For those of you who want me to drive your entries up to Tahoe XC tomorrow afternoon, please fill out the 2016 registration form and get it to me with your money (checks made out to TNSAR). IMPORTANT – please write on your form the size of T-shirt you need as I will not remember.
We will wax in B-3 from 9:30 – 11:00 am tomorrow (unless I email by 9:00 am that we are cancelling). Make sure I know you are interested so I can notify you if plans change.
As an interesting metric of how well you did in any race I have calculated each athlete’s percentage back of the average time of the 2nd,3rd and 4th racer.
The numbers along the bottom represent the races in order.
1 – Foothill Classic, 2 – Sugar Bowl Freestyle, 3 – Truckee Sprints, 4 – Mammoth Classic,
5 – North Tahoe Skiathlon, 6 – State Championship Classic, 7 – State Championship Skate
If you were 100% back it means your time was twice as long as the 2,3,4 average.
Here is a table showing the percent-back-summary If the trend was negative it means that you were improving through the season (we won’t dwell on what a positive trend means!). A small standard deviation means that you had more consistent results. Don’t read too much into it but these are interesting numbers.
Girls get 4th Place at States
After getting 5th place last season and 6th place the season before, the girls are moving in the right direction. In the regular season the Girls Team got 5th place over the five race series.
The weather forecast for Wednesday promises a fairly miserable afternoon with rain and winds till around 10 pm. As we do not have a CNISSF Race this week we are postponing our on-snow practice till Friday afternoon when conditions promise to be much more pleasant. There will be no practice dry-land practice on Wednesday, but if you have equipment issues that need resolution please contact me and I can come up to school if needed. We will hold a normal dry-land practice on Thursday after school. Our Friday practice may run a little later than normal as the next day is not a school day. We will be home by 8:30 pm at the latest. The Doodle Poll has been changed.
Yesterday evening the Far West Nordic Junior National Team was announced (a photo of Erika is featured in the announcement!). This team represents California, Nevada and Arizona against the other USSA Divisions. As expected, Nevada Union Nordic team member Erika, had earned a spot on the 20 Girl squad, by racing in all seven qualifier races and producing a qualifying time in four of the races. The final qualifying race was held yesterday morning and was on an extremely challenging course. This year Junior Nationals will be held near Cable Wisconsin on 6-13 March. There are four races against the best junior Cross Country skiers in the country. 
One of the handicaps of taking part in a winter sport is the fact that it takes place in Winter! During winter, particularly around High Schools there always seems to be various sicknesses going around. This article goes through a number of things that you should consider if you want to stay healthy this nordic ski season.
We need everyone to stay healthy to keep the team competitive.
There is some chance that the start time of the Sugar Bowl Race on Friday 15 Jan may be pushed back one hour. We still plan to leave NU at 7:30 am so be at the Box by 7:15 am. We have limited ski transport space so you will just take your skate skis and poles (with the exception of a couple of athletes). When you get to the Box take care of this by pulling your ski bag getting out your skate gear (rubber banded of course) and put your bag back in the box.
Unless you have already handed in a waiver you must bring a signed waiver tomorrow. As of this morning only Claire, McKenna, Tynan, Garrett, Wyatt, Delphine, Jen, Katie, Savanna, Grace and Erika had handed in waivers. At waxing this afternoon I handed out blank forms. Bring them tomorrow. There are PDFs of the form under the “Event” menu on this web page. No waiver – No race.
It is way to late in the season for me to remind you about signing up on Doodle. I know of a couple of people who think they are going tomorrow who are not signed up. I am tired of nagging. Anyone who is not signed up is at the bottom of the priority list regardless of how many practices they have been to or how many times their parents have driven. This is taking too much of my time! If you sign up you must press the SAVE button on the Desktop interface or the UPDATE button on the smart phone interface. It is your responsibility to check the Doodle listings to make sure you registered – I will no longer mention this. I assume that Doodle list is accurate.
We will be based in the Village Hall at Sugar Bowl. Absolutely no skis in the building. Leave your skis on the racks outside. Park in the lower lot off the Mt Judah access road just above the Sugar Bowl Academy.
Very few people have signed up for practice Sunday. There is a Biathlon Race at ASC on Sunday morning so we will have limited access to the close trails. We will probably go one hour earlier (depart NU at 8am) so that we can get out of the stadium before the race starts at 10am. The Crater Lake Trail is now open as well as more km in the Black Hole. We will have an easy days practice and hopefully be back before 2pm. On Monday (school holiday) there is a Junior National Qualifier Race at Tahoe Donner Cross Country. For any of you who want to make up a race this is a good opportunity. There are various distances available. For Juniors the registration fee is $20 (by Sunday) which includes lunch and a raffle entry. The JNQ distances are 5Km for U16, 10 Km for U18 and U20. Talk to the coach if you are interested. If you are not trying to qualify there is a 5Km Novice distance available.
Derek
On-Snow Practice for Wednesday 6 Jan has been cancelled. If you have any equipment issues come to B-3 after school. Waxing in B-3 Thursday as planned. Athletes using no-wax skis should be there promptly after school. Those using grip wax should be there at 4 pm.
I have been encouraging team members to watch videos of good skiers. There are lots of videos of full length race videos from Eurosport on Youtube. Go to youtube.com and search for “skiing vinnie”. The order that comes up is a bit random so I have collected the links for this season in the order that the races were run. Watch them and learn about ski racing.
To race at Kirkwood you will need to bring a signed waiver to coach by Thursday Dec 10 at the latest. Deal with this now. I will have paper copies at practice if you need them.