The 2010 AXCS National Masters hosted by the Craftsbury Outdoor Center in Craftsbury, Vermont is just over a week away with strong entries reported in all events. A record 2.5 feet of snowfall in parts of Vermont earlier this month no doubt helping push registration for what is shaping to be a fantastic long weekend of skiing fun.
NM2010 events begin with the Thursday, January 28 afternoon 10km freestyle championship race. Organizing Chair John Brodhead has this report on the opening event:
“We are looking forward using the newly refurbished Ruthie’s Run, a 10 km long single loop, which descends and climbs 4 or 5 modest hills while traversing quintessential Vermont Farmlands including streams, hardwood and softwood forests, beaver ponds and high meadows. The entire trail is now wide enough for two skating lanes and smooth enough to groom with a PistenBully snow cat. The snow has been very good this winter since mid-December. The trail crew continues to do yeoman snow-farming, moving snow onto the course with shovels and scoops to further enhance snow depth on miles of trail. The plan for the start of the 10 km skate is to have about 10 wave starts by gender/age class, one wave each 3 minutes starting at 2:30. Everyone should be on course by 3:00 with still plenty of light at 4:00 when I anticipate all would be finished. I believe we may have close to 200 registered by race day (last winter Anchorage enrolled 125 in the first year of the new National Masters format)!”
On Friday, January 29 a special addition to the 2010 National Masters will take place in the form of the Onion River Sports Dash for Cash individual sprints. Although an “unofficial” National Masters event in terms of scoring for the honorary U.S. Masters Team, there is a very official $1000 purse in the balance with categories ranging from juniors to M8 masters!
This fun-and-fast sprint will be held on a 200m course with one qualifying round followed by semi and final heats for the top 8 in each gender (thus only a max of 3 x 200m for any skier the evening before the marathon).
Events wrap up on Saturday, January 30 with the beast of the East — TD Bank Craftsbury Ski Marathon. Over 600 skiers are now registered in one of the classic technique 50km or 25km events with more anticipated up to the event day.