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Good Morning:
Just a friendly reminder to state your race intentions for Saturday, Feb 6 and the remaining races in February. Deadline for stating race intentions for Feb 6: Monday evening at 11:59PM. https://www.mplsalpineski.org/race-day-sign-up.html Thank you. Mark ....more reporting to come on today's race... girls video uploaded to Sprongo... technical difficulties with boys video.... Great night everyone. 
Good Afternoon:
Thank you to all the parents who have signed up to work tomorrow's race. Wow. There is one course worker position open but otherwise all jobs have filled. You folks are awesome. We have one athlete (Chloe Bitney) racing in tomorrow's race who needs a ride tomorrow to Wild Mt. If anyone would be willing to help her out and offer her a ride, I know I would be very grateful and that she would be as well. Chloe is an enthusiastic mask wearer and kind and pleasant in all situations. Please text me if you are willing to give Chloe a ride: 612-275-8392. Listed below are the families who indicated that they would like to purchase one lift ticket if their athlete was selected to race at Wild on Friday. Ehlers George Kuehn Lamb Lindseth Margolis Noble-Schueller Vap Tickets are $29 each. Please bring a check or cash payable to Mpls Alpine to the hill tomorrow. You can give your check to either me or Mark Harritt, the MAST Treasurer. Parents who purchased a lift ticket for a sibling or yourself at the first Wild Mt race, please send a $29 check to Mpls Alpine/4800 Harriet Ave/ 55419. I forgot to collect from you at the race. Practice Friday morning at 9:15am to Noon. Wild Mt racers are welcome at practice but must depart the hill by 11am so you have time to recover and put a quick edge on your skis before departing for Wild. You are also welcome to stay home to clean the bathroom, vacuum the house, do the dishes, and tune your skis instead. Practice for ALL PODS Saturday morning at 7:45am to 10:15am. Bring rope tow gloves. To my eighth grade pod: BRING YOUR SHIN GUARDS TONIGHT!!!! Congratulations to all the students for making it through your first full semester of online education. Not the ideal, but you did it. Mark MAST Update 18 Wednesday, January 27, 2021 Dear MAST Athletes, Coaches, and Families: We are midway through our third week on snow together. We have learned and practiced many drills, posted video on Sprongo and Instagram, competed in two races, and skied thousands of gates and stubbies. Thank you to the athletes for your hard work and also for the way you have been conducting yourselves on the hill. Last night, a coach from another club stopped to talk with Coach Joel at the top of South Chair. She asked Joel the name of our team and then proceeded to tell him that the skiers on our team are the politest group training at Hyland. Now that is the kind of compliment a coach likes to hear. I also have been in several virtual meetings with coaches from across the state over the last several months and in our last meeting many coaches expressed frustration over the fact that they are continuously telling their skiers to put their masks back on. I have yet to do this because you have all been great about wearing your masks. I am really proud of you all. Thank you. I. Racing Jan 29 Wild Mt Race: Attached are the run orders and race plan for Friday’s race with Hill-Murray at Wild Mt. If you are slated to race, please check to see that your name is on the run order. Parents, please open the tab titled RACE PLAN to see the race worker positions and schedule for the afternoon. Please try to arrive ready to ski between 2:45 and 3. A coach will be stationed in front of the chalet no later then 2:45 with lift tickets. We have ONE additional race worker role to fill. Please email me directly at [email protected] if you can fill it. Starter: You are positioned in the start house with a headset to give the start commands to the racers and communicate with the Chief of Timing in the timing building. You have to be able to read two and three digit numbers to the Timer through the headset and give the following commands in a clear, commanding (yet calming and warm) tone to the athlete at your window: “Racer Ready”... wait a few seconds.... “Go”. This is a fun and easy job, and you get a great view of the first half of the course. Race Worker Sign Up for Remaining Hyland Races: Please sign up to work the remaining races at Hyland. The first race went very smoothly, and we finished well ahead of schedule. Thank you to all who worked the race. Saturday, Feb 6 Hyland Race Varsity Race Sign Up - https://signup.com/go/UcpuFic JV Race Sign Up - https://signup.com/go/fFyvWPh Friday, Feb 12 Hyland Race Varsity Race Sign Up - https://signup.com/go/JLwQDJq JV Race Sign Up - https://signup.com/go/EfHohzB Friday, Feb 19 Hyland Race Varsity Race Sign Up - https://signup.com/go/VNcCoSH JV Race Sign Up - https://signup.com/go/MDFXPcs Friday, Feb 26 Hyland Race Varsity Race Sign Up - https://signup.com/go/KgMydpL JV Race Sign Up - https://signup.com/go/VvpZCRB I am still working to get one or two more races on the schedule. One at Afton with Mahtomedi and another with Brainerd. Unfortunately, it is really hard to find venues that want to hold races this year and if they do, have the availability. Subsections, Sections and State: I am told that the MSHSL is expected to make a decision next week about whether to hold section and state championship competitions this year. Right now, “the thinking” is that we would have a subsection competition (4 teams) with the winner advancing to a four-team section championship. Most likely the state meet would consist of the four section champions only, but we are trying to get that bumped to eight teams. Our section championship (should we get that far) would be held on March 3. The State Meet would be a two-day affair (at this point) with March 9 for a state championship competition for individual qualifiers and March 10 for the team competition. II. A Couple of Reminders Continue Stating Your Race Intentions Thank you for stating your race intentions for the first three races. This really helps me out. Keep up the good work: https://www.mplsalpineski.org/race-day-sign-up.html Sprongo Watch your video on Sprongo. Study your video and the runs of your teammates. Listen to the coaching that your coach might be whispering into your ear as you watch. If you don’t have an account set up, check your email Inbox and Spam, because I have sent repeated email invites from Sprongo to those of you who do not have an account set up. Next to Sprongo, the greatest coaching tool ever. Watch the drills we post on Instagram before and after practice. Implant the images into your mind. No other team has 70 drills on video with verbal instructions to guide their athletes through the fundamental movements of the sport. USE THIS TOOL. Tuning Keep your skis sharp and waxed. If you don’t know how to tune your skis, go to our Ski Tuning Page on our website and download two helpful pdf documents--MAST Tuning Guide and MAST Tuning Supplies: https://www.mplsalpineski.org/ski-tuning.html Hill Clean UP Please be sure you are sticking around after training to help tear down the courses and slip in the ruts. It takes multiple runs of slipping to get the lanes back in shape. MAST prides itself on being good stewards of the lanes we are assigned so please do your part and stay to help. A big thank you to the coaches—both volunteer and paid. The pandemic has knocked us off our normal routines and you have adapted to the many changes. Thank you. Mark 612-275-8392 PS. For all of you blessed and loved enough to be going somewhere else to ski over the next several days, have fun and use the longer runs of the mountain to practice your drills. Plus, just enjoy making the best carved turns on the mountain, non-stop top to bottom.
Good Afternoon:
Listed below are the athletes who have been selected to race at Wild Mt. Due to limitations on field size imposed on us by the MSHSL, we had to restrict our numbers. This means there are many of you who wished to attend this race but won't be able to do so. Keep working hard. We have a lot of races on the schedule yet and may be adding two more. If your plans have changed and you cannot attend the race on Friday, please let me know immediately so that I can invite the next person on the list. Reminder, you must ride with a parent driver. You may NOT drive yourself to Wild Mt. Thanks. Mark MAST Girls
SW Girls
WHS Girls
SW Boys
WHS Boys
Parents: please see race worker signup if you plan to attend the Wild Mountain race on Friday.
1/29 Wild Mountain Race Race Day Schedule
More information will be coming this week. Good Morning:
Out next race is Friday, January 29th at Wild Mt. Your second semester ends on Thursday and you are off of school on Friday. We have a varsity race against Hill Murray at 4:30PM on Friday. There is practice for those who are not racing at 9:15am on Friday as well. For those who are racing you may attend practice for a short while if you wish. Again, parents will need to drive their athletes to and from Wild. Please plan to arrive no later than 3PM, preferably before. Look for a email requesting race workers in the next day or two. For now, I need to know who is available to race. All MAST athletes should state their intentions to race-- Yes or No-- so that we can select the teams and notify families in advance. We suspect some of you will be taking the long weekend to get away so we won't assume availability. The deadline to state your race intentions is NOON on MONDAY, January 25. Here is a link: https://www.mplsalpineski.org/jan-29-2021-wild-mt-race-vs-hill-murray.html While you are on the website, please state your intentions for the remaining races on the schedule. Thank you, Mark 612-275-8392 Good Afternoon MAST Fans: Congratulations and thank you. Congratulations to all the athletes who competed today. You skied very well considering you have only been skiing and training for less than two weeks. You are already better than you were last year. You have worked impressively hard in practice and the improvement was on display today. A quick message to our JV skiers: your free-skiing skills are way ahead of your skills in a race course. I'm proud of the way you attacked the course but your skiing is still much better outside of the course. This is normal when you are picking up new skills as fast as you have been these first two weeks. It is hard to take newly acquired technical skills and transfer them to a race course in just one or two weeks. We will continue to work the drills and then bring them into the course to solidify them in the controlled environment of a race course. Be patient. Thank you to all the parents and coaches on the hill today. A lot of people came together to pull off a quality ski race --make that two quality ski races. Ski racing is unique in that the race workers and officials come from the parent ranks. So thank you and keep signing up to help. Congratulations to Quinn Jurek for finishing first in the girls' varsity race. She won by over three seconds. Impressive. Congratulations to Sonia Svedahl, Eli George, Chloe Bitney, Meghan Abel, Athelia MacKimm, and Eleanor Vap who finished third through eighth. On the boys side, Charlie Smith claimed his first victory of his career with Erik Arnold close behind in second. Ninth grader Levi Ehlers had another great finish placing third with teammate Owen Hemer right behind in fourth. The Washburn girls and Southwest boys finished first in team scoring. In the JV race, Julia Westphal put down two extremely fast runs to win by over four and a half seconds. Maddie Graff, Elika Vahhaji, and Mila Voyakin finished second, third and fourth respectively. Braeden Dahmes was victorious on the boy's side, winning by nearly five seconds. Luke Moertel's hard work in training paid off to put him in second place. Two rookies took third and fourth, ninth grader Eli Kroll and seventh grader Sam Moore. Overall, a very good morning of racing. I look forward to seeing everyone on Monday at practice. Be sure to tune your skis if you didn't get a chance to do this before today's race. Thank you again for everyone who worked the race. Four different parents videotaped the race and your runs are already loaded onto Sprongo. Please watch them and tag them. That saves the coaches a lot of work. If you haven't set up your Sprongo account, do so now. See you Monday. Mark
Good Afternoon:
Preparations are going well for our first home race at Hyland. The Swiss army flew in last night to boot pack the hill today. Run orders are set. Bibs are ready for distribution. Coaches are assigned. Many jobs have filled, but a few remain open. We still need two gate judges for the Varsity race and five for the JV race. You get FREE training AND you get a front row seat to all the action. Better than Jimmy John's free smells promotion. We still could use two people to film the JV race and two to take photos at the JV race. Also, we need two ANNOUNCERS. One for the Varsity race and one for the JV race. You will need to dress very warmly because you will be announcing from the 2nd floor landing of the timing shack, which gives you a great view of the action. No training necessary but helpful if you don't mumble. Please text or email me directly if you would like to ANNOUNCE one of our two races. Here are the links to sign up to work the races. https://signup.com/go/ATkNOVJ for JV Race and https://signup.com/go/VZgcUHX for Varsity Race Remember, Hyland will be busy tomorrow morning so allow extra time to navigate the drop off line. Excited to see our athletes in action. Everyone should try to put an edge on their skis tonight after practice. If time allows, wax. The snow is hard. Sharp edges will bring joy to your skiing and warm my heart when I watch you slice through the ice and carve a perfect turn. Mark 612-275-8392 [email protected] MAST Update: Jan 23rd Race at Hyland Thursday, January 21, 2021 Dear Athletes, Coaches, Parents: Attached are the run orders and race plan for Saturday’s race at Hyland. You will see that we are racing with the Academy of Holy Angels. Thank you to all the athletes who stated their race intentions for this race. A handful have not done so yet. There is room in the JV race for more racers so if you would like to be added to the JV race run order, send me an email by the end of today to be included. [email protected] Please check to see that your name is listed if you plan to race. If you don't plan to race and your name is listed, let me know. A couple of quick notes. The JV race will run from 8-10:15am approximately. The varsity from 10:15am to 12:15pm approximately. I would ask that the varsity athletes NOT come over to the race hill until the JV race has concluded. You can warm up on center chair or south chair. Coach Matthew and Coach Eleanor will meet you on the top of center chair at 9:30 for warm-ups. They will have a radio link to the race and will know when it is time to move to the race lanes (lanes 1 and 2). Due to the limited space at the bottom of the hill at Hyland, we are NOT allowing spectators at our Hyland races. Hyland is simply too busy. However, we do have race worker roles that need filling. Parents, if you want to see the race, you will need to fill a race worker role. I am very sorry, but this is the only way we can safely hold races at Hyland this season. We will try to film the races and post them to Sprongo (as we did the first race at Wild) so you can see your athlete’s race runs there. We could use two photographers at each race to take pictures. Email if you would like to take photos. This role is not listed in the worker sign up. I suggest that parents drop off their JV athletes at 7:45am so they have time to hike the hill before the lifts open. That is a good warm up. Varsity athletes should meet at the top of center at 9:30 for warm-ups. At the conclusion of the JV race, all JV athletes should give the race lanes one good slip (out) and then move off the North Chair area. Go free ski elsewhere or head home. We will not have awards. The varsity will move to the race lanes once you have moved off. Here are the links to sign up to work the races. https://signup.com/go/ATkNOVJ for JV Race and https://signup.com/go/VZgcUHX for Varsity Race We have never run races this way before. This race is a test run of sorts to see if we have accurately estimated the logistics and timing. If we need to make adjustments for the following races we will do so. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. Please note separate tabs for JV and Varsity in attachment. JV and Varsity run orders appear in separate tabs in the attachment sent with the last update on the Jan 23 race. Click on the proper tab to see your run order. Some JV racers are entered in the Varsity race, so if you don't find your name listed, check the other tab. Third third tab list the race schedule and plan. Mark Conway 612-275-8392
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