But Kristina seemed to like skiing after that first time on snow while not being particularly good at it. She worked very hard for the rest of the season and the complaining diminished to nonexistence. By the end of the season, at the Minneapolis Conference Championship Meet, Kristina placed 18th, with times of 27:05 in the 5K Classical, and 27:02 in the 5K Freestyle.

Kristina participated in the Minneapolis Conference Ski Fort! summer ski program, and was enthusiastic, hard-working, and a positive team leader in all activities.

From the very beginning of this season, Kristina came in with a strong and positive work ethic and seemed to have found coordination as well. Both classical and freestyle techniques seemed much improved. The results have borne this out throughout the season with Kristina consistently being our top female in races. This culminated in the Minneapolis Conference Championship Meet where, on the identical course from last year at Wirth Park, Kristina skied a time of 22:51 in the 5K Classical race in wet, slow conditions leaving her in 4th place for day 2 of the pursuit. In the freestyle portion of the race, Kristina skiied 18:20 for the 5K course, leaving her with a 6th place finish and All-Conference honors--top 8 in the conference.

Kristina is looking forward to the Section 5 Meet and has her eyes set on earning a trip to the State Meet. She was the top non-senior skier in the conference meet this season and is already thinking, too, about next season's possibilites.

Last year Nathan was a solid, but not exceptional, JV skier who worked hard on improving his technique but did not have the fitness level to make the next step on a very competitive team. This past summer Nathan took full advantage of a training group mentored by Steve Harrington. He worked with Steve on developing a long-term training plan, including regular roller ski work outs, running, and weight training. As he moved into the ski season, Nathan has carefully followed our training program. As a result, Nathan's results this season have placed him solidly in the center of our varsity squad. Further, his results have steadily improved over the course of the season and he is on pace to peak right when we want him to - at State. A couple of Nathan's recent results demonstrate the current level of his skiing.

At the Mesabi East classic race Nathan finished 13th, just half a minute behind teammate and the number two finisher (and the second ranked skier in the state) Adam Van Stratton. A week later at the Grand Rapids Invite, a section 7 and 8 showdown, Nathan finished 1st, beating defending state classic champ and teammate, Bjorn Batdorf by 9 seconds. Last year Nate finished 34th in the same race. In fact, when his time was recorded the timer checked with our assistant coach, Bonnie Kask, to ask if it was possible that Nate had really beaten Bjorn or if they had somehow made a mistake in timing. Bonnie assured them they had it right.

There is, of course, much more to Nate. He's a 4.0 student, performs with East's a'capella choir, the award winning Choralers (who had 30 engagements between Thanksgiving and Christmas), and plays violin in the orchestra. As if that doesn't keep him busy enough, he volunteers every Sunday afternoon to work with the Minnesota Youth Ski League at Snowflake Nordic (usually right after an overdistance ski with training partner Liz Harrington - did I mention motivation??).