Category: XCFeeds
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350 Vigil and Potluck
Last night we hosted a 350 candlelight vigil on the Common and a potluck in the Sterling dining hall. 350 put out the call a couple weeks ago for people to organize vigils in order to call attention to the Copenhagen climate conferences and to show our politicians that we need them to take swift and strong action to stop (and hopefully reverse) climate change. The only big hiccup in the event was that the Common got pounded by heavy winds and none of the candles (even those in glass jars) would stay lit. But there were still 20 or so people that came out and braved the cold, windy night to join in the vigil. We quickly snapped some photos and then headed into the potluck. Sterling kindly contributed plenty of delicious squash soup, bread, and salad for everyone. After everyone sat down to eat, I (somewhat nervously) stood up to say a few words about why we were gathered. I chose to read an excerpt from an editorial that was printed in the London Guardian and 56 other newspapers around the world on Monday December 7. There was also a reporter from the Hardwick Gazette present asking lots of questions and taking photos. Hopefully there will be an article in the paper so even more people will learn about why we gathered!
The cool drawing Hannah made for the event poster.
As you can see, there were some shining headlamps…but no candles. Too windy!
Community members chatting after dinner.
Some familiar Craftsbury faces!
Chelsea showing off all the signatures we got for our letters to Senators Sanders and Leahy and Congressman Welch.
I think the event was a big success. We are working on a lot of great environmental initiatives here at the Center, but I feel particularly good when I’m doing work in the larger community. Going to events, and particularly organizing one, in the town of Craftsbury make me really happy to live in a place where people are engaged and involved. I was pretty disappointed to miss the Vermont version of the Day of Action on October 24 (we were in Tahoe), so it was great to have a chance to organize a 350 event at home. Getting involved in the action/political side of things has made me think a lot about potential post-ski racing career paths…hmmm….
Thanks to everyone that helped make the event happen and to those that participated. And a wicked big thanks goes to Anna and Chelsea for all the work they did!!
The action report and photos on 350.org can be found here.
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Davosurprises
Shows what I know: “Surprises don’t often happen” at Davos.Pffft.Try, “surprises will account for 5/6ths of the podiums in the distance races.” Everyone on the men’s podium was a surprise, with the possible, slight exception of Hellner, who can be sort of expected to do well in a skate race. I love to see Heikkinen do well and start to help round out a Finnish men’s team that might form a
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Davosurprises
Shows what I know: “Surprises don’t often happen” at Davos.Pffft.Try, “surprises will account for 5/6ths of the podiums in the distance races.” Everyone on the men’s podium was a surprise, with the possible, slight exception of Hellner, who can be sort of expected to do well in a skate race. I love to see Heikkinen do well and start to help round out a Finnish men’s team that might form a
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Everybody hurts
Racing at the Sovereign Lake trails hurts. Every race is pretty painful but this place just doesn’t let up. Lots of good climbs but they have found a way to take the rest out of the downhills and throw in a fair amount of rolling/flat terrain so you don’t get much of a chance to rest out there. Pretty much everyone I talked to after the race said they felt terrible out there. That’s just how racing here is. For myself, I felt like a hack. All I could do was try to keep the body moving forward. I skied okay for myself ending up 2nd, about 40 seconds back to Kuzzy who is skating super well right now. At 10k I was only 10 seconds back to him and I had a pretty weak section of skiing from about 10-13k where I lost most of the time to him.
Today served as a Canadian Olympic qualifier race where the top Canadian gets an automatic trip to the Games. Gord Jewett got the spot. He’s another 31 year old not on their National Team so I was psyched to see him get it. It was a bit of a surprise showing for Canada. Quite a few were expecting them to ski really well but they only had 1 guy in the top 6…
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GREAT Day for CXC Team Vertical Limit in Silver Star!
This weekend’s races are Olympic Qualifiers for the Canadian team, meaning that the top Canadian finisher earned an automatic Olympic spot.
The CXC Team Vertical Limit Men’s team put 4 boys in the top 6 overall! Kuzzy was 1st by almost a whole minute, followed by Matt Liebsch (3rd), Brian Gregg (5th), and Bryan Cook (6th). […] -
More Great Skiing at MSA
a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/SyPZd6By0uI/AAAAAAAABsI/OmjuGNvzIAc/s1600-h/IMG_1430.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/SyPZd6By0uI/AAAAAAAABsI/OmjuGNvzIAc/s400/IMG_1430.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414410284845683426″ //aThe skiing has been great at Mte Ste Anne. Yesterday we had a specific strength day. Classic with an upper body emphasis in the morning and skating with more lower body in the afternoon. This morning we worked on classic technique and rolled the drills into a nice 2 hour ski that ended at our condos.br /A couple of the kids are fighting colds, but hopefully they will all be healthy soon.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/SyPZVVXrWqI/AAAAAAAABsA/25XPm50xmHk/s1600-h/IMG_1431.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/SyPZVVXrWqI/AAAAAAAABsA/25XPm50xmHk/s400/IMG_1431.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414410137566403234″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/SyPZNwNn-WI/AAAAAAAABr4/UWCCQ56P5qs/s1600-h/IMG_1432.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/SyPZNwNn-WI/AAAAAAAABr4/UWCCQ56P5qs/s400/IMG_1432.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414410007333042530″ //aDartmouth college is here and it is almost like “old home week” with SMS alums Patrick O’Brien, Kristin Dewey, Sophie Caldwell, Stephanie Crocker (winter termer) and Megan Killigrew all here and looking good. br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/SyPZGJWV3fI/AAAAAAAABrw/Yy7LHYIbkhA/s1600-h/IMG_1433.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/SyPZGJWV3fI/AAAAAAAABrw/Yy7LHYIbkhA/s400/IMG_1433.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414409876641537522″ //aFred Griffin is here with 55 kids from Bellows Free Academy. It’s great to see them all out skiing and having fun on their annual trip up north.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/SyPY-4yHg6I/AAAAAAAABro/ZnwBYSiSJXw/s1600-h/IMG_1434.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/SyPY-4yHg6I/AAAAAAAABro/ZnwBYSiSJXw/s400/IMG_1434.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414409751935550370″ //aWe are planning a classic time trial for tomorrow morning. It will be good practice skiing in softer snow. Should be fun!div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4680416899705879324-1972802851951538833?l=smsxc.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div
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Ski-in, ski-out
I’ve heard the term “ski-in, ski-out,” but never actually knew what it meant. I just assumed it referred to the hill side condos at alpine ski areas. It turns out, that all of Silver Star Resort is ski-in, ski-out. To make this possible, there is an extensive network of ski trails that connect all the condos to the village and alpine hill.
skisilverstar.com
We’ve done most of our training at the Sovereign Lakes Trails, a 10 minute drive around the mountain, as that’s where we’ll be racing this weekend. Skiing right out the back door has been pretty cool too, though. It’s actually faster to walk the trails than it is to take the roads to get to many places in town. Why is the mountain called Silver Star? It’s named after the Silver Star Mining Company that owned the mountain back in 1894. You can learn all about the history of Silver Star on their website.
On the race side of things, the temperatures are finally warming up and the sun was even out this morning. We should have some excellent conditions for the races. We spent this morning testing skis while Bryan, Igor, and Brandon – our stellar wax crew – tested wax. Thanks to Toko for their shout out on this week’s Toko eBlast. You can sign up for the weekly eBlasts here. They’ve got some excellent resources for wax tips and race stories.
Maria Stuber shows off her ski quiver.
The whole crew is relaxed and ready to get after it tomorrow. You can check out start lists, results, etc for this weekend’s races here.
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Da Climb at Davos
The distance course at Davos this weekend is about as simple as it can be. On the x axis, you go out, then you come back. On the y axis, you go up up up, then you come down down down – a 41m max climb at worst, but 180m total climbing each lap, including a couple sharp ramps on the “downhill” half of the course. Repeat twice if equipment makers might manufacture pink boots for you, thrice if
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nytimes photo
img src=”http://21.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kuhni7vLEc1qzt3xbo1_500.jpg”/br/br/pnytimes photo/p
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Been a while…
The title could be taken a couple of ways.br /1. It has been a long time since my last post here.br /2. Unfortunately it was even longer since my last time on snow.br /br /I am currently up in span class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_0″Hibbing/span, MN doing required outreach as a part of my last year in dental school. The dentistry is great – I have been seeing more patients than I usually would at the school clinic, and the clinic itself is quite nice. When I learned that I would be heading to span class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_1″Hibbing/span in December I thought “well at least they will probably have more snow than the metro”. span class=”blsp-spelling-corrected” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_2″Unfortunately/span I was wrong. So while my wife is shoveling out our house in Red Wing, and the span class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_3″Vakava/span team is doing intervals on snow in St. Paul, yesterday I was double poling back and forth on a little used road not far from the clinic. At least I was on snow (span class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_4″Hibbing/span got less than an inch from the storm that span class=”blsp-spelling-corrected” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_5″buried/span parts of the span class=”blsp-spelling-corrected” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_6″Midwest/span = lots of new “speed grooves” in the rock skis). It had been 5 weeks between time skiing on snow!br /br /Today I tried to drive to Giant’s Ridge today to ski under the lights. But as I tried to coast to a stop at a stop light my car started to accelerate on its own! I grabbed the floor mat to make sure it was not caught on the gas pedal, but that was not the problem. I put the car in span class=”blsp-spelling-corrected” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_7″neutral/span to see if that solved things, but that just made my car jump to 7000 span class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_8″RPMs/span (but at least I wasn’t accelerating anymore). All I could do was shut the car off and steer to the side of the road. When I tried to start the car it immediately jumped to 4500 span class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_9″RPMs/span. After getting the number for the towing company from my wife I tried to start the car one last time. After some clanking and grinding the car seemed to be running normally. I had a span class=”blsp-spelling-corrected” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_10″dilemma/span. I wanted to ski, but I was 20 miles into a 40 mile trip, and it was probably a lot better to be stranded in span class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_11″Hibbing/span (where I at least have classmates with cars) than at the Ridge (even if the do have lit trails with some snow). So I aborted my ski for the night and drove back to span class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_12″Hibbing/span. span class=”blsp-spelling-corrected” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_13″Fortunately/span the dental clinic here is one building over from the auto mechanic school at the community college, and they will be able to look at my car tomorrow. Hopefully they can figure out what is going on with my car, because I have 5 pairspan class=”blsp-spelling-error” id=”SPELLING_ERROR_14″s of/span skis in the back, and I am craving getting on some more snow!div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1572647974447867713-3001900491770630774?l=vakavaraceteam.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div
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Silver Star is Paradise
Silver Star is such a great place to spend a week this time of year. It’s been pretty cold, but the skiing is perfect and it is beautiful. Today was ski testing day and I had time to bust out my camera. Here are some shots.
Saturday is a 10/15K skate race and Sunday is a […]
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