UMD Alpine Ski Team Blog

Here we go again!

2007-10-09T14:42:00.001-05:00

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!!!

2007-02-22T09:07:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-25T11:04:00.000-06:00

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

2006-11-28T19:30:00.000-06:00

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

2006-10-25T11:47:00.000-05:00

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

2006-09-26T11:21:00.000-05:00

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

2006-09-19T12:04:00.000-05:00

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.

Finally some updates

2006-09-12T14:39:00.000-05:00

Well, I realize that it's been quite a while since my last post on here and that probably has something to do with the seasons. Once skiing is done, it seems that we spend the rest of the year trying to get caught up and then to get ready for the next season. If you wanted results from last year's Nationals, they can be found here: http://www.uscsa.com/nationals06.php. We didn't have the best of luck, but it was great to make it. We did have the most injuries, with Ranger and the Doo both going down, which was a real bummer.

ANYWAY. On to the new season. We are going to be having an informational meeting for all of those people that wish to be part of the team.

When: Thursday, September 21st at 7:00 PM
Where: Kirby 355-57

To inform others about our meeting we will have a table set up outside the
Bookstore on M, Tu, W, Th (Sept. 18,19,20,21). Feel free to stop by and say
hello!

If you are unable to make it to the meeting but would still like to
participate, please email info@umdskiteam.com so we know that you are still
interested.

You can also show up for our first dryland practice which is
scheduled for Tuesday, September 26th at 5:00 PM on the hill above Field 4 (Rugby Field).

Women's GS

2006-03-08T19:50:00.000-06:00

Well, it was beautiful weather today, for the Women's GS. There were some pretty great GS courses, on a very challenging hill. Ranger had a pretty big crash, where she spun around and caught her ski on the B-net and then crashed over a gate. It was a pretty hard impact and she had to get taken down the hill by "Rod" her newly met Ski Patrol friend. She has a pretty good chance of skiing slalom, mostly because she is a Ranger. Most mortals would be out for a long time.

Anyway, the other ladies did well and the Women's team finished 13th.
Meghann was 43rd, Kim 55th, Kelsey 67th, and Jenna 77th.

The St. Olaf ladies finished 9th and NMU was 14th.

Now the girls can focus on Slalom, while the guys ski GS tomorrow.

The weather is supposed to get "interesting" later in the week, as it is supposed to be as warm as 48, with winds gusting up to 50mph and rain and freezing rain.

Good luck to us!

Afton Pictures - Maine - Here we come!

2006-02-27T14:34:00.000-06:00

Well, we have all of the travel prep done for Maine and we'll be going out the 5th-12th of March. It's going to be a group of 17 of us, so not quite as many as last time, but that will be easier to manage, since we have 2 12 passenger vans to get us from Boston to Sugarloaf (all other options were VERY expensive).

James' mom was nice enough to take a TON of photos from the Afton race. You can view them at:

http://www.umdskiteam.com/photo.htm

Nationals --- Wahooo!

2006-02-20T08:52:00.000-06:00

Well, it happened again at Marquette this year... Our girls just rocked and had 2 very solid, very good days and finished 2nd in both Slalom and GS, to earn one of the top 3 spots to qualify for Nationals.

Our guys on the other hand, had to make it interesting, with a tie for 3rd overall, with the UofM and then eeked out, ahead in the tie breaker, with 2 less Place Points, than the U.

Great job, to everyone!!!

Now comes the fun part of trying to determine how to make this all work with schedules, finances and all of that fun sort of stuff.

AR

It's been a while

2006-02-17T14:42:00.000-06:00

Well, I know it's been a while since my last post, but it's been a busy season. We've had some great finishes and we are leading into our big event this weekend at Marquette, which is our Regional event.

This is where the top 3 teams from the Midwest will qualify for Nationals in early March. We are getting excited and hopefully our teams will be in those 3 that qualify.

Last weekend was Divisionals and our guys were 4th (right where we wanted to be at that race) and our Women took FIRST, after a crazy 4-way tie for first place for the overall weekend's results. We won the tiebreaker, but it just goes to show how tight this race will be at Marquette.

Hopefully we will survive the cold and wind at Marquette!!!

Wisconsin Cup Winners!

2006-01-25T12:38:00.000-06:00

Our Team won the Wisconsin Governor's cup last weekend (Jan 21-22nd) in La Crosse, WI.

The Women's team won overall and the Men's team took 2nd. Those finishes combined helped to seal our first Wisc Gov Cup in 3 years!

Great job everyone, it was a great effort by everyone, to brave some very "interesting" courses, especially GS.

AR

Finally, an update

2006-01-16T21:31:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks after Canada. We got back from Canadia and had our first race at Spirit. Things went well and the guys finished 2nd and the girls 3rd.

We had a couple of practices, with some hearty souls the week after and then went to the race up in Ripley. It's been tough, since it's been so warm, Ripley was even low on snow.

It was a fun race and a very nice venue. The girls finished 2nd and guys got 3rd overall.

We had our first big practice tonight, with school starting tomorrow and we had a great turnout and a nice long GS practice. The snow was a little soft, but that's ski racing.

Results can be found online at: http://results.skimcsa.com

-AR

Yay for Canadia

2006-01-02T20:16:00.000-06:00

Well, we made it to Canada and it was a MUCH easier drive than last year. We had a great first day of training. The snow is a little thin, but it's going well. The hill is challenging and has a lot of "interesting" terrain, so it's some good training.

Here are some pictures from the first day.

Canada is almost here!

2005-12-28T17:10:00.000-06:00

Canada time is almost here. We have been working like mad to get rides put together, to make sure that everyone makes it up there.

We're leaving on the 1st and it should be a grand time. I just got done fixing about 50 gates, so we have a very nice gate count going into the season. We also have some additional fencing and sinage, that we have not had in the past. Looks to be a great year!

Hopefully everyone had a great Christmas and will have a Happy New Year!

I will try to post some entries on the blog from Canada!

On-hill Practice

2005-12-19T20:40:00.000-06:00

We had our first on-hill practice today. It was great. We had over 20 people today and the weather wasn't too bad. It was nice to see how many people showed up, in-spite of the whole Finals thing.

Last "Dryland"

2005-12-15T20:09:00.000-06:00

Well, it was a great last Dryland practice. The foot of soft fluffy snow made it a good workout and a lot of fun. We had a good turnout and a great time.

Next week we start on-hill, so that will be very exciting!!!

Second to last Dryland

2005-12-13T23:48:00.000-06:00

Well, we had a pretty good turnout for the second to last Dryland practice today. It was a good warmup to the finals on Thursday.

Grimmas got beat up pretty good, but otherwise things went well.

Supposedly there is some snow coming our way over the next few days, but the temps are pretty warm and the weather man never seems to be able to get the snowfall predictions right. As of now, we have only had a total of about 2 inches of snow and most of that is gone or trampled away.

-AR

USSA Race

2005-12-13T13:37:00.000-06:00

Well, we had quite a good showing out at the USSA race this past weekend (if anyone has pictures, please send them my way and I will post them).

We got our new jackets, just in the nick of time and it was great to see so many of them on the hill.

I was out there on Saturday and my foot held up well enough. It's much better today, which is good news.

The results from that race are online at: http://www.skifast.com/results.html, all-in-all there were some pretty good results, especially considering that most people haven't even been on the snow yet.

Spirit opens full time as of the 16th, which will be nice. We will be practicing Mon-Wed of finals week.

T-minus 3 Drylands Left

2005-12-07T13:47:00.000-06:00

It's been a good season of Dryland Practices this year, but we only have 3 left, with the final one being Thursday December 15th. That will be DEATHBALL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS.

Hopefully we will have a good turnout for the last dryland of the year. After that, we will be on hill during finals week and then off until we head out to Canada.

Hopefully everyone has been getting some time on snow to get their legs back under them. There is a USSA race at Spirit this weekend to kick off the USSA season and we will have several folks from the team racing in that. It should be a blast!

-AR

Skiing Dec 3-4 At Spirit

2005-12-05T12:00:00.001-06:00

Well, I saw a few folks from the team out at Spirit this weekend, it was great snowmaking weather and Spirit has made a lot of snow. Not many rocks to speak of. It's been so cold though, that the snow hasn't really setup and it is pretty chunky in many places. Hopefully it will settle this week, for the USSA race out there this weekend. Should be a good time.

We are getting our team jackets on Friday, so we should have them for the race and that will be nice.

Only 11 more days until Spirit opens full time and we can get on the snow and start practicing!

Practice Thurs Dec 1st

2005-12-02T11:18:00.000-06:00

Well, I heard there was a pretty good group at practice on Thursday. Kyle said that he will for sure be sore, but probably nobody else.

I had to go to a meeting at Spirit regarding training for the season, with the other coaches from area teams. Looks like our training will pretty much be the same as other years. See the Calendar on our website for updates to training schedules.

I did bring up the lighting issues on 7, that we seem to face quite often. Hopefully that situation will be improved this year.

Post Turkey Day Practice 11/29

2005-11-29T20:14:00.000-06:00

Well it was nice to see a good turnout today at practice, even when it was 15 degrees and 20mph winds. We had good luck with starting at 4 and the light held out pretty well... Everyone is excited to get on snow. Hopefully the cold weather holds out and Spirit can make lots of snow.

Some people will be training with former teams up at the Ridge this weekend, so that will be good to get some folks in gates.

Pre-Turkey Day Practice

2005-11-22T20:27:00.000-06:00

Thanks to everyone that was still in town and came to practice today. It wasn't too cold out and we had a nice little game. It was only 8 of us to start out, but we ended up with 14, which isn't a bad turnout, considering most of the people out there went home.

Hopefully it cools off soon and Spirit can make enough snow to get a few runs open!

Thurs 11/17 Practice

2005-11-18T09:36:00.000-06:00

We had a great time at practice last night. It was a little colder than usual, but we still had a pretty good turnout. Not as good as Tuesday, but a lot of people emailed me with legitimate excuses.

Deathball was fun and we had the added element of danger, of the "Ice Section" where there was a mutual understanding that one did not go after anyone else, while in this zone. It worked out well and we did quite a lot of lunges, to make up for some of the other things that we cannot do, due to the unsure footing.

We also had our Canada meeting last night and we started getting things squared away. Hopefully we will have a good turnout this year again (last year we had about 28 people, even inspite of the fact that it was a 24 hour drive). This year it should only be about a 4-5 hour drive.

Snow!!!!

2005-11-16T11:31:00.000-06:00

Well, the weather reports were way off on how much snow we would get, but we did get our first snow of the year and the ground is mostly white. It did come with a stiff wind and was undoubtedly a nice "how you doin" to those people spending their first winter in Duluth.

Hopefully Spirit has been able to start the snowguns as the temperature is hovering around 20 degrees today. Most likely they will push to have at least 1 run open for Thanksgiving weekend, but they will be focused on the snowcross until after that is done...

Spirit Race

2005-11-15T18:42:00.000-06:00

Well, it is true, the Spirit race has been moved up this year and it will be the first race of the year for our Division. It will work out well for us though, as we will be getting back from Canada and won't have as far to travel that weekend.

It does put the Divisional race at Afton, which kind of sucks, because it's not as good of a hill, but what do you do.

The switch should be for this year only and we are already working on making sure that the schedule returns to normal for next year and future years to come.

Jan 7/8th @ Spirit Mt.

Yahoo for Rain!

2005-11-15T18:39:00.000-06:00

Well the weather man said it was going to be 6 inches of snow, but of course they were way off and we had some nice rain. In spite of that, we also had about 25+ people at practice today, so that rocked.

We had a great game of deathball and it was a little hard to tell who won, because of darkness and the ground being so slick, but it was a great time anyway.

We cut the extra stuff a little short, due to the unstable nature of the ground, but we pounded out quite a few lunges and whatnot, to make it all worth while.

Thanks to all those that made it to practice tonight, see you all again on Thursday.

Practice on Thurs Nov-10

2005-11-10T19:10:00.000-06:00

Had a little smaller turnout tonight than we usually have. We had a great game of deathball though and we finished off with some new fun and exciting ways to get some exercise. Kind of a modified version of the relay race that you used to do back in the 5th grade.

Anyway, hopefully we will have some more show up for practice next week. We are trying to get the registration stuff wrapped up and get clothing ordered, plus get our Canada trip figured out, so there is a lot going on!

Hopefully we can get some more pictures on this blog soon! Thanks to all that are reading this.

We also had a big buck contest going on with about 10 or so of the people on the team. No indication yet of who is winning, but I know that I will be out this weekend, trying to at least compete!

Practice on Tues Nov-8

2005-11-09T12:00:00.000-06:00

We had a good turnout for Tuesday's practice, even though the weather was a little cooler (still way above normal though) and it was a little rainy. I think we had almost as many from the Women's team (or more) than the Men's team. Good job ladies!

I heard that practice went well on Thursday when I was gone in Iowa hunting. We did 2 full base sets on Tues practice and did some good "special" pushups.

It was also neat that we had a couple guys from the Nordic team show up and we are going to work with them to help them build up their program as well. Hopefully one of these years, we will be able to compete as a 4-way out at Nationals!

Stupid Time Change

2005-11-01T18:36:00.000-06:00

Well, the time change has cut short our wonderful games of "deathball," so we have to focus on some more drills and things that can be done in lesser light.

We had an OK practice turn out tonight, at around 21, but there are a lot of faces that seem to be missing these days (and we KNOW you don't have class).

Anyway, thanks to all that made it. Jesse won the 4 corners drill today, just edging out the Doo, for top honors. We did about 105+ lunges and added some new drills as well.

We also got up to 4 pushups and did a lot of ab workout today.

I will be in IA hunting this weekend and will be gone for meetings on Thursday, so the next post will probably have to wait until next week, unless Big Bear gets me some pictures of our wonderful new Gate Box.

-AR

New Gate Box

2005-10-31T19:19:00.000-06:00

Well, I am hoping to add a picture to this site soon, from our adventures in building our new Gate box. We went out to Spirit to measure and clean out our old box and it was full of many living creatures and there was quite a nice home built into our old panels.

We chucked the panels and Big Bear and I held back the puking and got the gates all cleaned out of the box.

We spent the next 2 days building what will turn out to be the biggest gate box ever created. We are working out an idea for building steps and a ladder to get the gates out.

It is quite the deal though... You will all be amazed.

-AR

Great Practice 10/27

2005-10-27T20:21:00.000-05:00

We had a great practice, with amazing weather today. I took a couple pictures and thought I'd share them with everyone.

We had about 26 people there today and did quite a few lunges and had a great game of Deathball. The 1's pulled it off at the end, but there were a lot of good efforts. A few new nicknames were coined and a good time was had by all.

10/25 Practice

2005-10-25T22:20:00.000-05:00

Well, we had a great practice tonight, we got our lunges up to 90 total and we even did a few extra "pushups" tonight.

The highlight of the practice was indeed when Ranger, Donna, Ashley, and Jenna burned Big Bear to score a goal (even the game winning goal)... Good job folks.

Thanks to everyone that came. We had about 21 people there. Hopefully more people start showing up in the next few weeks! I'll try to bring a camera to practice on Thursday, so we can get some photos on here.

-AR

Practice on Thursday 10/20

2005-10-23T23:30:00.000-05:00

We had a good practice on Thursday 10/20. We had about 22 people, but a lot of people came to turn in their forms, that we hadn't seen before (due to class or whatever).

If you haven't turned in your forms to Jenna (there are 3-4 of you), do that NOW!

UMD Skiteam Blog

2005-10-23T23:14:00.000-05:00

I am starting this Blog to keep people informed and give folks some insight into the workings of the UMD Skiteam. Hopefully I will be with it enough to post after practices, races, and at other random times. Please let me know if you have any feedback.

-AR