We have been waiting all season for this particular skier of the week. While she has been the logical choice several times during this stellar season we were waiting for this specific moment to acknowledge her amazing accomplishements this season!
Let's start with the racing. Last season at this time Kat couldn't even walk well. Running was out of the question and skiing was excruciating. We were forced to red-shirt her, not by a plan but because she simply could not race. What a difference a year makes! Kat went from being unable to complete the season to being our top UW Woman and reached 4th in the Overall Rocky Mountain Conference Rankings. Kat only missed the top 5 in one race the entire season and made the podium twice, such amazing consistency is rarely seen but she made it look easy! This weekend was not exception as she placed 4th in the classic race, skiing the lead leg of the Team Sprint, followed by a grueling 21km in which she was 6th. She lead the UW Women to 2nd place in the Conference and we hope to see her shine at Nationals! What lead to this weekend on skis was dedication, hard work, and grit. What lead to the race happening this weekend was even more impressive! Kat is a Outdoor Recreation and Tourism Management Major and as such she got excited in the fall about the idea of planning the Laramie Loppet. We certainly had no objections to someone taking the lead to make the race bigger and better. We had no idea the concentrated effort Kat would throw into it. In December, when we don't even remember that there IS a home race, Kat had already commissioned a new logo, created posters, and was putting them up around town at our first race! It was crazy and she continued with this planning and organization right through to the end. Kat took responsibility for buying swag, creating and hanging posters, answering questions, redesigning the webpage, updating the registration, planning food for the dinner, and about 100 other things. The result was that we made over $1000 MORE than the previous year and had some super cool socks! Kat truly stepped up for the team to help us create a truly special event and THEN she skied super fast! For all the incredible work you have done throughout the season, both on the skis and off we name you Skier of the Week! YOU ROCK OUR WORLD!
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 The overall winners for the Rocky Mountain Conference! Go Trevor & Silas!!! We are starting to look GREAT!
What a great weekend of racing! The women kept fighting until the end and only lost to WCU by 10 points after an entire season of racing! The men pulled off an amazing feat by winning the season ranking by 1 point. What an epic battle! REMINDER: We have officially started our peaking program so things will change at times so pay attention and please don't start new activities. We only have 5 weeks until Nationals so it's time to start concentrating on staying/getting healthy, eating well, resting and focusing your energy where it is needed! This peaking programs works extremely well if you
Training for the week
Dragon Slaying is going super well!  It's been an interesting year for Freshman Zoe Noble. From breaking a pole in the first race of the season to being the top woman in the Alley Loop!
Struggles with illness, injury, and adjustment to college are starting to settle as Zoe is finding her stride on the team and in college racing. The Alley Loop was nothing short of inspiring as Zoe started fast, some thought maybe too fast, and just kept getting stronger as she skied. Racers from other teams didn't worry about letting her go because they were sure she would die and they would catch her. I guess they didn't know of the LONG bike ride Zoe did this summer that prepared her so well for this distance. Other skiers went from thinking she would die, to trying to hold on to just watching her power away. Zoe skied into a solid 3rd place following last seasons Rocky Mountain Conference Leader and a 2018 USCSA National Champion! Not intimidated in any way. The second day was a 6.8km classic race and Zoe stepped to the line showing a little fatigue but it was hard to tell as she once again powered around the course to her best classic place and points. She seems to be on a roll. She'll be racing hard to equal her placing in the 21km this weekend and also see what she can do in a classic team sprint. and we're all excited to see what she can do now that she knows she can ski a 21km! In addition to crushing the trails the past weekend Zoe is a leader by example on the team as she continues to show incredible dedication at practice, fundraising and in the classroom. Skiing with such poise, strength, and endurance as a freshman is rare but Zoe just keeps improving. We're looking forward to our home race and the rest of the season! YOU ROCK OUR WORLD!!! ARE YOUR READY TO ROCK!!! It's time for the home race!!!!
You main focus this week should be racing but there are several around the edges things that we will need help with so be sure to watch for information and jobs. If you are not racing/don't want to race this weekend be sure to let us know so we can get your help. We have officially started our peaking program so things will change at times so pay attention and please don't start new activities. We only have 5 weeks until Nationals so it's time to start concentrating on staying/getting healthy, eating well, resting and focusing your energy where it is needed! This peaking programs works extremely well if you
Training for the week NOTE: Please stop morning strength this week.
Dragon Slayage needs to be BIG on this weekend! Want a good showing in the home race!!!! When life closes the roads, do a little dance... Crazy Great Weekend of racing! The Alley Loop sure is an amazing event!
We don't currently have a college race scheduled but our Junior racers will be in Casper for a Junior Nationals Qualifier and our post-grads will be headed to the Owl Creek Chase! We are currently without Clifford so we'll be doing some carpooling this week. Team Training for the Week:
 Happy after a successful weekend of racing AND a visit to the Boggs's Snack Wagon! Awesome weekend with our friends at CMU, now ready to head to visit with Western!
For our college athletes it is the first week of class and we're adjusting our training a tad to accommodate this portion of our team. Please note the changes and we'll see you out there! Team Training for the Week:
 Looking Steez on our OD... We had an amazing weekend doing a recovery camp and training race! Good healing and racing was done by all!
This is the training for this week. This will be the last week of both on-snow strength AND yoga because we will need to move the on-snow strength to 5pm once classes start. We will be spending this week getting ready for the UW Team's first College Qualifier!
In November we decided to take a small team to US Nationals in Craftsbury, Vermont. This is the race where skiers qualify for World Cup, World Junior, and other teams. It's a big deal!
We only had 4 athletes ready for this event so we asked our high school associates if they knew someone who would benefit and be excited to join us. Thus Nathan became part of our team for this exciting adventure! The racing at this level on these trails is adventure enough but we had additional challenges as we were laid over in Chicago for 24 hours and didn't arrive at our rental house until 2:30am on the day of the first race! This is NOT a recipe for fast racing but our team went all jungle tiger and not only did we get everyone on the trails, on skis, but they actually RACED! It was awesome! In our push to get registered, bibs, feed, glide & kick wax on the skis, and the hundreds of other details that are necessary to get racers to the start line we didn't have time to baby our junior skier. In fact, other than getting his bib, skis, and feed we didn't really talk to him much. Nothing like being in a huge race, in a completely foreign environment, with athletes you don't really know to cause high levels of stress. If Nathan felt this huge stress we sure couldn't tell. He went through the process of his very first 15km, his very first feed, his very first chip timing, at his very first National Competition without even a slight waver. He skied and skied all week without showing any stress or weakness in any way. Three races with 100's of athletes later he was still standing and still smiling. Nathan never complained, whined, nor cried and I am here to say that this alone was a MAJOR accomplishment! Through it all Nathan skied his heart out, giving everything he had to every race! We all hope this young man will come to Laramie after his graduation and join the UW Team because he has got GRIT and he is a good skier! For being such an incredible Jungle Tiger and skiing fast in adverse conditions we want to award Nathan the Skier of the Week! You ROCK OUR WORLD!!!!  Ella crushing the classic race! This was an awesome weekend! It was the University of Colorado Invitational, which means all the best college skiers in the nation, as well as an optional race for USCSA. UW, CMU, WCU and Air Force all came to test themselves against the big dogs of RMISA and it was great fun!
Ella had just returned from US Nationals and the travel delays for the SNOW team were extreme, leaving most of the athletes with lingering illness. Ella was no exception, spending much of the week trying to catch up on sleep and get healthy enough to race. On the morning of the 5km free it was a little touch & go as to whether Ella would feel good in the race but she was well enough to try and try she did! At the half-way point of the 5km Ella was tied for 3rd with Bryant from Air Force and Brown from CMU and 30 seconds down the Berrigan from WCU. With only about half a kilometer of uphill, Ella's favorite, and 2km of downhill & flat left it seemed unlikely she would be able to do much better than 4th but she proved herself not only a hill climber but a good downhiller as she beat both Brown & Bryant and gained 10 seconds on the leader! She finished 2nd in USCSA for the day and only 1 second out of a University of Alaska Fairbanks athlete! The second day was a mass start classic, traditionally Ella's weaker technique. Ella was anything but weak in this race! Although a tad slow off the gun in the mass start she s0on found her rythm and started picking people off. She soon found herself well in front of the entire USCSA field and fighting with the Alaska skier that beat her the day before. She kept skiing stronger throughout the race and by the end beat the Alaska skier by 17 seconds and second place in the USCSA race by 1:22. Crazy awesome skiing from someone who last season struggled with classic races! We are super proud of the improvements in fitness, technique, and ski skills Ella has shown and we are looking forward to more incredible racing. YOU ROCK OUR WORLD! |
AuthorSNOW Collaborators post on a variety of topics and thoughts. We also post the weekly training for the team here. Want to contribute? Let us know! Archives
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