rowse - 28th

Courtney Hayden - 33rd, sweetest tuck in a SL

Alita and Emma on the U18 Podium

Alita and Denali on the Overall Podium

Bromley is a tiring hill...

USSA VT Cup SL at Pico, February 3rd

Alita Rogers - 1st

Lucy Merriam - 5th, 1st for U21's

Sophie Leiter - 12th

Sarah Reilly - 13th

Caroline Armbruster - 18th

Sarah Rowse - 19th

Denali Balser - 22nd, 3rd for U21's

Courtney Hayden - 27th

Molly Danzig - 37th

Alita on the U18 Podium

Lucy and Denali on the U21 Podium

Also on Sunday, Sandra and Katelyn had their 3rd NVC race of the season with a GS at Stowe.  Unfortunately, Katelyn took quite the digger in the first run and sustained a couple of different injuries but it has not yet been confirmed what they are, we are hoping for the best and a speedy recovery!  Sandra was a solid 4th on the first run and then was a DNF second run.

Kelsey and Elly made the trek up to Sugarloaf for FIS Eastern Cup Speed Week where they will be competing in two SG's and 2 DH's.  For the rest of the athletes we will be attempting to get in a solid block of GS over the next week in preparation for the FIS Devo GS series at Sunapee February 14th and 15th.  We will be heading in a few different directions this weekend however as some athletes will be headed to the VT State Championship SL at Pico on Saturday and an Eastern Cup SL at Middlebury on Sunday.

Beautiful day for free skiing and you can see Main Street lit up in the background!

One final note, congratulations to Lucy Merriam for earning the honor of Salutatorian at People Academy!  Way to go Lucy!

It's been a busy week...

At the end of my previous entry, the girls were headed to Okemo for 3 FIS Devo races - 1 GS and 2 SL's.  For some of the girls, it was their first chance to break into the higher level FIS races.  For the U18 athletes, it was their first set of qualifiers for U18 Nationals with the SL's counting as qualifiers.  The first race was the GS followed by the 2 SL's.

FIS Devo GS, January 16th

Courtney Hayden - 30th

Elly Bengtsson - 44th

Sophie Leiter - 46th

Alita Rogers - 52nd

Emma Sahn - 56th

Linley Shaw - 58th

Sarah Reilly - 78th

Caroline Armbruster - 80th

Neza Stefanic - 87th

Sarah Rowse - 90th

Molly Danzig - 97th

Lucy Merriam - 99th

FIS Devo U18 Nationals Qualifier SL, January 17th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 5th

Alita Rogers - 13th

Denali Balser - 34th

Courtney Hayden - 36th

Linley Shaw - 39th

Elly Bengtsson - 43rd

Sophie Leiter - 46th

Molly Danzig - 89th

Sarah Rowse - 90th

Caroline Armbruster - 95th

Sarah Reilly - 99th

FIS Devo U18 Nationals Qualifier SL, January 18th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 1st

Alita Rogers - 7th

Denali Balser - 21st

Emma Sahn - 26th

Lucy Merriam - 39th

Elly Bengtsson - 42nd

Caroline Armbruster - 54th

Sarah Reilly 56th

Sarah Rowse - 65th

Sophie Leiter - 72nd

Molly Danzig - 74th

Kelsey's FIS Devo Victory

Our U16 team members travels to Burke for a U16 GS on January 21st and a VARA Open GS on the 22nd.

NVC U16 GS at Burke, January 21st

Sandra Schoepke - 4th overall

Katelyn O'Toole - 18th 2nd run

VARA Open GS at Burke, January 22nd

Sandra Schoepke - 9th, 3rd for U16's

Katelyn O'Toole - 13th, 7th for U16's

Alita, Kelsey, and Elly competed at Okemo for 3 days of Eastern Cups with 1 GS and 2 SG's.

FIS Eastern Cup GS at Okemo, January 23rd

Kelsey Chenoweth - 19th, 3rd for U18's

Alita Rogers - 41st

Elly Bengtsson - 48th

FIS Eastern Cup SG at Okemo, January 24th

Elly Bengtsson - 33rd

Alita Rogers - 36th

FIS Eastern Cup SG at Okemo, January 25th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 11th
Elly Bengtsson - 25th
Alita Rogers - 45th

After the Eastern Cup's, we took a large group down to Killington for a VT Cup GS.  This may have been the longest race I have ever been to...we didn't load the van to drive home until 4:40pm!  They started late, had some timing issues, a power outage, and then took their time getting awards out.  The awards however, were sweet, literally.  They handed out Slopeside Syrup to the top 3 in each age group, sending up home with plenty of syrup...

USSA VT Cup GS at Killington, January 27th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 1st

Sandra Schoepke - 3rd, 2nd for U16's

Emma Sahn - 4th, 2nd for U18's

Sophie Leiter - 5th, 3rd for U18's

Katelyn O'Toole - 9th, 3rd for U16's

Linley Shaw - 10th

Sarah Reilly - 27th

Sarah Rowse - 41st

Molly Danzig - 50th

Caroline Armbruster - 52nd

Lucy Merriam - 59th

U18 Podium Sweep!  Kelsey 1st, Emma 2nd, Sophie 3rd

Sandra 2nd and Katelyn 3rd on the U16 Podium

This week we are continuing with a GS block until we jump back into SL before heading to Bromley and Pico for back-to-back VT Cup SL's over the weekend!  Sandra and Katelyn will be racing in the 3rd NVC race of the season on Sunday with a GS at Stowe.  Kelsey and Elly will be heading off to Sugarloaf for Speed Week with 2 SG's and 2 DH's scheduled over the week.  Until next time...

UVM Carnival and other happenings

It's always fun to watch the big dogs battle it out at the UVM Carnival every winter.  The athletes bring an incredible amount of intensity to their runs and show the joys of success as well as the agony of defeat.  The Eastern Intercollegiate Skiing Association (EISA) brings together the strongest college teams in the East to compete in a series of Carnival weekends as athletes try to qualify for the NCAA Championships.  They bring so much pace to the hill it is great for our young athletes to see such a high level of skiing as well as cheer for some former MMSC/MMWA athletes, not to mention two of our own, Kelsey and Alita mix it up with the best collegiate skiers in the East.

UVM Carnival GS, January 11th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 14th

Alita Rogers - 51st

UVM Carnival SL, January 12th

Alita Rogers - 20th

Kelsey Chenoweth - DNF1

Below are some shots from the early morning lift ride Friday for the UVM Carnival.

The rest of the girls spent the weekend prepping for the upcoming FIS Devo Series at Okemo.  They had a very productive block of SL training Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then a short tune up today.  Their races begin tomorrow with a GS followed by the 2 SL's which are U18 Nationals qualifiers.

Our two U16's who are skiing with us full-time, Sandra and Katelyn, had their first Northern Vermont Council (NVC) race of the season at Cochran's.  They both skied very well for all three runs, yes it is a three run race!  They did a great job focusing on their skiing, rather than the result.  However, at the end of the day they did give awards for the top 10 combined, below are the results for all 3 runs and the combined.

Cochran's NVC SL Run 1, 2, 3, and Combined, January 13th

Sandra Schoepke - 3rd, 4th, 6th - 2nd Combined

Katelyn O'Toole - 17th, 22nd, 20th - 15th Combined

Hopefully we are finished with the January thaw and we can proceed with Winter!  Til next time...

The season is in full swing...

We have been quite busy since the Cochran's night SL.  We were finally able to get some GS training on Main Street, although we battled some days with high winds and brutally cold temps which made things a bit challenging to say the least.  Second session at the academy started shortly after New Years and we have settled into our daily schedule.  The last two days have brought mild temps and sunshine which has been great for GS training.  It is amazing to see the girls rip down Main Street when we have quality light.  Today was a perfect example.  Our day started as a bluebird day with grippy snow, letting the girls feel comfortable and push their own limits on Main Street.  However, about halfway through our session the clouds rolled in, leaving us with very flat light and brought out some different tactics.  We are so lucky to have Main Street be our home because when you can still be productive even when the light is flat on such a challenging hill, we are certainly headed in the right direction.  We are moving back into a SL block as some of the girls prepare for the FIS Development Series at Okemo next week, while others are prepping for back to back Vermont Cups at Bromley and Stratton.

We sent three athletes to the Stratton Eastern Cups where they encountered extremely poor snow conditions.  We won't talk about the GS results...but we did have a couple of bright spots in the 2 SL's.  During that time, the rest of the girls were competing in VT Cup SL's at Smugglers Notch which included a podium sweep for U18's:

Stratton Eastern Cup SL, January 5th

Alita Rogers - 15th, 1st for U18's

Courtney Hayden - 40th

Denali Balser - DNF2

Smuggs Vermont Cup SL, January 5th

Kelsey Chenoweth - 3rd, 1st for U18's

Sophie Leiter - 6th, 2nd for U18's

Linley Shaw - 8th, 3rd for U18's

Sandra Schoepke - 10th, 1st for U16's

Molly Danzig - 15th

Caroline Armbruster - 16th

Katelyn O'Toole - 24th, 3rd for U16's

Sarah Rowse - 25th

Sophie, Kelsey, and Linley - U18 Podium Sweep!

Sandra and Katelyn on the U16 Podium

Stratton Eastern Cup SL, January 6th

Alita Rogers - 19th, 1st for U18's

Courtney Hayden - 30th

Denali Balser - 43rd

Smuggs VT Cup SL, January 6th

Kelsey Chenoweth, 1st, 1st for U18's

Sandra Schoepke - 3rd, 1st for U18's

Lucy Merriam - 6th, 3rd for U21/SR's

Elly Bengtsson - 7th, 2nd for U18's

Sarah Rowse - 29th

Elly and Kelsey on the U18 Podium

Sandra on the U16 Podium

Lucy on the U21/SR Podium

Wednesday night at dryland we had the second gym contest of the year with a jump rope contest.  We had one qualifying score where the athletes jumped rope for 1 minute.  The top three moved onto the finals:

Molly Danzig - 180

Courtney Hayden - 177

Kelsey Chenoweth - 164

Alita Rogers - 156

Denali Balser - 140

Caroline Armbruster - 137

Sandra Schoepke - 116

Neza Stefanic - 114

Linley Shaw - 107

Sophie Leiter - 100

Lucy Merriam - 95

Sarah Rowse - 93

Elly Bengtsson - 91

The Finals

Molly Danzig - 196, Champion

Courtney Hayden - 168, Runner-up

Kelsey Chenoweth - 160, 3rd Place

Jump Rope Podium - Molly 1st, Court 2nd, Kelsey 3rd

Next up for races: Alita and Kelsey qualified to compete in the UVM Carnival Jan 11/12, and then all U18 and U21 athletes will be headed to Okemo for a Development FIS Series at Okemo Jan 16/17/18.