February 9th, 2010 by Coach
This Friday we hosted the annual Friday Fun Race which involved a ski scramble start, an abnormal course and a competition for the best costume. Costumes included dressing in a trash bag, as a banana, husband and wife, cowboy/cowgirl, the spice girls and all sorts of outrageous spandex. The best costume though was awarded to Dorian who dressed in a Toga and carried a lit torch that mirraculously made it around the entire 3k course lit and without burning anyone. Also congratulations to Aven who was 3rd in the men’s division.
Here are a couple of pictures courtesy of Ginger Hamlin:
Also this weekend was the final set of Besh Cup races at Birch Hill. Special credit goes to Logan, Kyle and Pat for qualifying for the Junior Olympic team and to Mikayla and Stefan for qualifying for the Arctic Winter Games Team. The men’s mass start classic race was especially inspiring to watch as Logan skied smoothly and relaxed into the second Junior and fourth overall, while Stefan and Pat literally gave it everything they could to gain valuable points and qualify for the two teams.
Here is a picture of Kyle skiing to his third 3rd place finish in the J2 mens Besh Cup races this year (courtesy of Bert Boyer)
February 2nd, 2010 by Coach
Town Series 4 was a great way to wrap up an excellent week of training with warmer temps, positive attitudes and some good race results.
On the women’s side, it looked like a lot of our girls had great parts of races but couldn’t quite put all the pieces together in the somewhat challenging continuous pursuit format. Claire had an excellent classic leg but ran into difficulties on the transition while Kim was having a great race until taking a spill on Blue Loop. Overall it was a pretty good day and I’m confident that we can put together the missing pieces over the next couple of weeks.
On the men’s side we had our best race yet as a team. Initially I thought our guys started slow but when nearly every one of them moved up in the Skate portion I decided that this strategy seamed to work out pretty well. Very strong transitions by Pat and Stefan left them in first and second and they continued to open up their leads as the race went on. Behind them, Kipp, Dan, Dorian and Connor looked like they all put in a lot of effort to move up throughout the race for some solid results.
Many thanks to the volunteers, parents and coaches that made the day so successful. Pictures taken by Nick Nugent
January 25th, 2010 by Coach
After a quiet weekend for the LHS ski team in town, here is a quick update on a few Lathrop skiers who skied in Homer and Finland.
Logan seams to be having a good time on the J1 Scandinavia Trip in Finland. Logan qualified for this trip by being ranked in the top ~6 J1 (~16-17 year old) aged athletes in the country. It sounds like so far they have experienced some interesting food, ski tracks, traffic signs and venues. Read more about the trip here http://usaj1team.blogspot.com/
At Besh Cup races 3 and 4 in Homer, the Lathrop skiers got to enjoy lots of sun, warm weather, exciting trails and some really good results as well. Highlights of the sprint race included Claire’s 4th and Mikayla’s 9th place finish in the women’s J2 field and Stefan and Kipps 13th and 17th places in the mens field. For the distance race Kyle placed 3rd in the mens J2 race while Pat and Stefan were 15th and 19th in the mens field. A few photos courtesy of coach Nick F.
Stefan
Kipp
Pat
January 19th, 2010 by Coach
We had an excellent tour down the river on Monday, many thanks to the Hajdukes for hosting us at their house!
Skiers in the sunrise
Skiers inside, skis outside
A bunch of West Valley (I hope) skiers after the tour
One last picture from a run at 21 below last week
January 11th, 2010 by Coach
Beautiful trails, scenery and snow in Valdez
After a long weekend in Valdez we’re back to some frigid Fairbanks weather. The trip was very fun and we had some good results as well. After the second place relay finish, we ended up finishing third as a team in both the mens and womens individual race. I really thought we deserved a second place finish in the mens race after having Pat and Stefan on the podium (second and third) and Kyle in 7th. Unfortunatley West Valley edged us out by just 11 seconds over the total ~33k skied. On the women’s side Megan was 5th, Claire was 10th and Kim was 15th. Dan led the Lathrop JV mens squad to an 11th place finish and Maddey had a great race for a 21st place in the JV women’s races. Lathrop also dominated the open race with coaches Nick and Brett finishing on the mens podium and Lathrop parent Ginger Hamlin taking second in the women’s race.
Kim clearly breaking the speed limit
Sarah
Stefan skiing to a third place finish
Dorian
Following the races we grabbed a nice dinner at the Thai resturaunt in town and then headed to the much anticipated Valdez Senior Ball. Robert may have won the dance but I’m not much a very good judge on this sort of competition. We wrapped up the trip with an epic descent of Thompson’s Pass where the bus drove us to the top and them picked us up at the bottom. Those on downhill skis and Snowboards did some serious “shredding” but it was tricky conditions for the ones that attempted it on nordic skis…
The Lathrop and NP crew on top of Thompson's Pass- If people aren't smiling its because the wind was blowing at least 40 mph
January 8th, 2010 by Coach
We arrived safely in Valdez after making excellent time to find excellent snow cover but not the feet of powder of a week or two ago. Ski conditions here are fast powder/granular mix but beginning to get a bit soft on the uphills.
Todays race was a mixed boy/girl relay which each skier doing a different leg. Lathrop had the second and sixth of the 49 teams competing. Our second place team of Pat, Claire, Kim and Stefan were awarded medals at this evenings award ceremony.
Tomorrow is either a 5.4k or 8.4k individual start skate race. Another update coming soon.
December 13th, 2009 by Coach
After a good first day at the Lynx Loppet we had a GREAT second day. All of our skiers racing in the pursuit format moved up in the rankings with the exception of 1 who maintained the same position. This is huge for this start format (as opposed to a mass start) because every person you can pass is someone who had an advantage over you at the beginning of the day. The highlight of my day was watching Claire and Kim pass at least a dozen skiers who started ahead of them on the uphills.
Full results can be found here:
http://www.anchoragenordicski.com/Racing/HighSchools/results/hs12_12_09.txt
You will have to compare these to yesterdays results to figure out split times for today.
In the open race, one of the Lathrop coaches managed to be the first Lathrop “athlete” across the line but closely behind was Dan, Sam, Chris and Keegan. Sam had his best race this year (I think) while Keegan had a great sprint to the line with a couple of guys.
Pictures coming soon…
December 11th, 2009 by Coach
With less than ideal snow here in Anchorage (thin/dirty in places and hard and fast everywhere) we had a good first day at the Lynx Loppet. The best overall result was Logan sitting in 2nd just 10 seconds out of the lead but many people had great personal races as well.
Tomorrow we have a 5/7.5km skate race tomorrow and many of our skiers qualified for the pursuit race by finishing in the top 100. Dan and Sam both just missed the pursuit format ending up in 103 and 101 in their respective races.
Full results are available here:
http://www.anchoragenordicski.com/Racing/HighSchools/raceinfoLynx.htm#5
Not the greatest day on the bowling front…I think the high score was 118 and I only could manage a 67. I’m blaming it on being tired after a long day at the races and not being at our home bowling alley. We all had a great time though at this as well. Unfortunatley I forgot the camera on this part of the trip but I’ll put pictures from the races up soon.
November 17th, 2009 by Coach
The first race was this past Saturday. The Lathrop skiers showed good form in the low key event against West Valley and North Pole. Special props go to the club skiers that competed after learning how to ski over the last two weeks!
Kipp and Kyle ended up tying for first in the "official" mens race
Many more photos from the race courtesy of Coach Nick F. available here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nick.ferree/HighSchoolOpener11142009#
