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Closing weekend

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Why the delay before writing about the final weekend? As with every season, it is always bittersweet to see it come to a close. The nets are rolled up for the last time, gates are bundled and stored, coaches and athletes extend well wishes for the coming offseason. These moments of closure hit me harder than expected as I wasn't quite ready for my first season to end. Before getting into end of season notes, we have the happenings of the final weekend to cover! On Saturday, the Jeff Tait Championships were contested and continued as a fundraiser for Jeff's two young boys as well as an end of the season championship for WRF. As was the case with much of the season, we were dealt some difficult cards when it came to weather leading up to the event. Thursday night provided temperatures in the high 40's coupled with high winds that ate away at the snowpack at an aggressive rate. As you can imagine, our beloved b nets took a beating and everything had to be reset. We

The final weekend is approaching...

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We flew through last weekend and we are heading into the final weekend of program! Our MWC teams spent the weekend working on skills promoting pole planting and upper/lower body separation while our U14/16/19 teams trained double sessions both days with GS in the morning and SL in the afternoon. Many of the U14/16/19 athletes are prepping for their post season events of U14 Championships, U14 NY/VT Project, U16 Eastern Finals, and U19 Eastern Finals. We have great athletes who will be representing WRF at these culminating events that start this weekend with U14 Champs and U16 Eastern Finals - good luck to all! The end of season b net rollup began this weekend. In anticipation of the final weekend of program, we rolled the nets from the top of Warm Up down to the start area for the Jeff Tait Championship. It is always bittersweet when this project begins. Maintaining the nets is a labor of love and they are necessary to keep our athletes in a safe environment for traini

Meteorological Spring has sprung!

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According to the meteorological start of the seasons, Spring arrived on March 1st! For those wondering, the meteorological seasons are based on the annual temperature cycle of the calendar. The astronomical start of Spring occurs on March 20th (vernal equinox) but for the purpose of our program, we are certainly in the Spring season with only two weekends remaining! Last weekend, we saw many of our athletes load the lift early to take advantage of available hill space prior to the Michael Gray Memorial Race hosted by ASF. Our U14/16/19 teams trained SL next to the Kinder Kombi set for the U10/12 teams prepping for their race on Sunday. The majority of our program took part in the Michael Gray Memorial Race, battling through a dual, paneled SL. It was great to see not just our athletes, but many of our coaches throw their hat in the ring and race in support of a great cause. Kudos to the ASF team for working hard to get everyone through each course and get cleaned up by 3:00PM - well

February Flyby!

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I know February is the shortest month, but it's hard to believe that we just flew through the final weekend of the month. It's seems that not long ago we were preparing for the first weekend of program with our coaches clinic. The remainder of Flex Week Training was incredible. We had a perfect surface for the high volume days we wanted to offer our athletes. The coaching staff saw great progress throughout the week with all of our athletes running double sessions. The U14/16/19 teams trained GS and SL each day while our U8/10/12 athletes worked on free skiing skills and drills in the morning, followed by an afternoon training session with a different style set each day. Our athletes have come so far under the guidance of the coaching staff. It was amazing watching the final Mini World Cup yesterday and seeing how much the athletes have progressed since our first MWC. This season we put an added focus on using the MWC as a learning environment not just for the athlet