Tuesday, January 27, 2015

College Continues


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.