Big league racing in Quebec

Last weekend was supposed to be my 3rd crack at the Lake Placid Loppet. Due to snow conditions, that 50km race was cancelled. Given that almost every race we were planning on has been cancelled to date, Jason, Chad and I scrambled to find somewhere within driving distance to salvage something out of what's been a brutal winter for snow. Anyways, we were delighted to find that Eastern Canadian Championships were being held last weekend in Gatineau, QC, which is about the same drive time as Lake Placid. The events would be a 15km individual start skate race Saturday and a 30km mass start on Sunday. Due to work travel and the abysmal weather, this would be my first time on snow in two weeks. Not exactly the preparation that you'd like to see going into a race with some guys that were racing on the World Cup in Europe a month ago. But, if there's one thing I learned in my years playing baseball in the Northeast (and it took me almost all of my 21 years of competitive baseball to figure this out) is that you can't control mother nature and the sooner you deal with that, the better. We were the only Americans that ventured north of the border for the races and the organizers and volunteers definitely went out of their way to make us feel welcome. When I lined up for the start in the 15km skate race, the annoucer introduced me as "Marty Maynard from Rochester Nordic Racing in the US, put your hands together for our first international competitor", then repeated the same in French. Or at least I assume he did, for all I know, he could have said "look at this idiot American, he's about to get destroyed by this course and our fast skiers!". I digress.

Chad and I after the 15km skate race.

The skate race went pretty well considering everything, I felt like I skied pretty solidly for the first two laps (we did 3 x 5km laps) and faded a little on the last lap, but overall, it was a pretty decent race on a legit certified world cup course. The course was hilly, there was one climb that was about a full km uphill followed by a terrifyingly fast downhill, other than that, the rest of the course was a lot of rolling hills, it was almost never flat, but it was a fun course to ski. On the big downhill, I hit 34 mph during the race according to my GPS. That might not seem fast compared to alpine ski racing, but when the skis on your feet are about 50% the width of your feet, not attached to your heel, and you're also trying to step around a turn, it can get a little hairy.

This is not a staged photo, this is from the aforementioned downhill. This is the sh*t that happens when you get one of those downhills wrong kids! Anyways, I managed to stay upright, on Saturday and finished ok. I also had a nice ego boost due to my starting position - because I have no ranking at all in Canada, I was seeded well before all of the fast skiers (at the back of an interval start). I think I caught and passed the entire McGill Nordic team of 8 skiers in the first 8km. I hear it's a good school, but not so sure they're really putting in the training hours based on what I saw. Of course, if I were to start at the back of the pack, the top skiers would be saying the same thing about me, so it's all relative!

Sunday was a 30km classic mass start, which is the longest race I've done this year and the longest classic race I've ever done other than the Tug Hill Tourathon several years ago, which I wasn't really racing, more trying to finish. Anyways, I have documented several times on this blog that I'm not exactly a master tactician when it comes to classic skiing. On top of that, since none of us were Cross Country Canada members, we had no points and were stuck on the very back row of at the mass start. With like 100 guys in front of us, some of which looked a little sketchy (they types of guys that if it were a bike race, you'd make sure you were never following their wheel), the focus for the first few kms was simply not to break any equipment and get some open tracks to ski in.

I'm on the left, Jason's on the right in the same RNR uniform on the back row of the mass start. Right after the gun went off a guy in front of me went down, which would be one of several pile-ups on the first lap (we used the same course as the previous day, but 6 laps this time). On top of the bad starting position and suspect classic technique, I've been having some serious issues with my foot and classic skiing seems to irritate it thoroughly, so I wasn't overly enthusiastic when people started crashing everywhere, but was able to settle in eventually.

Here's a picture of me during the classic race courtesy of Musicianonskis.ca. There were parts of the course that I felt I skied pretty well and some other parts where I was a little "trainwreck-ish". Oddly enough, there were a lot of sections that I felt pretty strong with my classic striding and actually tried to drop the group I was skiing with about 22km into the race on one of the long gradual hills. The last two laps were really painful however and I never was able to put out maximum power with my lower body due to my foot. I managed to drag myself around the course 6 times and probably even looked like I knew what I was doing at certain times, but I know I'm capable of a lot better given the right circumstances. For example, there were guys that I beat by 2-3 minutes in the 15km skate race that were over 5 minutes ahead of me in this race, so that's ridiculously frustrating on a multitude of levels.
Left to right - Libby, Nancy and Anne. These three were out support staff in feed zones and ringing cowbells. It really helped to hear the cheers amidst all the "allet allet allet" calls from the French Canadian coaches.

Overall, the weekend was a great in a lot of ways. First, it was great to finally get a full weekend of racing in, and the atmosphere at these races was outside of anything I've experienced in ski racing except for maybe West Yellowstone. They had more volunteers dedicated to parking cars than we have for total volunteers at races in the US, even the big races in the US. Everything was very professionally run and well supported. Additionally, as I mentioned above, the courses were legit and impeccably groomed. Probably above and beyond all those reasons, it was great to race with Jason and Chad this winter in that type of setting and it was also great to have a weekend with the full crew of wives/girlfriend. We definitely lucked out to be able to do these races and I'd absolutely go back next year or to other events at this facility.

Unfortunately, the downer of the weekend was the realization that my foot isn't getting better and this isn't going away. Especially in the classic race, I was essentially racing against a big league field at 80% and that's a recipe for getting your arse handed to you in any sport, and xc skiing is an especially painful sport when you're not at your best. I'll write about my foot in a separate post because this one is getting too long.

This weekend definitely made me realize once again how much I love skiing and ski racing and appreciate the experiences I've had over the years and look forward to more experiences down the road, even if that has to wait until next winter.

This was a very positive weekend and I can't stress enough how awesome it was that Nancy decided to come up and see me race. We also batted .1000 on the feed zone hand offs!

Breaking silence

I haven't updated here in a while due to a wide variety of reasons. I've been on the go as usual - in January, I went back and forth to the Netherlands twice and took a quick trip to Prague. This hasn't been a typical winter compared to the last few winters due to the lack of snow - very little racing and a lot of cancellations and scrapped travel plans. I did manage to get in one solid weekend of racing this past weekend in Quebec, which I'll be writing about later this week.

Wait, what's that? I'm considering doing two posts in one week? I haven't posted in over a month? Unfortunately, I have some additional time on my hands as I'm dealing with an injury for the first time since college (also a separate post). It's nothing serious, but I guess it won't get better if I don't rest it. Since sitting still is probably the thing I'm worst at, I'm not really looking forward to this, but maybe I'll finally get past the first two lessons on my Russian Rosetta Stone and update this blog a little more frequently.

I will tell one story in this blog post (which thus far has been about absolutely nothing). About 4 weeks ago, Nancy grandfather sadly passed away. By all accounts, he led an amazing life and will be remembered fondly by anyone that knew him. I'm very thankful that I was able to get to know him over the last ten years and he was able to make it to our wedding to see his grandaughter get married.

On a slightly less serious note, he also loved to wear bowties and owned like 50 different bowties. His memorial service was in northern Virginia two weekends ago, and as a tribute, several of his family members wore bowties to the gathering. I was flying home from Europe (the Paris airport was an entirely different adventure) and flew into Washington Reagan airport about 1pm. Nancy's father and brother picked me up at the airport, threw a cup of coffee in me and I was at the memorial service wearing a bowtie (only because Nancy's brother knows how to tie one) within 60 minutes of touch down. Touch-down to bow tie in 60 minutes, that has to be a record.
The bowtie adds a very distinguished look if you ask me.

More to follow later this week.

Home, happy and thankful

I just got back from another trip to Netherlands and Georgia. It was a relatively uneventful trip overall, busy with work almost constantly, but I guess this is what I signed up for. I will say that it did feel different being away from home so close to the holidays. Thankfully, the airlines all came through for me and I got through the 25 hour trip back from Tbilisi smoothly.

I have the next week off from work and am really looking forward to staying home and in one place for a little bit. I have a feeling that 2012 might be crazier than 2011 if that's possible, but for the next 9 days, I'm not going to worry about that. I'm going to enjoy being in Rochester and hopefully get some skiing in, although there's still nothing on the ground here. I'm also looking forward to the next few days of seeing some of the friends and family in the area. Overall, I just wanted to quickly say that I'm back in Rochester, happy to be here and thankful.

Happy Holidays!

West Yellowstone recap

As I said, his post would come in rapid succession following my previous post.

After getting back from Philly on Sunday, I headed to West Yellowstone, MT on a plane leaving at 6am Monday morning. Every year there is a massive ski festival that takes place in West Yellowstone the week of Thanksgiving. It's a common gathering point for passionate XC skiers of all ages and abilities to start the season and this would be my first time participating in the festival. I am relatively certain that I saw more XC skiers last week than I will see the rest of the year combined.

The trails were in mid-winter conditions and the weather was pretty good throughout the week. Basically every day I was there was pretty much the same - get up, eat breakfast, classic ski for 2ish hours, shower, eat lunch, relax for about two hours, skate ski for 2ish hours, eat dinner and go to sleep early. It was definitely the type of groundhog day I could get used to! Also on the trip was my buddy Jason and several of the RNR juniors as well as Duncan and two of his kids (who are high school skiers for HF-L), so there was a decent contingent from the Rochester area.

This week is also the first SuperTour races of the year, which is essentially the highest level of racing in the North America, the top skiers in the US and Canada are on the World Cup in Europe, so the SuperTour is basically the Triple-A series for nordic ski racing. For the top skiers in the US that aren't on the USST, these races were huge as the winner of the overall series for the first two weekends, gets an automatic starting spot in the next World Cup series, so there were a lot of people specifically trying to peak for these races. There were also a lot of other skiers like me that were there mainly for training, but jumped into the races to get a hard workout in and get the first races of the year out of the way. There were 3 race options throughout the week, however, I only opted to race once as the main thing I wanted to get out of the week was a maximum amount of training volume. The race I opted for was a 15km skate race on the 2nd to last day of the trip. As far as the actual race it was pretty much what I expected - painful - it was the first race of the year, which always hurts; it was at 7,000 feet altitude; and I was doing the race after skiing about 4 hours each of the preceding 4 days, so I didn't put a lot of stock in the result of the race. It went ok, and I felt like I skied pretty well, but was definitely feeling the effects of the week. Nonetheless, it was good to put a race bib on and go for it. It was also a really cool atmosphere with so many people out on course watching the race and cheering for everyone. The course seemed pretty brutal, there were two big hills and the rest of it was constantly rolling, so not a lot of rest, but definitely a good course to put in a hard effort on.

Overall, the week was a success as I skied over 18 hours, hopefully made some technique improvements and competed in super-competitive race on tough course. In addition to that, it was also great to be in the same place as so many people that are as passionate about skiing as I am and to remember why skiing is so awesome and why we spend so much time roller skiing, hill bounding, trail running and, for me at least, so much time on treadmills the other 7 months of the year!

Ok, enough of my banter, here are some pictures from the week:
Jason, Stefan (former RNR junior, now a sophomore at the Air Force Academy) and Gavin (junior at Pittsford).

This is the full Rochester group shot except for Jason (who took the picture).

Jason trailside after the race on Friday. The sun was out almost every day and I don't think I've ever seen a sky so blue. I guess there's a reason they call it Big Sky country.

Jason in the 15km race. All of the race pictures were taken on "Telemark Hill" (coutesy of Mike Wojick). The hill was really steep near the top.

Me on the hill. Notice the dude with the Middlebury ski jacket and purple scarf. Not sure what that face is all about.

I know what that face is all about, this part of the course really hurt!

Gavin was the only junior from Rochester to race. It was his first 15km, and he couldn't have picked a tougher course to make his debut on, but he hung in there and fought hard.

Here's the trailhead.

A picture from the parking lot outside the trailhead.

The day after the race (Saturday) I was set to fly home around 1:30pm and wanted to squeeze in one last distance ski. So, I convinced Stefan to head out for a skate overdistance ski with me starting at 6am. As you can see, it was a little cold (that's not a typo and it's not in Celsius). Once we got going, it was an awesome ski and we saw the sunrise, which was pretty impressive. One of those skis that reminded me of why I love to ski so much (generally speaking though, almost every time I skied all week I was reminded of that). After the ski, Stefan gave me a ride up to Bozeman and I flew home without incident. When I arrived home however, it was 55 degrees out - that's 75 degrees warmer than it was in the picture above. Think about that - I flew to Rochester, NY (not exactly a place known for it's balmy temperatures this time of year) and it was 75 degrees warmer than where I started my day. Not sure if that'll ever happen again.

I feel really lucky to have been able to go on this trip and am very excited for the winter to come. Now, we just need mother nature to cooperate a little in the Northeast and get us some snow!

Wedding season finale

Ok, these next two posts will come in rapid succession because I've been very busy being very busy and haven't had time to post here.

Two weekends ago was my brother John's wedding in Philly. Nancy and I went down to Philly on Wednesday night and stayed with our close friends the Schneider's for a couple days before the wedding festivities kicked off. In addition to frightening a few dogs in the Schwenksville, PA area that saw me roller skiing around Scott's neighborhood, we also spent some great time with them and went to a Bela Fleck and the Flecktones show. We also drove an hour each way to go to a beer store in Allentown, PA, which may sound like a long way to go for beer, but it was like Beers of the World on steroids, defintely worth the drive. It was a great time all around.

Moving on to Friday night, we had the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.

Saturday was the big show - the ceremony was at 2pm at a church in Media, PA and the reception was at a very nice country club in West Chester, PA. If was a very nice day and we're very happy to welcome Theresa into the family.

Here are some pictures:
This is a picture of all the Maynard family in attendance, except for John and Theresea who were off doing other bride and groom activities during the cocktail hour.

Keith and his youngest daughter Megan.

Sueann, Keith, Nancy and I.

My parents with John and Theresea.

Here's all the groomsmem before the ceremony - left to right - Harry (Theresea's brother), Matt, Keith, John, Tommie (best man), me, Jason (nicknamed Veggie) and Kyle (nicknamed Zorro).

John and Theresea just sitting down for dinner.

The day after the wedding we drove back to Rochester, I spent about 12 hours at home before heading to the airport to leave for West Yellowstone, Montana...

Long sleeve shirts in Rotterdam

I got home last Wednesday from a 10 day trip to Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Germany again. It was pretty hectic and I was moving hotels almost every night, but I was able to pack a lot in to the trip. I'm also slowly becoming a little more familiar with the different areas of these countires. As with most countries, there are regional disagreements. In Belgium, this is a pretty serious situation between the Flemish speaking region and the French speaking region. The disagreements have essentially brough the political process there to a standstill for the past couple years.

In Holland, they also have some differences, but from what I've gathered, there are less serious. They seem to be NY-Boston type of rivalry between Rotterdam and Amsterdam. The way it was explained to me is the following - people from Rotterdam think people from Amsterdam are stuck up, over educated and all talk, conversely people from Amsterdam think people from Rotterdam are ignorant and have no culture. Anyways, our local partner there is a "Rotterdamer" and proud of it, and he had a great one-liner - "If you buy a long sleeve shirt in Rotterdam, the sleeves come rolled up, so you're ready to go to work right away."

I had one free day on this trip and was able to see some of downtown Brussels. I also visited the Delerium Cafe on the recommendation of my buddy Scott. It was quite a journey finding the place, but I eventually made it, only to find it closed...after I'd been walking around for most of the afternoon. Anyways, I found a place around the corner which had some type of affiliation with the Cafe and sampled some of the Abbey beers there. Here are some pictures from the trip:

Old looking cathedral in Brussels.

City street in Brussels.

Massive cathedral in center city area of Brussels. This was only one section, my camera didn't have a wide enough lens to get the whole thing.

Here's the place that was closed.

Here's a shot of the place I found inside. The barrels served as tables.

They had like 300 beers available. It's a good thing Scott had given me a recomended list before I went to this place because I'd never heard of any of these.

This is a church in a small town in Northern Germany near Kempen.

Center city of that city.

Definitely a cool area, there was some type of festival going as well when we were there.

I'm headed to Philly for my brother's wedding and on to West Yellowstone on Monday, where the skiing looks to be shaping up to be amazing.

Penultimate wedding of 2011

I'm a few blog posts behind, so I'll try to catch up over the next few days. Last weekend was our 2nd to last wedding of the year. It's been a pretty hectic year with a lot of weddings of all types (in-town, out-of-town, traditional, non-traditional, etc). Nancy's college roomate Sarah (also one of the bridesmaids in our wedding) got married to a very close friend of Nancy's brother Doug, who's also from Penfield. Needless to say, there was a lot of "wow, it's a pretty small world" going on. They did everything for the wedding themselves and all of the food was locally grown or raised, which was a very cool concept. In addition to it being a cool concept, I'm more than certain it took an incredible amount of work and planning, but everything went off without a hitch and was excellent. Overall, it was a very unique wedding, but I think it was exactly what they wanted it to be. I hope that Sarah and Sky will be documenting everything that they did to pull this off, as I'm sure it would be a great case study in project management. Anyways, here are some pictures.

Sarah and Sky.

There were a lot of Colgate Alum there. Nancy's 2nd from the left and her brother Doug is in the back with the beard. One other item of note - Sky went to Dartmouth, so there were also a lot of his college friends there - apparently they have a dance that they teach to all incoming freshman. In the middle of the dancing portion of the night, they cleared the dancefloor and all the Dartmouth alum did this syncronized dance, which was one of the more impressive things I've seen recently.

Nancy and I contemplating whether to go to the snack setup or go hit up the lawn games during cocktail hour. The beer for the wedding was from Custom Brewcrafters (sticking with the locally produced theme) and everyone was issued a mason jar to drink out of for the night.

The guitarist (Ben) on the left also happened to be a teammate of mine in little league, high school and college baseball and we coached for several years together after college. He is also a great guitarist and Sky's brother-in-law, hence his involvement in the wedding. It was great to catch up with Ben and hopefully I'l be doing some coaching with him again soon.

As I mentioned, this was out 2nd to last wedding of 2011. The last one is a big one - my brother John is getting married down in Philly two weeks from today, so I'm definitely looking forward to that. I'm currently in Belgium and have been bouncing around a lot the last week. I'll be in Germany early next week then get home Wednesday night.