by Colin

Colin and Erik were in the same sprint wave!  Colin skied for NH, Erik for VT.  Colin is sporting the hat he obtained in the Friday evening yankee swap – which served to make him invisible to his own coaches in the classic race!

This being the penultimate EHS Championships for moi, it was a real surprise. Mainly, holy cow how about that weather!? I think it’s worth noting that it’s been a while, in my opinion, since it’s stayed so cold right to EHSC. I’m quite used to slogging through slush or sweating profusely under a beating sun. Well, the sun hid behind the calm grey snow clouds the whole weekend and left us to a bitter, bone-chilling end-of-the-weekend relay that kept everyone on their tip toes. My races, for the majority, were to my satisfaction. The hubbub of a just recently united team can really getchya when you’re not expecting it, and I’d have to admit it got me so that my race mind wasn’t quite working when I needed it to be. Outside of that, the weekend was really exciting and I was always anticipating the next race. The classic, a 7.5K that may have been described as an inadvertent pile up/brawl a good number of times, was a fearsome challenge which I took by the horns. The sprint was a real whirl of a time, ending before it started, and I tip my hat to Erik for his solid competition in my wave. The relay was good fun and fellow teammate Mark Young and I had a real heck of time blasting past a group of nearly ten skiers on our classic skis who were all fearfully snow plowing down the icy hill. I felt no fear. I went, I saw, I skied with everything I had. (Nothing can truly describe the utter absence of energy from my body when I got home…and collapsed into a 2 day slumber.)