RUMFORD – A few flakes fell from the sky as Lucy Garrec stood in place, scissoring her legs back and forth, skis swishing the granular snow as she waited her turn Wednesday morning at the U.S. Cross Country Ski Championships at Black Mountain.
The trails of the Chisholm Ski Club are familiar grounds for Garrec, who grew up in Freeport. Her forest green and black uniform of the University of Vermont, however, is something new.
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After two years and two NCAA Championship appearances at Colby College in Waterville, Garrec transferred to UVM, where she is a scholarship athlete in a perennially powerful program.
On Wednesday she tied for 22nd among 157 women in the 10-kilometer classical race. It took her 35 minutes, 16 seconds to complete four loops of a 2.5K course organizers cobbled together with snowmaking and an existing 1.4K circuit used in Sunday’s sprints.
“They always pull it off here,” Garrec said of the volunteer effort aided by a one-day postponement of Wednesday’s race. “I really love Rumford and it does have a lot of memories.”
Garrec raced here for Freeport High the first two years of her high school career, then transferred to Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont. As a Colby freshman, she won a 15K freestyle individual title here at her first collegiate carnival. Later that winter, also at Black Mountain, she finished 14th in the NCAA championships, narrowly missing All-America honors.
“I think I surprised myself,” Garrec said Wednesday. “When I first went to Colby, I wasn’t sure how I was going to ski in college. It’s a totally different game.”
Although both Colby and Vermont compete in Division I for skiing, Garrec now finds herself surrounded by skiers at and above her level. Two UVM teammates finished ahead of her Wednesday.
As much as she enjoyed Colby, “I felt like I wasn’t pushing myself maybe the same way I would be if I was on a team with a bunch of people who could bump me off the running to go to NCAAs,” she said. “I kind of tried the big-fish-in-the-little- pond thing. There are some really talented skiers at Colby … but I think having a lot (of them) around you is really good.”
On Sunday Garrec was 24th among the 30 skiers who qualified for the quarterfinals of a classical sprint competition. She isn’t likely to be announced tonight as part of the Under-23 team headed to the world championships later this winter — she was ninth among that age group Wednesday — but is thrilled with a pair of top-25 placements at nationals.
“Any time you get a top 30 at nationals, it’s a really good result,” said Colby Coach Tracey Cote. “She’s a really talented athlete, our most successful skier we’ve had to date. Obviously, I hated to lose her.”
Cote said the parting came on good terms.
She understands why Garrec sought greener pastures and wishes her well.
Staying well has been a challenge for Garrec, who battled a sinus infection and a stomach flu earlier this winter. Now that she’s healthy, she’s looking forward to a new season with a new team.
“I miss everyone (at Colby),” Garrec said. “But I really like my new team and my new coaches a lot. It’s good to be honest with yourself if you want a change, and try something new.”
Finishing five seconds behind Garrec in 26th place Wednesday was Cape Elizabeth native Clare Egan, now a graduate student at the University of New Hampshire on a running scholarship. Egan founded a Nordic club program at Wellesley so she could continue skiing in addition to running cross country and outdoor track, and managed to qualify for the NCAA skiing championships last spring despite serving as her own coach throughout a collegiate career interrupted by a junior year abroad.
“At the beginning of the year I was hoping for a top-30 finish at nationals, but I didn’t know if it would be a stretch,” Egan said Wednesday. “So this was great.”
Alaska skiers continued to have success in Rumford, with Alaska Pacific University teammates Sadie Bjornsen of Anchorage and Morgan Smyth of Vernon, Vt., finishing 1-2 Wednesday in 32:09 and 32:40, respectively.
U.S. Ski Team member Morgan Arritola of Ketchum, Idaho, was another 18 seconds behind in third.
In the men’s 15K classical race Wednesday afternoon, also conducted under light flurries that fell for much of the day, Lars Flora and James Southam of Anchorage and David Norris of Fairbanks made for an all-Alaska podium.
Flora’s time of 43:29 beat Southam by 18 seconds and Norris by 41.
Sam Tarling of Cumberland and Dartmouth College was the top Maine skier Wednesday, finishing 15th in 45:27. He was fifth among Under-23 skiers, leaving him on the cusp of being named to the U23 team.
Also finishing among the top 60 in a men’s field of 202 were Nils Koons (32nd) of Sidney and Dartmouth, Welly Ramsey (41st) of New Sharon and the University of Maine-Presque Isle, and Fred Bailey (55th) of Andover, Colby and the Maine Winter Sports Center.
In order to repair and improve the trails at Black Mountain, snow guns have been working continuously since early Monday morning.
Volunteers, including many of the athletes and coaches, helped spread new snow along the course.
“It was surprisingly good, considering how it was on Sunday,” said Tarling, referring to the spring-like temperatures and abundant bare ground surrounding the classical sprints.
In adaptive sit-ski racing earlier Wednesday, Marlon Shepard of North Yarmouth placed sixth of seven men after double-poling through 10K in 90 minutes, part of it with a broken left ski.
Among all the disabled athletes competing in Rumford, Shepard’s injury is the highest on his spinal column, making his locomotion the most challenging.
“They keep telling me I’m tough as nails,” Shepard said. “I don’t know if I believe it.”
“We had three broken skis, but no broken bodies,” said Cathy Thompson of Northeast Passage, the therapeutic recreation program based at the University of New Hampshire. “So it was good.”
Staff Writer Glenn Jordan can be contacted at 791-6425 or at:
gjordan@pressherald.com
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