Here we go again!

It's that time of year again..... Time to bust out the deathball, Box Jump, Hex, lunges, crazy jumping drills and all that fun stuff.. We had our info meeting last week and had a pretty good turn out. We need to recruit some more folks and if you are interested in joining, please email info@umdskiteam.com, or just show up to one of our dryland practices!

Winter Park, Here We Come!!!

Well, I am very happy to announce that for the 4th year in a row, BOTH of our Men's and Women's teams have Qualified for the National Championships for Collegiate Ski Racing.

The men finished 2nd both days (.09 out of first for the top 3 combined times in GS), just getting beat out by St. Olaf both days. This was the best result they've had in quite some time, and also the first year in many that they were not on the edges of their seats to find out if they qualified or not.

The women's team kept it a bit more interesting, but came out with a 3rd place finish in Slalom (they were in 4th after the first run, but did a nice job to step it up on run #2) and then made no doubt about their spot, by taking 2nd in GS on Sunday.

It was a great weekend and a great way to go out for some of our Seniors. Jesse won the GS event, after pulling bullet for his 3rd time in 4 years (strangely enough, he also won each year he pulled bullet) and Sherpa found himself at the bottom of a monkey pile on his final collegiate race.

Now we are planning our trip to Winter Park and shooting to improve on our best Nationals finish that we had a couple years ago in Idaho.

Great job everyone!

General Update

Well, it's been a while since my last update. This winter has been challenging with a lack of snow, but the resorts have been amazing with their snowmaking and both Ripley and La Crosse pulled it off for us. If we'd had our events at each of those venues a week earlier, we would have been hosed.

Both Men's and Women's teams finished 2nd at Afton and at Ripley. The girls won at La Crosse and the guys came in 3rd. We also had some great individual performances and have had individual wins by 3 of our racers.

We feel like we are on the cusp of some great things and we are starting to focus ourselves on getting ready for Regionals at Marquette. We need to finish in the top 3 teams for both Men and Women to earn a spot at Nationals again this year. Only time will tell and Ski Racing can be a rewarding, but also unforgiving sport. Stay tuned to future updates. Hopefully they will come more frequently.

AR

Rain + Warm = No Snow

Well, it's been a pretty bleak fall here. Warm and rainy. We still haven't seen any real snow and it's too warm to make any at most of the hills. Some folks were lucky enough to get out on the snow in Colorado over Turkey break, but most of us are stuck wishing for at least some cold weather. Supposedly it's going to get cooler at the end of this week, but the longer range forecast is for more warm weather next week.

Darn that El Nino. Meanwhile, we are working hard at getting in shape and having some great dryland practices. We've gotten pretty good at the wall-sits and it's been nice to have our own field to practice on this year.

AR

Dryland Update

Well, we have had some great dryland practices so far this year. We've had anywhere from 20-35 people at practice each time and it's great to see so many new faces.

We've had fun playing our variation on soccer and also doing a lot of skiing specific things as well. I think everyone really enjoys the pushups the most =)

We will be moving dryland to 430 next week on 10/31, so that we can accomidate for the time change, which happens on Saturday.

I'm going to try and get some pictures of dryland practice online soon!

Andy

Practice Starts Today

Well, practice officially starts today. See the previous post as to where the field is that we will practice on.

Tues & Thurs @ 5pm on the CHESTER PARK FIELD.

I will be wearing a bright orange cap, to make it easier for people to spot us.

Email info@umdskiteam.com with any questions. Also, if you plan to be on the team and have class during this time, please drop me an email as well.

Thanks,
Andy

NEW OFFICIAL PRACTICE FIELD

All,
Well, it's finally happened, we have been granted our very own dedicated field that we will have for the entire season. No more getting bumped around to other fields wherever someone else is not.

We will be practicing on the Chest Park Elementary school field, which we often would use in past years as well. The good news is that we can park there now as well and that hopefully means that we don't have to hop the fence all the time.

THIS MAP shows with an ugly GREEN X where the field is in relation to campus.

Keep in mind that I will likely be breaking out my bright orange cap again this year, so that we are easy to spot. We'll be playing a game that is a variation on Soccer, using a soccer ball.