Our first race will be held at Kirkwood Cross Country.  As is becoming common, the ski resorts which host our races are requiring that all athletes and coaches complete a liability waiver in order to take part in the event.  I will have paper copies at practice on Monday, but the PDF is available on-line if you wish to download it.

At the Winter Meeting this morning, the CNISSF Nordic Coaches voted to confirm the preliminary schedule adopted at the Spring Meeting.  If there is insufficient snow to hold the Kirkwood Relay on Dec 12, it will be held as a non scoring event on Jan 30 if sufficient schools elect to attend.

Boreal has already opened, mainly on manmade snow,  but it will not take too much more snowfall before some grooming at Auburn Ski Club will be possible.

I promised at the Parent Meeting on Thursday evening to publish some references on nutrition that may be useful to our Nordic Skiers.  I have cut and paste from an email I sent out a couple of years ago below

“The  ASC Foothill Training Group had a great practice on Sunday and almost all athletes left the stadium and went around some of the trail system.  However, on the return it became clear that some skiers were exhausted.  It seems worthwhile reminding people that nordic  skiing at altitude is a strenuous activity and requires an appropriate diet.  Here is a link  to some useful information on diet – it appears on a nordic web-site but was probably written for alpine skiing.  The principles are the same.

In the many years I have been coaching there has only been one case where a boy had problems with matching his food intake to the demands of Nordic Ski Racing.  Unfortunately, many High School Girls seem to underestimate the calories burned in this sport, and  seem to run out of gas in training and races.  There is an informative paper  “The Role of Adequate Nutrition for Performance and Health for Female Cross-Country Skiers”    published by FIS which is worth skimming for information on why this problem may occurs for girls.”

Just a reminder that you cannot practice with the Team until you have been cleared for NU Sport and bring a Consent to Treat to the Coach.  Many athletes on the list have been cleared for Fall sports and I see their names on the list – you just need to bring a Consent to Treat to your first practice.  If you are still getting clearance, make sure you bring the Pink Sheet from Debbie when you show up to practice as it often takes a few days for your name to find its way on to the cleared list that I get.

New skiers should bring a helmet (bicycle OK) for roller skiing and a thin pair of socks to practice.  We only have a few spare helmets and unless we have one that fits, you cannot roller ski.  Our Dry-Land practices all meet in Room B-3.  Initial beginner sessions will stay in the room, but as soon as you are comfortable we move outside to the parking lots by tennis courts and up the hill.  Contact the coaches if you have any questions.

Our parent/athlete meeting will be held on Thursday November 6 at 6 pm in the Science Lecture Hall.  Hopefully we can get everything done in an hour.  If you cannot attend and still wish to join the Team, please contact me ASAP as I will be removing names from the Roster if I haven’t heard from you.