New group photo!
Chandra Crawford's (2006 Canadian Olympic Gold Medalist in skiing) program Fast and Female was brought to Madawaska today via our top US nordic skiers and biathletes. We put aside our race bibs today and dawned SKIDA hats, ISIS vests, handmade name headbands and formed little teams of girls from the Madawaska Elementary School and surrounding towns like Presque Isle and Fort Kent. The mission of Fast Female is to unite girls, give them a fun and encouraging experience on skis, and inspire their confidence and journey to reach their own goals. The participants range from 9 to 19, and the instructors range from local skiers and moms, to elite club skiers, National Ski team members and Olympians; together it forms an invigorating nordic love fest and demonstrates all sorts of reason to get into nordic skiing if you live in cold wintery places like northern Maine. Not only that, when asked why we love to ski, many of us cited to that it is a healthy and lifelong sport that keeps your body, mind and heart strong and dominating.
Kikkan Randall kicks off the morning with an inspiring talk.
Then we head out to the soccer field for a game of sharks and minnows, obstacle courses, ski technique, sprints, and a couple downhill course where our speed was clocked with a radar.
I took a hot chocolate break with Noelle and Grace.
....marshmellows and all.
The elementary school is just down the road from the Four Season Trail center where our weekend races will be held and tomorrow's classic race will be my first in many years.
Let the klister begin.
Teammate Susan, a fellow Fast and Female instructor, and I waxing up before our ski.
The stadium and newly built Four Seasons lodge.
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