Where to begin?

WHELLLPP......we here at the HRT Newsroom are trying desperately to dig ourselves out from behind the piles and piles of headlines about HURT skiers doing awesome things and having great races.  It certainly isn't been easy.  With so much racing and so many things to share you may be here for a while....

We, at the Newsroom, took one week off from skiing to travel from District 12 to the great city of Panem to encourage the powers-that-be to stop turning the U.S.A into a dumpster fire....and we missed a whopper of a weekend in Lake Placid.  So let's start there.  The Lake Placid JNQ was the final stop on the qualification circuit for HURT juniors looking to grab a spot on the Mid-A Junior National Team, the NY Eastern High School Championship Team or the NY U16 Championship Team.  When the snowflakes all settled on Sunday the list of the qualified athletes included many tributes skiing in green.  The following HURT kids will have the chance to represent Mid-A in Lake Placid at JN's: Eliza Blood, Emily Atamanchuk, Nino Manzella, Dan Manzella, Brian Beyerbach, and Seamus Tombs.  This group has also qualified to ski at Eastern High School Championship at Mountain Top Resort and are also joined by a long list of HURT athletes that include: James Conway, Brendan Tomb, Casey Tomb, Michael Halligan, Julianne Burns, Maggie Borgos, Anna Wiedmann, Bryce Beyerbach, and Alex Fragomeni.  Both Bryce and Alex, thanks to some very crafty birthday/birthyear planning, have secured a spot on the U16 trip to Maine as well.  Congrats to all the kids who survived and thrived in a very intense and competitive month of qualification.

A full breakdown of Mid-A points can be found here: http://www.midaxc.com/home/announcements/mid-afinalrankingslist

All junior skiers who are interested in securing their spot on the EHSC team need to visit this link: https://www.skireg.com/new-york-state-eastern-hs-championship-signup ASAP and submit your deposit for the trip.  Don't wait to get a spot on the team.

A link to secure a spot on the U16 trip is here: https://www.skireg.com/new-york-u16-championship-team

Frago nabs a podium spot on Sunday in LP!

Racing kept right on going at the Craftsbury Marathon, Eastern Cup at Rikert, Shenendehowa Classic and SBC Mini Marathon.  On Saturday it was the HURT Open/Masters team who got into the action with Chris Yarsevich leading the way for the team and Aaron Huneck, Greg Stevens, Roger Henry, Richard Dixon, Sherry Dixon, Eric Hamilton and Alec Davis rounding out a solid Masters turnout.  It is clear that classic skiing is on the mind of racers who are looking to tune up for a Empire State Games distance race next weekend and a 15K Hurt-athon on February 12th.  

Ed Luban and Carol Fisher took it up a notch at the Craftsbury Marathon and Carol was the 11th Female and 3rd M7 in the 25K and Ed was the 4th M7 and 44th overall in the 50. Kudos to them for enjoying the blueberry soup!  

It was the Beyerbach brothers who tackled the Eastern Cup field and despite an unfortunate miscalculation on the Sprint day, had a great two days of racing. It was Brian who led the way and grabbed two top 35's in a deep EC field.  

Following the Shen Classic Race, on Sunday the Saratoga Biathlon Club opened their trails once again to the NYSSRA community and held their annual mini-marathon 15/25K freestyle race.  On this day there was no question who the class of the field was as Brian Halligan skied to an easy victory.  DPK followed in a hard fought 5th with Eric Hamilton and Alex Fragomeni joining from the HURT squad.  If ever there was a hunger-games moment from the weekend it was in the 15K skate race that saw 5 enter and only 3 survive. (2 DNF, one for a broken ski, the other for two broken poles, a dislocated thumb, and a sprained shoulder). The infamous "first hill" at SBC saw a pileup minutes after the start that would define many a-skiers day.  

Full results from the weekend can be seen here

Matt T rolling to 3rd and DPK grabbing a ride. 

BH....this picture is fast.

While all this racing makes for great updates, perhaps the biggest news of the week is that the Bill Koch Program of HURT Nation are truly THRIVING...nay....BURSTING with young talent.  You don't believe me? Check the pics...

Phew....we made it through the stack. Enough updating for now. Please tell me that there is no racing on Tuesday....

-Katness Everdeen

HURT contributing editor. 

Wine and Peanut Butter

This past weekend HURT held the world-famous*-one-and-only**6-hour-nordic-ski-relay-event better known as the "Mega-Relay" at Garnet Hill in North River.  With the January thaw coming in hard and vicious in the days leading up to the event there was major doubt that organizers would be able to pull it off and that skiers would put away their bikes and paddle-boats for a ski race.  But as micro-climates and elevation would have it, the white stuff stayed around enough to treat venturesome skiers to a great day of skiing.
*not really
**not actually true

After all the laps were counted and all the chili was eaten once again the W.I.N.O.S. (women in need of skiing) dominated the Women's division and walked away with full glasses and big smiles.  They have YET to relinquish the title and have an undefeated winning streak that rivals some of the great winning streaks of all time.  They only are a mere 550 Mega-Relay wins away from toppling the winning streak of the great nordic enthusiast* and Pakistani squash player Jahangir Khan's streak of 555 consecutive wins in squash from 1981 to 1986.  

Here they are rocking their winning smiles.

In the Men's division the day was not so glorious.  The thin and underrepresented HURT men's team consisting of Chris Y., DPK and Eric H. floundered their way throughout the day and limped to a 2nd place finish...but miles away from the first place Peru powerhouse of Rose, Allison and Wellford. The trio from Peru skied fresh and fast all day and appeared to be a team of four instead of a heavily taxed team of three.  Here they are posing at the finish.

Needless to say, when Directress 1 and Directress 2 arrived in the afternoon to assess the effort by the boys, they were clearly disappointed.  They were subject to quite a tongue lashing and in a furry emotion Directress 2 vowed to revamp the HURT men's program and bring an end to the Peru dominance in the 6-hour relay discipline.  Our keen eyed photographer nabbed the moment for posterity.  

The Mixed trio team of Sherry, Alec and Richard, that HURT sent in faired little better than the men.  However they filed a formal recommendation to the organizing committee that if under 16 and over 45 equal 1.5 laps for each lapped skied...surely an over-70 skier should reap the fruits of their longevity and get a 2-1 advantage.  Such a protest has been sent to the FIS committee and is under review*.

Anyways...what's done is done. and now the focus shifts to the HURT-athon on February 12th.  Plan on this 15K classic race to be one of the highlights of the racing season.  HURT has landed a new title sponsor for the event. The race will feature great podium and age group prize packages and on-the-trail raffle items will be given to random bib numbers.  VERMONT PEANUT BUTTER and their lifestyle-nut-butters will featured at the event, along with other HURT supporters.  We look forward to making that race a fun, hard, exciting day of racing for everyone. Register today!

Welcome to 2017....a whole new world.

It's a New Year and HURT Nordic kicked things off with a bang with a two-day JNQ event at the Gore Mountain - North Creek Ski Bowl.  The full 2.5K FIS loop was unveiled with its "A" Climb, twisting descent and perfect corduroy.  With a combination HS race on Saturday, the new venue was introduced to almost 600 competitors. And the JNQ/Masters Sunday Skate race had triple digits as well.   This weekend marked a big step forward for HURT nordic's ambitions to host a big nordic race event and the HRT Newsroom was on hand to file a report....."2017-bigly-style"


Special Report: HRT Newsroom

Since 2017 has clearly marshaled in a seismic shift in the way journalism functions, foreign policy is crafted, domestic policy is crafted, and the way our national leaders weigh in on cable programming....the HRT newsroom will not be left off the leading edge of the ineptitude curve.  So in a dramatic move we asked Dave PK to live-tweet every aspect of his day on Saturday.  He served as race organizer, Junior coach, HURT ski tech-team leader, and racer and thus we felt a running record of his live tweet-o-grams would give you a true inside look at our JNQ weekend.

This is by far the best picture of the day.  For other pictures, and results from both Saturday and Sunday... see the facepages and other haunts on the interwebs.  And come to the North Creek Ski Bowl to see how awesome this place is.

Hope that the rainy weather stays away.  We hope to see you on Jan. 14th at Garnet Hill for our Mega-Relay.  Registration is still open!