I need to Vent!

Catharsis, that's a word right? I am writing this blog as a cathartic enterprise rather than a way to keep you updated on my life. Hopefully, both purposes will be served, but I need someone to listen to a rant, and I have decided that your collective eyes will have to suffice. That said, prepare to have your minds blown because this is quite the tale, if I do say so myself. I feel as tough as nails right now. This will also serve as a warning. This is a ridiculously long post, so get snacks. I won't blame you if you need a few days to get through it.

Begin:
The week of Thanksgiving, two of the other Maine Winter Sports Center coaches (there are four of us) left to take the cross-country and biathlon elite teams out west to race. Eileen and I were left in The County to run two Thanksgiving camps that were supposed to be in Canada and overlap with one another. There was no snow in Canada, so we changed plans on the fly and had a camp in Maine, where there was snow. It was a little crazy, but we pulled it off.

After the camps, Eileen left to join the elite team out west, so I was the only coach left in Maine. I was charged with running the show for three different programs in four different towns. That means that I was holding 16 practices a week for the two weeks I was alone. It was intense. I was not sure I was ready to be in charge of all of this yet, but I managed to make it happen. The silver lining is that I did a ton of training and got into pretty good shape. The downside is that I didn't sleep much.

To further complicate things, I was also charged with taking care of Hunter, the neurotic dog of one of the other coaches. Hunter is older than time and has two talents: Barking and pooping. He loved going to practices so much that if I so much as put on socks, he went into a tizzy and wouldn't stop barking until we were in the car. I quickly realized that when it was time to go somewhere the first step was to put on shoes and put Hunter in the car. After that I was free to go back inside and have breakfast, take a shower, or do whatever I needed to take care of. Hunter was happy as a clam out in the car, and I was happy to let him sit out in the cold.

Last Tuesday night, all the other coaches got home. That was great. We had two days to pack, wax, and prepare for the first races of the season for our high schoolers. I also had to pack to go home for Christmas. We were to leave Friday morning at 6:00am from MadTown. On Wednesday, I packed a bag, so I could stay overnight in Caribou (a little over an hour south of my house). I had a practice to run down there the next morning. After practice, I had to pack up the race trailer and wax boxes. Then I was scheduled to drive to Fort Kent to watch a local high school race and help our skiers wax for the weekend's races. Unfortunately, I got a flat tire about half-way up to Ft. K. The spare was rusted onto the undercariage, so I couldn't change the tire. It was after 5:00pm, so most repair places were closed. Matters were made more desperate by the fact that I was leaving the next morning at 6:00am to drive to Stowe, VT, so I had to have the tire repaired that night. At the fourth place I called, I was able to talk them into driving out to get me with a flatbed. They were also willing to fix the tire. The only problem was that they were back in Caribou. All told, it took me 2.5hrs to get from Caribou to Caribou, and the kids still weren't waxed for the races. I elected to have a quick dinner with Nick Kline in the 'Bou. We had made soup the night before and, thankfully, had plenty of leftovers. I managed to finagle some alternative wax for the kiddies from long distance, so I didn't have to go wax in Ft. K, but I still had to get home and pack. I arrived home at 9:30pm, packed for the races and my trip back to Steamboat and, after a pep talk on the phone with one of my skiers, got to bed by 11:00.

['All this and Toast hadn't even left The County yet,' you say. Well, it only gets crazier...]

On Friday, the snow storm hit. Flakes started to fall near the New Hampshire, Vermont border, and they became more intense as we neared Stowe. Driving to Vermont from Madawaska is already an ambitios trip, but our 9hr drive slowly became a 12hr drive as we inched along some Vermont coutry road in a train of cars that stretched as far into the snow as you could see. I am confident that the cause of the train we were a part of was a family from Connecticut in some kind of huge SUV. I'm guessing the father was white-knuckling his way down the road while his wife tried to offer helpful suggestions that only made him angry, like, 'Honey, why don't we just pull over and let everyone past?' Meanwhile the kids were in the back watching Dora the Explora on DVD and screaming. When you are driving 20mph for that long, you have time to use your imagination.

Saturday was my first race as a coach, and it went really well. I waxed and tested skis like it was my job (oh wait...), right, so I waxed and tested skis like crazy. It was pretty fun, and I was only a little bitter that I couldn't race.

On Sunday I did get to race. There was less waxing involved that day, and one of the other coaches and I both raced. It was great. I still had a very good ranking from last season, so I started with the red group (that means the fastest 20 people and it's a good thing). I was also pleasantly surprised to find that I still belonged in the red group. I put the hammer down on a lot of people, including my own athletes. Aside from two skiers from the elite squad (one of whom has raced at World Championships) I was the fastest skier from our team. I beat every kid that I was coaching, and earned some serious respect. I don't know if it's good or bad that I destroyed the kids I coach. Hopefully, it reflects my ability as a skier and not my ability as a coach.

I was struck by something after the race. I realized, as people came up to congratulate me on a good race, that I actually cared more about how my athletes had done than how I had done. It didn't matter that I had raced well. "How did Kaitlyn do?" I wanted to know, or how did any of them do? I know that's how a coach is supposed to feel, but I didn't think I would feel it. After some reflection I realized that I've been investing a lot of time in these kids, and to see them succeed is a return on my investment. I really haven't put too much into my own training this year, so I don't care as much one way or the other. It was upon that realization that I truly became a coach. Until this weekend, I was a smart, bossy training partner who did a good job pretending to be a coach. Now I honestly believe myself when I tell people I am a coach. This is new...

After the race, I headed straight for Portland. My flight was leaving at 5:30am (at least that's what I thought), and I had another storm to drive through. I had the misfortune of driving a different van for this leg of my journey. The van I drove to Stowe was all-wheel-drive and had snow tires. The van I drove away from Stowe was front-wheel-drive and had no snow tires. Let me tell you, Franconia Notch and the Kankamagus Highway are no picnic in that kind of van in that kind of snow storm. It was a beasto of a drive, and it took all my will power not to turn off at Cannon or Loon and rent a pair of alpine skis for the next morning. In retrospect, that's probably what I should have done.

Portland was a shit show. People were pushing cars all over the place (including mine a couple times), and traffic laws were thrown out the window. I had never driven in a city where the plows couldn't get to every road, and it was quite an experience. I really enjoyed getting out and pushing a stranger's car so that traffic could move again. It inspired a feeling of community in me. It was also amazing how many nice people there are out there in a snow storm (or maybe just guys who help because their wives are telling them to).

Anyway, the next morning I left the Comfort Inn for the airport at 3:30am. I arrived at PWM to find a scrawny kid behind the ticket counter waiting to fuck me in the ass. He informed me that everything on the east coast was backed up and the earliest I could hope to leave was Christmas Eve and that was from Boston. I had to let him fuck me, what was I going to do? My hands were tied (airlines like to tie you up), and I had already given Delta my $600. I wanted something for the money.

I am writing this post from the living room in Jess Coliflores's apartment. I took a bus to Boston yesterday afternoon after a eating one of everything on the menu at IHOP. We had dinner with Katie Klepinski and her boyfriend last night, and today hopefully I'll be able to track down a couple more of you. I'm also going to see Harvard Square because I'm a tourist. I will fly home tomorrow morning, and my Mommy and Papa will still love me, and I will have been able to catch up with a couple friends...Cathrsis complete.

Hello!

Hello all,

I just checked the blog today for the first time in awhile (since Toast was in Sweden, actually). It sounds like those of you who have posted since then are busy and up to great things (including lots of skiing apparently!). Nate, congrats on the job! Jamie, it was great to see you up at Colby, and good luck on your finals! Val, I am obsessed w/my kids too and I talk about them all the time so I can definitely relate (school kids, I don't have any children of my own, don't worry). Toast, I hope your Thanksgiving went well and thanks for the birthday love!

I am busy working in the Special Ed department at an elementary school near my home outside Chicago. I really like the job, although living at home is a drastic (and sad) change from life last year. I pretty much spend every weekend with my boyfriend and friends in the city though which is a lot of fun. I haven't run into anyone from Colby around here, although I have heard that a few people from our class and a few '07ers are living in Chicago. I was in New York a few weeks ago, staying with Lauren Langford, and I had the pleasure of hanging out w/a number of Colby people including Caroline A. and Mollie Puskar (who took a bus in from Boston for the weekend), Mary H., Aditya, Kabatz, and Ian Singer and all of his friends. I had a great time and am looking forward to seeing more of you ASAP!

Hope all is well with everyone and Happy Holidays! Take care!

Anna

I'm on my way!

Hi everyone,
I hope you all had an excellent thanksgiving and you are all enjoying whatever it is that now occupies your life since the days of playing beer day at noon and watching planet earth after accomplishing nothing in miller have ended. Only two essays and a short flight are separating me from a brief return to our newly liberated country....I'm only home for 2 weeks, 13-28th December, but would love to try and see as many of you as possible.

I'm planning a trip to Portland/Waterville, ME as soon as I return home, around the 14-15th, but after that I will be around NH/New England generally and in an effort to see all of you, I thought perhaps a reunion in Boston, or, if people are able, I would love to have all of you up to NH to do some skiing, so consider this an invitation anytime between the 16thish and a date reasonbly close to Christmas to come hang out and ski, and in the event that you don't ski, I'm sure there will be plenty of drinking. If certain dates work well for people and we can set something up so a bunch of us can get together at the same time that would be awesome, either way, I'm looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible!

Cheers
Brian