Dear MAST Athletes, Families and Coaches: We have never been able to train together into the month of March. What a treat. For this reason, I am disappointed that we have to cancel practice on Wednesday. Our coaches will be working the races at Wild that day. You are always welcome to ski anyway. You can find plenty of drills on our Instagram site to keep you occupied. We still have ample opportunities to practice this week and into next week. The bottom line: Keep Practicing. Ski racing summer camps cost a lot of money. $300-$400 a day. Treat the next week of training as though you were attending a ski racing summer camp. The cost: a gallon of gas/day...if you drive a dump truck. $2.69. We have been returning to the fundamentals: stance and balance, flexing, edging, carving, upper body discipline, staying over the outside ski, accelerating out of the turn, etc. We are prepping for next year and I am seeing progress already in just two days of training post-race season with pods 7/8. We are setting some drill courses that challenge you to work on specific skills, like your balance, your flex, your angles, your pole plant. So, make use of the warmer temps, lengthening daylight and the opportunity to train into March. Show up every day. We have at least five practices remaining. You never know when a breakthrough will come. You just want to be there when it does. One other tip: Check out this page on our website. There are a lot of great online sites that offer instruction on ski technique using the drills we perform during the season. Thhis is a great time to study these. No pressure training. Just take a deep dive into the skills you need to build and improve. https://www.mplsalpineski.org/technique--tactics.html Now for those going to sections tomorrow: Section Champs Update. Attached are run orders for both the morning race and the afternoon race. We still need some race workers. Morning Race (Washburn): Gate Judges (2) Afternoon Race (SW and MAST): Gate Judge (1) Starter (1) All course worker positions are filled but more are welcome. The temps are forecasted to be warm tomorrow. We are invited to provide additional course workers for each race. If you have been course working this year at our races and would like to join the fun of keeping the courses buff, please email me directly at [email protected] Race 1 Worker Sign Up (Washburn) Race 2 Worker Sign Up (SW and MAST) Gate Judges: Please take some time today/tonight to watch the gate judge instructional video that you can access on our website: https://www.mplsalpineski.org/volunteer.html Just scroll down to the section on gate judging and click on the links. There are several resources available there to refresh your knowledge of your role. Be sure to draw accurate diagrams of your assigned gates. No disqualification will stand without an accurate diagram of the fault. Parents and athletes: We have moved your arrival time up to 7:30pm. The trip is roughly a 75-minute drive if you take 35W to North Branch. We moved it up to give you time to tape your paper bib number to your MAST stretch bib. You will be booting up and bibbing up in the parking lot so I recommend that you ride to Wild in your race suit. Just this morning, I received these additional notes from the Meet Manager. Please read. 1. Let's make sure people have masks on and also keep our spacing 2. Remember only one seed at a time in the roped off start area so there can't be multiple athletes from the same team in the start area. 3. Race 1 teams: make sure after the race is over you leave Wild Mt as soon as possible so we don't have all teams on the hill at the same time. 4. I will have one print out per Team with final results after race and will provide them to Head coach within 15 minutes or so after protest period is over 5. Remember it is reverse order within the seed for second run. 6. Please remind your gate judges to be on time for the gate judge meeting and make sure they have a drill. Need to make sure we are keeping gates in the snow as the race is running 7. I plan to have live-timing turned on and if you go out to the website now https://livetiming.usskiandsnowboard.org/ the races are loaded. Section racers.... you are welcome to rest tonight. If you feel you need to ski today, attend the 3:30 practice. Just make sure you get your skis tuned and waxed and tuck yourself into bed early. You have an early morning. And remember, eat a good breakfast. We will not have any food for you this year. Bring a healthy lunch if you need to fuel up between race runs or after. Thanks everyone. I am really proud of this team: the athletes, the parents, and the coaches. What a wonderful season we are having. Let’s keep it going. Mark
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