Eastern Cup #1 Waterville, ME

Julia Thurston told me she makes a to-do list, and focuses on check things off in 15-minute increments before giving herself a break from work. I’m still recovering from an amazing weekend of lengthy travel, late nights of waxing and planning, and full days of the greatest Junior racing in the country, so I’m going to take that approach and make a list of what made this past weekend so great…

• Racing with the rest of New England! Team vans lining the lots, parents and skiers and coaches all buzzing about a stadium, an announcer playing music and calling the action…wow, it had been a long time.
• Our new trailer! Thanks to a generous donation from Luke Shullenberger and outfitted with some of the coolest waxing tools and supplies, this is a home base at the races that coaches and skiers can all get behind. And a comfortable warm spot to wax skis until the wee hours of the morning when the cold wind is howling outside.
• In-person pre-race team meetings, complete with sidetracked discussions and absolutely every question you could possibly imagine about how a sprint day works.
• The team showing up ready to make a statement. With each new race I have to acknowledge a reality and make sure the team recognizes and accepts it as well: we really are as fast as we think we are. Turns out being the hardest working team on the Eastern Cup pays off when the gun goes off!
• Everything about team van travel. From pushing the thing out of the snowy mud in the parking lot to hearing a bunch of teenagers attempt to karaoke Bob Marley at max volume 3 hours into the nighttime drive home.
• Experiencing standout objective results (like Ava winning the open women’s race on Sunday and her MNC teammates mixing up the college racers, or the U16 boys taking up 3 of the 6 spots in the A-Final in the sprint) alongside markers of growth like the first Eastern Cup or team travel race for much of the group.
• A huge team! Sara and I looked it up, and we had more U16 athletes racing in Waterville this year than we had ENTIRE MNC RACERS at the Waterville Eastern Cup in 2016. You can see all results here.
• This photo from Dave Priganc which really says all you need to know about what racing, MNC, and Nordic skiing is all about