Sunday Dec 4th Training Report

What a "Stomping" Sunday we had today at Alford. A great mornings training to round up the final weekend of formal training for Gordon Skiers this autumn. Next weekend sees the very exciting and tightly contested annual Xmas races followed by Xmas dinner and presentations.

It was another brisk morning and the mat was once again frozen resulting in James and Malcolm having to call in the trusty friend ‘the pickaxe’ to enable course setting to take place.

RD3 and 4 took on the course this morning with their timed runs and from what I could see there were improvements among all the kids (once some of them worked out the route) and I am sure this was reflected in the times. Some of you may have noticed that the lower end of the club has slowly been growing over the last few weeks as we have been trialing some siblings all of whom have been successful, so a big welcome to all our new members.

Performance squads were working hard with Alex and James working on some individual skills followed by some gate practice. The Christmas tunes were blaring and the spirits were high.

RD1 and 2 endured fitness first outside in the cold followed by some more energetic skiing working on similar drills from previous weeks.

The head to head team races at the end were as close as ever with Andrew Campbell’s team going away as winners. A good indication of how successful a training session is, is when we have to physically pull the course from in front of the final skiers on the hill (and no it wasn’t James this time).

For those following the Gordon Skiers Facebook page you will notice that James (our acting head coach) has been getting many comments on his unique style. He is the master of what has been termed "The Alford Stomp!" Whilst amusing this highly developed "technique" by James is actually very likely to lead to a technical straddle and disqualification in the bigger world so please consider before trying to mimic! James was emphasising "The Alford Stomp" to the max today as can be seen in numerous photos on Facebook and above. Enjoy but don't copy folks - James has this technique not only perfected but patented!!! He is throwing down the gauntlet to everyone at next weeks fun Christmas races to showcase a different style that will catch the photographers lenses!!!

Todays times for both PS1, 2 and RD 3 and 4 are shown below.

HOT NEWS: Watch the blog and Facebook for a caption competition with prizes to be awarded at next weeks Christmas lunch.

Your friendly GDN committee

Perf Squads	Time	Dev 3 and 4	Time
Andrew Simpson	6.67	Eva Sinclair	9.88
Ollie Bailey	6.79	Louisa McIntosh	10.11
Rachel Brown	6.91	Rasmus Ipsen	10.6
Neil Simpson	6.92	Oran McGurran	11.03
Beth Whatford	7.09	Romily	11.11
Graeme Campbell	7.32	Keira Henderson	11.21
Jack Morrison	7.64	Carys Henderson	11.41
Andrew Howell	7.78	Struan	11.73
William Lennox	7.93	Emily Carry	11.79
Paul Marshall	7.96	Olivia Sinclair	12.06
Ellie Green	7.97	Catriona Brown	12.13
Sophie Ross	8.19	Owen Campbell	12.13
Vicky Rasmussen	8.25	Glen Liversidge	12.21
Rachel Morrison	8.25	Shea Campbell	12.31
Ben Whatford	8.47	Jennifer Brown	12.59
Finlay Carry	9.15	Thomas Paterson	13.1