Juvenile Girls, 7.5K Nicole Dubois 24:21, 27th of 55 Jennie Hissa 26:01, 44th of 55 Junior Girls, 10K Leah Kirchmann 29:52, 8th of 61

Junior Boys, 15K Kieran Baird 42:22, 44th of 81 Junior Men, 30K Greg Cederwall 1:31:19, 36th of 42 Open Men, 50K Murray Carter 2:22:19, 36th of 52

Day 6 -- Training day for Sunday’s long distance skate race  by Coach Rob Kirchmann  (March 24th) The group had a leisurely start to the day, and we arrived at the event site at around 10:30 AM to pre-ski the race course. The first five kilometres of tomorrow’s race will be a new course the athletes have not raced on yet. It appears the first 3K of the race is an uphill climb that includes 100 meters of vertical. The payoff after climbing for 3K the downhill decent for the fourth and fifth kilometres! Trail conditions this morning were reported to be initially icy and hard. Apparently a male skier from the Newfoundland team had a bad fall on one of the steep sections and had to be taken to the hospital. The team thinks his nose may be broken, and that he sustained a concussion. The tentative race schedule for tomorrow has the Open Men category starting first as it is felt they can better handle the potentially icy fast and more dangerous course conditions than the younger skier groupings. Today’s ski at around 11 AM was good even though the trails were soft, and beginning to get wet. Stephane Lacroix arrived from Quebec City this morning to visit Murray, and he joined in on our group pre-ski. Stephane, as you may know, is taking his basic officer training with the military, and is currently on course in Quebec City. After the morning pre-ski was over, Jennie, Leah, Kieran, and Greg enjoyed some complimentary pancakes being prepared outside at the race site -- a great high carbo reload meal. I’m certainly looking forward to a fast and fun day at the races tomorrow. I've included a picture of the girls during their shopping in St. Foy, Quebec. As you can see, they were successful.

Day 5 -- Classic sprints  by Coach Rob Kirchmann  (March 23rd)

Unfortunately no one on the Manitoba team went on to the sprint heats today. Weather conditions went from hard and icy to soft and wet over a short period of time. Leah and Kieran reported some of the tracks they raced on had mud and dirt on them.

Classic Sprints -- all results are at www.zone4.ca/results.asp?ID=1336&cat=all

Juvenile Girls, 0.8K Nicole Dubois 4:11, 59th of 63 Jennie Hissa 4:21, 63rd of 63 Junior Girls, 1.2K Leah Kirchmann 4:26, 40th of 56

Junior Boys, 1.2K Kieran Baird 3:49, 71st of 79 Junior Men, 1.2K Greg Cederwall 3:37, 41st of 42 Open Men, 1.2K Murray Carter 3:21, 45th of 50

Day 4 -- Training day  by Coach Rob Kirchmann  (March 22nd) Today was a training day at Mont Ste Anne, and the team pre-skied the classic sprint course. Kieran said he's looking forward to the race, and he really likes the steep downhill in the course. Greg likes how the course is very central and the way it's in the shape of a figure 8. Leah met Amanda Ammar to obtained a pair of skate skis for Sunday's race. Leah was very pleased to be able to borrow Amanda's skis. I was amazed at the number of skis Amanda had in her ski bag; it looked like she had over twelve pairs of skis, and she said each pair had it’s own purpose depending on snow and course conditions. It rained lightly over night, so there was ice everywhere this morning. The race course was hard packed ice and wet due to light showers. We tried out a few klisters and found a couple that worked fairly well. Some of the gang went into Quebec City this afternoon to enjoy the sites. It rained hard this afternoon, and it will be interesting waxing for tomorrow's race.

Day 3 -- Medium distance, interval start, classic technique race  by Coach Rob Kirchmann  (March 21st)

Today was the medium distance classic race day.

We started off the day today arriving at the race course at about 7:00 AM to set up the waxing area. Nadene shuttled the athletes from the hotel to the hill several times so that waiting around time for them was limited.

Finding the grip and glide waxes for the day wasn't an issue with the colder temperatures. Some changes were made for the later races.

We have a possible ski set replacement for Leah courtesy of Amanda Ammar, a Junior National team member.

We all went to the banquet this evening in Quebec City, and enjoyed an excellent outing including magic, a fashion (lots of spandex), good food, and a Cirque de Soleil routine. It was the most impressive banquet I've been to yet for a Nationals.

Classic Technique, Interval Start -- all results are at www.zone4.ca/results.asp?ID=1334&cat=all

Day 2 -- Short distance, interval start, free technique race  by Coach Rob Kirchmann  (March 20th)

Today was not a great day for Team Manitoba. It snowed about 10cm overnight, which made for very soft snow conditions. Humidity was wonky -- at 8:00 AM, it went from 44% to 79% in half an hour. The weather changed repeatedly from sunny to cloudy to windy, with whiteouts within minutes during the races.

Leah unfortunately had a bad fall during the last kilometre of her race, which set her back. A split taken during the race showed she was within seconds of the leaders. The fall wasn’t the only bad thing that happened: she didn’t know it until the end of the race, but her ski broke near the tip during the fall. She basically skied the last kilometre on a broken ski. I’m now trying to contact the Salomon rep to see if he can find us a replacement set for Sunday’s mass start skate race.

Kieran’s glide was fine, as he passed skiers on the downhills. However, he had an issue with the skis when climbing in the soft snow. Fortunately, he’ll have another ski set option for Sunday’s race.

Nicole and Jennie both said they had okay races. Both girls managed respectable finishes. They were the last group to race, and had to endure skiing on mangled trails, which is not an easy feat. Jennie seemed to be pleased with her result today.

This is Greg’s first Nationals, so he wasn’t sure what to expect for results. He was okay with his finish. He stated he wasn’t far off the pace of the other University skiers. 

Murray thought his race could have gone a bit better than it did, but thought is was okay.

I hear the weather is going to warm up substantially here soon. Possibly even with rain for Thursday.

Let’s hope for a better day tomorrow for the team.

Free Technique, Interval Start -- all results are at www.zone4.ca/results.asp?ID=1331&cat=all 

Juvenile Girls, 5K Nicole Dubois 19:59, 50th of 61 Jennie Hissa 20:45, 53rd of 61 Junior Girls, 5K Leah Kirchmann 18:16, 31st of 62

Junior Boys, 10K Kieran Baird 35:21, 73rd of 81 Junior Men, 10K Greg Cederwall 35:34, 38th of 39 Open Men, 10K Murray Carter 30:09, 41st of 61

Day 1 -- Ready to race at Mont Ste Anne  by Coach Rob Kirchmann  (March 19th)

Team Manitoba is now settled in at Chez Charlie in St Anne de Beaupre. We pre-skied the course today, and I discovered that the trail not as technical as I thought it might be. However, the tracks are fairly soft because the area recently received a huge snowfall. The course has a number of gradual up hills, a really steep up hill, some really long down hills, and as Murray calls them, "elevator shaft" runs. There’s also a good share of flats. The athletes all seemed to like the course. The race on Tuesday is interval start, free technique. We met Mark (Manitoba’s wax tech at the Canada Winter Games) at the waxing area, and he told me he just got his ski bag from Whitehorse the other day. Mark doesn’t seem to have much luck with his luggage when he travels. Fortunately Air Canada came through for us and all our luggage arrived when we did.

   This page was last updated on March 23, 2007