Winter is in full swing and I am roughly half way through a
very busy Eastern Carnival race season and my second semester at UNH. The fall
of 2014 brought many new challenges and experiences for me including my first
set of final exams, Thanksgiving training camp in Craftsbury, VT and my US
National XC Championships. Each of these experiences and the ones between were
new and exciting. These events were enhanced by having my teammates and the UNH
community as a whole at hand to encourage, support and engage me.
Dimond Library at UNH |
This fall I did struggle a bit to balance academics and
skiing. Energy management and staying healthy were my biggest challenges.
Despite these setbacks I had an acceptable conclusion to my training year and
was able to be successful in the classroom.
First EISA Bib |
Despite the lack of snow in New England my family and I had
an excellent Christmas and I found great training at the Jackson XC Ski Center.
Jackson must be good for me because my efforts there lead me to a 15th
place in the 15km Freestyle and a 28th place in the 30k classic at
the US Nationals in Houghton, Michigan. More notably, two of my teammates,
Gavin Hess and Peter Holmes qualified for World Junior Championships in Nordic
skiing. Additionally Kamran Husain, a former MWSC (now with SMS) athlete had an
awesome week and will be racing in Europe for the USA as well.
Things where pretty frosty in Michigan |
My first Carnival races where challenging, but most importantly
super fun. The comradery and high level of competition on the EISA circuit make
for an outstanding atmosphere. I placed well in the first two weekends and I am
looking forward to the rest of the season.
Striding it out my my teammate Eirik |
To follow my racing check out www.barttiming.com for results and www.eisaskiing.blogspot.com for
recaps and rankings. In addition, UNH Skiing posts often regarding goings on
within the team on Facebook, Instragram and Twitter.