Bluebird skies

That's a beautiful picture...if I were into running right now. But despite my little venture yesterday, I'd like to keep skiing until April 1. While it's spring in Portland, it's still winter at Pineland, but a week like that to the right cannot be good.

I did 3 laps of Oak Hill this afternoon, minus Gloucester Hill, which was roped off. I think they actually groomed Oak Hill this morning but it froze over and ranged from frozen corduroy to frozen hard pack. A pack of elephants in high heels could have run on it with no damage to the surface.

I finally met Nate, Shannon, and Little Finley (is that his full name, Danielle?). They were in the Oak Hill parking lot packing up to leave when I arrived. Some other familiar faces were there. Ben and Nate Niles were on Oak Hill. Nate will be representing Maine in the Eastern High School Championships at Rangeley next weekend. And John Eldredge (Pineland runner) and John Tarling arrived as I was finishing. John T's son Sam is representing New England this week at the Junior Olympics in Truckee CA. He finished 3rd in the B final (or 9th place overall) of the sprints on Monday and 6th in the 15K skate race yesterday. It's pretty cool to see Maine and New England skiers competing nationally and internationally.

For those not going to the inov-8 factory, not going to the North Face endurance race, not going to Bretton Woods, or not running Bradbury Saturday morning, you should head up to Black Mountain in Rumford and watch the NCAA cross-country championships (alpine is at Sunday River). Alpine and XC are combined for scoring (wierd huh?). UVM is currently in 2nd after the first day of alpine and XC. Dartmouth is way back in 7th. Middlebury is 8th. Colby and Bates are also there. Dave Roberts' (runs the Pineland Farms TR) daughter Elise placed 11th in classic today behind a bunch of names that sound suspiciously finnish, nowegian and swedish.