Dublin Ski Your Heart Out 2025
On Saturday, February 22nd, ski racers from around New England traveled to Dublin, NH. The morning was brisk with a bit of wind, but the sun balanced the colder temps to make it pleasant. The course was a homologated 3.3k loop. Skiers climbed out of the start, winding mostly uphill through the forest for about 2k before a fun winding descent back to the stadium. As the only NWVE member, I skied up front early with a strong contingent of Freedom Trail and Dublin club members. I sat in second, not wanting to push the pace myself, and I waited for any stronger skiers to make a move. At the start, I saw the familiar face of an NWVE rival, Rob Bradley, adopting the familiar black and gold color scheme from Toko to the Freedom Trail club. Early on, I kept tabs on his progress and saw him eying my progress as he fell to around seventh, losing contact with the main group. Late in the first loop on the downhill, the race started to take shape; I slid into the lead briefly, almost by accident, but took the time to enjoy the view as the leader before Lindsey Masterson overtook me. She seized the opportunity and, on the 2nd lap climb, put in a hard effort using home course tactics while taking Dublin teammate Marc Florenz with her. Racheal Strock, the early leader, and a couple of others fell slightly behind. I held on a bit longer but could not hold the pace. I had to regain a little composure, which allowed the Strock group to come back a bit as the two leaders settled in with a comfortable gap. I was worried on the top of the climb, my effort would slip to the back of the chase pack, but I would soon find out I was the best descender and opened a 7-8 second gap. Working hard, I held the gap to about 3 seconds to the top of the 3rd climb and opened it back up with an aggressive descent into the finish. I did a couple of cooldown loops, chatted with Stewart Kremzer, and headed home with renewed enthusiasm that led to a multi-state campaign to reopen registration for the Sunday race in Lake Placid after timers closed early out of frustration over procrastinating skiers.
Scott
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