Anything Active

By ALEX MATTHEWS — amatthews@poststar.com | Posted: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 12:31 am

SCHUYLERVILLE — Fourteen-year-old Nikolaus Steg said his teachers never really understood where he was off to.

PHOTO COURTESY FRED ZIMNY -- Schuylerville freshman Nikolaus Steg helps an elementary student down a luge ramp outside Schuylerville Elementary School on June 21. A member of the U.S. junior development team, Steg, 14, helped bring USA Luge to the school for a two-day 'Slider Search' gear for students in grades 4 through 6. p

The Schuylerville freshman would ask for packets of homework in advance. After long weekends of training in Lake Placid or weeks away in Park City, Utah, or Calgary, Alberta, he’d be back in class telling his classmates about luge.

Many couldn’t picture him soaring down an ice track while laying face up and feet first on a sled, and others couldn’t pronounce the sport’s name.

With the cooperation of the Schuylerville Elementary School and its gym teachers, Steg was able to share luge with them rather than explain it.

An incoming high school sophomore with dreams of becoming an Olympian, he brought USA Luge and its “Slider Search” to Schuylerville last week. With the help of his U.S. junior development team coach, Fred Zimny, Steg and another 14-year-old on Lake Placid’s ‘D’ team put on a two-day demonstration class last week.

For nearly five hours each day, he and Hannah Miller, of Rome, N.Y., assisted students in grades four through six as they tried the sport in gym class. Last Tuesday in the school parking lot, they led individuals up a 30-foot aluminum ramp and briefed each before sending them down.

Addressing all the students before each session, Zimny said to lay flat with your head down and toes pointed.

“You do want to lift your head just a little bit so you can see where you’re going,” he said inside the gym on a rainy Wednesday. “Right before the pads (on the other side of the room), put your feet on the floor.”

The students listened for the most part, eagerly circulating through and dragging the wheeled sleds back to the USA Luge ramp, which was outside under a tent and pointed in through open doors. According to Zimny, it was the first time they had tried the indoor setup and it worked.

It was also the first time USA Luge’s East Coast team in Lake Placid had brought its Slider Search to a school. (There is a West Coast development team in Park City at the only other Olympic luge track in the nation).

Zimny, who has taught luge for 20 years as a recruitment, development and national coach at the Olympic level, said the team was looking to attract youngsters, particularly those aged 11 to 14.

“We’re hoping to capitalize on putting 440 kids down the start ramp in the last two days (at Schuylerville) to maybe getting a dozen of them up to Lake Placid and getting them involved in the program,” Zimny said.

“To put a kid on a sled for the first time and then maybe 12 years down the road, see them make an Olympic team, that’s what it’s all about.”

Zimny said children are recruited at a young age to give them enough time to develop into an experienced, safe and competitive racer in what’s known as the fastest sport on ice. With the most aerodynamic sled and positioning, it beats out bobsled and skeleton.

“You do have to be fearless of course … (but) you really need to be smooth, controlled,” he said. “The whole idea of going fast on a luge sled is to be relaxed, and to be relaxed at 90 miles an hour isn’t easy.”

For Steg, whose father, Nik, brought him to his first Slider Search two years ago, the adrenaline hooked him. After the search, he was invited to a screening camp and later asked to be one of 15 members on the national development team.

This year at the Empire State Games, Steg placed third, and at the youth national championship, he was eighth.

Now up to the third-highest start, the Olympic women’s start, Steg said he reached 70 miles per hour.

“We work our way up and every step gets faster and more technical,” he said. “When you’re up at the handles and you have 30 seconds to go and you know you’re going to be doing 50, 60, 70 miles an hour plus going down the track with nothing but basically a helmet on, it’s pretty fun.”

Steg said he was happy to spend his time with the elementary students who tried it. Zimny explained that the searches were important to extend the sport’s reach and show parents that it’s not that dangerous.

According to a report in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, more curling competitors were injured in the 2010 Olympics than lugers, by a ratio of 4 percent to 2 percent of all athletes.

“When (parents) see it and they see what these kids are doing, then they understand that it’s not this crazy sport,” Zimny said.

Active Advice

Nikolaus Steg, III, of Saratoga Springs got his son, Nikolaus, interested in luge at age 12. He explained how he became involved and eventually selected to the U.S. junior national development team.

* First, find a “Slider Search.” Fred Zimny, Lake Placid’s development team coach and the head of recruitment for USA Luge, plans to host free “learn to luge” Thursday night sessions in Lake Placid for boys and girls ages 8-13. No experience is necessary and participants receive a T-shirt. Call 523-2071 ext. 105 to register.

* Do your best and have fun. If you have natural talent and control of the sled, as well as a body type best for luge (Zimny said big, strong kids usually do well), then you could be invited to a screening camp. There, you could be asked to join the development team. If not, there are club and recreational opportunities to keep trying or * Fourteen-year-old Nikolaus is one of 15 members on the national team. He participates in about six camps a year, each a couple of weeks long, and spends most weekends training in Lake Placid.

* Don’t force it. “We try to keep him involved,” said Steg, III, about his son, who plays three instruments in Schuylerville’s high school, prep and jazz bands. “But you can’t make a kid go down the track.”

Original story: http://poststar.com/sports/usa-luge-slides-into-schuylerville/article_0dcd430a-a140-11e0-9b38-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1SMisra1l

By ALEX MATTHEWS — Commentary The Post-Star | Posted: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 12:08 am

QUEENSBURY — We should have listened to the woman in the West Mountain parking lot.

“It was worse than childbirth,” she said with a straight face.

TJ Hooker -- Post-Star: Columnist Alex Matthews leaps a flaming hurdle near the finish line of the inaugural Warrior Run at West Mountain in Queensbury on June 18, 2011. Organizer Steven Conklin said approximately 1,600 people took part in the four-heat, 3.1-mile race.

 

She pointed toward the long incline up the grassy face. See that? There were six more of those, she said.

I wasn’t counting, but the woman’s warnings turned out to be warranted. The 3.1-mile Warrior Run was quite a physical test in its inaugural year at West and not because of its obstacles. Heck, my fun-seeking friends and I would have traded a few more of those in exchange for the torturous climb.

Nearly 1,600 competitors participated in the ski area’s first extreme trail race, which was organized independently by race director Steven Conklin and modeled off larger franchise events, such as the Warrior Dash at Windham Mountain.

As a few hundred runners waited for the start of the second of four waves, I stood back to watch. I had expected a flat start. They started up a hill. After passing through the first of eight obstacles — a muddy section — the racers pushed onward up the face of the mountain.

After the wind tunnel, created by three inward-facing snowguns shooting water, the course continued uphill and didn’t ease up until the summit.

I knew this because I suffered every step of it. On an 85-degree day up ski trails, shade was hard to come by.

“It was definitely a test of will,” said Mike Arpey of Lake George, who chose the Warrior Run for his first running race. “I’ll never forget seeing the peak of that mountain, that’s for sure.”

The downhill wasn’t much easier. The slopes were steeper and the legs that screamed on the way up were close to tears on the descent. I barreled through, trudging over three 4-foot wooden barricades and tripping over rubber tires and pile of hay.

By the final flat stretch, my enthusiasm was nearly dead. Funny comments from other racers and a finish-line crowd by the final hurdle — the fire pit — cheered me up.

Upon finishing, I was awed by how difficult the race was, yet humbled by the people that finished it.

One man, Jim Eaton, ran the fastest time in 28 minutes, 24 seconds. Others wanted to break an hour and did so. Many were thrilled they finished.

Some, like me, considered it the hardest race of their life.

“I had to design a course that satisfied a guy that ran it in 28 minutes and a guy that ran it in two hours and 27 minutes,” Conklin said. “Some people said it was too easy, you should have had ropes and more obstacles. … There were some people that have never run a race in their life and I said, we can’t tax these people for three hours on the mountain.”

After having a few people test run the course, Conklin decided to remove some of the 11 advertised obstacles. That led to criticism, which added to the complaints about his lack of water, free food and medical staff.

Some felt the race was unsafe on an especially humid day. Marty Baker, a West Glens Falls Emergency volunteer, raced and stayed late to help with four others from the squad. According to Baker, they were the only EMTs on site. Conklin said there were nine paramedics.

“My biggest things are safety, water, and (the organizers) by no means promised what all the hype was about,” Baker said. “They were missing obstacles, they promised you two helicopters, there were supposed to be showers. Nobody really knew who was staffing this because nobody was really identified.”

“Part of the reason so many people did (the race) was the appeal,” said Barbara Cearley, a registered nurse at Glens Falls Hospital who ran in the first wave.

“It was supposed to be a fun, different activity and because the obstacles were lacking it took away from it a little bit. The fact that safety was an issue took away from it more.”

Both Baker and Cearley said the event was good for the community and they would do it again.

While Conklin said he wasn’t satisfied on race day, a fun run at West on Sunday with his children and more than 200 others helped him plan for the future.

“There were a whole bunch of people that were patting me on the back, saying, ‘Hey, we know it’s your first year, but we know it can be better,’ ” Conklin said. “One of the nicest parts of hearing constructive criticism is it means they want to do it again. That’s great. I love to hear that.”

Active Advice:

Warrior Run race director Steven Conklin addressed a few concerns after the first extreme 5K trail race at West Mountain and explained how the race could be different next year.

* More water. Conklin learned that 1,800 bottles and 75 gallons of water for 1,600 racers wasn’t enough. Besides more water stops, he mentioned free food and possibly a beer token for finishers.

* More obvious staff. While he said the race staff wore white “Warrior Run” T-shirts, he planned to have them in more visible clothing next year.

* An easier option. Conklin said he’d like to create two elite waves (for those that qualify with a certain 5K time) with all the obstacles on a tough course. The two other waves could be easier with a more gradual course and fewer obstacles.

* Better registration. Conklin said he made the mistake of leaving registration open and making special accommodations. He planned to close registration a few weeks before the event next year.

Original story: http://poststar.com/sports/columns/anything-active/warrior-run-a-true-test/article_dfaddd6e-9bbc-11e0-8641-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1SW20iWki