Winter Fest Weekend

This last weekend was Madison's Winter Festival at the capitol square. It's always a busy weekend for me as I'm the chief of photography. Basically I spend the whole weekend racing from event to event trying to capture at least one good photo that can be used for publicity later. It's inevitable that I'm on the opposite side of the square from where something important or noteworthy is happening. This year I started work Friday immediately after work and didn't get dinner until the conclusion of the 100 meter sprint competition. Then Saturday I was back at 8:30am and there until the conclusion of the high school team sprints and then home to sort photos. Sunday was basically the same. Monday more photo sorting and uploading. Tonight I hope to finish uploading and then at some point some final sorting of photos and burning to a DVD for the organizer.




Anyway, here's some photos that capture the fun from the weekend.




Friday about 6pm the dump trucks start arriving with snow. Ironically it was actually snowing on Friday night which made it feel like it should be Winter Festival.



On Saturday there is a kid's ski program and a bunch of the elite team skiers come and help out. Many of the kids have never skied before so it is pretty crazy at times. Here's CXC Team member Brian Gregg skiing with one of the kids and offering pointers.




On Saturday the races were freestyle events and it was sunny and warm so the snow was wet and mushy.






Here are Bryan Cook (L) and Brian Gregg (R) from the CXC Team who won Saturday's SuperTour Sprint Relays. CXC is our region's elite team and because of that the local favorites so it was great to see them take the win.




This year was the first year to have running races and the kid's races were super cute. This little kid is enjoying the free hot chocolate that was available post-race. It was so funny listening to the kid's tell their race stories after the event - some with excitement and some with the tales of suffering.

On Sunday there was a cyclocross race, Cyclo Frost, that was a first time event for the festival. I guess the event director heard Dave and I talking about cyclocross so much every fall that he better add it as an event.

The weekend also features lots of high school racing action. Here is a shot from Sunday's classic sprint qualification event that was held in the morning. I really love the high school racing as it is fun to see so many kid's so excited about skiing. The Madison team has tons of girls on it which I think is pretty sweet!

Here's the SuperTour classic sprint team relay event. I love to see the elite races especially the classic events as they can really double-pole and I appreciate the work it takes to be good at that.

Next up - Birkie Weekend.

Everything starts for me on Thursday as I've been selected as one of the lucky skiers who gets to ski with Bjorn Daehlie. If you raised $2,500 in the MS Society's Ski for the Cure you automatically got invited to ski with him. The remaining slots were given out in a lottery (every $250 you raised got you one lottery entry and I ended up raising $1,000!). On Thursday we get to ski with him and then have lunch. Raising the funds was something I really wanted to do and getting to ski with Bjorn is just a nice little added bonus (his Mother has MS so that's why he has come to do this). Since I'm going up early for that I'll also get to watch the elite sprints which happen on Main Street on Friday which is something I always enjoy.

Friday we'll go to the equipment demo as I want to try out some Salomon boots and skis as I'm thinking of upgrading my classic boots (mine are at least 12 years old). I also want to get new skate skis next year as I've had mine a long time and they have some significant scratches.

Saturday is race day!!! I start at 9:05am central time so think good thoughts for me. I'm hoping it all goes well and that I enjoy myself. I'm looking forward to getting my finisher's medal on Main Street.