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MNC Public High School Policy Statement

MNC is a non-profit organization devoted to the mission of helping athletes of all ages and abilities improve their Nordic skiing and pursue skiing excellence at the local, national, and international levels. We also believe our success is directly tied to the success of the broader ski community in Vermont. A large portion of that community are Public High School teams which play a vital role in building broad participation and lifelong interest in our sport.

To that end, we have established a set of policies to guide our Junior programs as it pertains to Public High School teams. These policies allow us to passionately pursue our mission while also respecting the needs of Public High School coaches and their teams.

MNC Junior Program Policy:

MNC is not seeking, nor actively driving any changes to the existing VPA regulations and practices.
MNC programs are designed to adhere to current VPA regulations and practices.
MNC athletes participating on High School teams are expected to do so in a manner consistent with their individual coaches and VPA regulations.
Participation in MNC programs is fully voluntary and our enrollment is open to all, regardless of ability or school affiliation.
MNC has and will continue to actively support Public High School skiing efforts as permitted by VPA regulations.

Please refer all questions or concerns regarding these policies to Kort Longenbach at president@mansfieldnordic.org.

Mansfield Nordic Club is proud to be part of the New England Nordic Ski Association (NENSA) and has achieved Bronze Level certification by the US Ski and Snow Board Association.

Busy Busy Juniors

By Adam Terko on 10 September, 2018 in Junior Blog, Uncategorized

Sometimes very simple, real-world examples playing out in front of my own eyes remind me why rollerskiing is important, and why being strong is such an integral part of ski racing in 2018.

The videos below show some double pole test footage. The first clip is Magda and Sammie in the summer of 2017, followed by a clip from this past week (2018). The clips were taken in the same spot about a full year apart:

Equally impressive are some clips of MNC racers who hadn’t rollerskied as much but have really put in the time this summer! Case in point? Meredith, Ava, Brook, Julia, Hanna, and more. It’s fun to see times on the double pole test drop dramatically and continue to get lowered as progress happens.

But before we get too carried away…this week wasn’t ALL about rollerskiing! On Wednesday we had a really fun run at the Mobbs Farm trails. It was maybe the 4th run this year we’ve done in 90+ heat but that didn’t stop the gang. It doesn’t hurt that there’s a really cool swimming hole deep in the woods near Tarbox Rd.

95 degrees, bring it on

Magda taking a refreshing dip

Then on Saturday, we woke to cold temps but faster running…we showed up early to the Burlington Invite to race the Citizen’s event (same course, before the big HS events) and had a pretty fun time getting used to a “real” race again. It was pretty hard to hide how much fun we had but we tried to have at least one “apathetic running picture” in honor of Conor Munns:

Hard to look apathetic on a nice day, with a fun race AND some legit matching singlets

Big shoutout to the speedy Ava Thurston on getting 2nd in the Varsity race (only her 2nd HS race ever!) and clocking in at 19:59 for her first sub-20 ever! Congrats to Greta too, who took the win in the Middle School race! Lots of other MNC skiers out there racing fast…Peter V, Julia Thurston, Carly Trapeni…way to go!

Since it was a volume week and we’d already had our fair share of awesome double sessions, that plan continued with the crew taking a few hours to go out to lunch and shop-it-up on Church Street before we paid a visit to the infamous “127 Bike Path” for an easy double pole recovery ski. Julia and Sammie were pretty tired but decided to take a mid-ski rest stop by some of the more dope (and internet-appropriate) graffiti on the path:

Tired gang, still making sure to honor James Franco

BUT WAIT, you’d think that after all that action it would be time for a break. But not for the Pugs. On Sunday we traveled to Huntington for a nice long ski from the Brewster Pierce School. We began at the school and skated out to Hinesburg and back on a relatively flat stretch down Hollow Rd. Then, we got back to the cars at 1.5 hours and switched into classic gear to ski up the lower portions of App Gap from the West side. Not a bad way to end a week at all, and people were psyched to have another big ski in the books.

Mitch, Timmy, and Aidan leading out the gang

Casual roadside balloon cop

Nope, not an actual MNC van (thanks St Mikes) but maybe someday 😉

Catamount Group Run & Ride 9/13

By Kort Longenbach on 10 September, 2018 in BKL Race Blog, Junior Blog, Masters Blog

Join us Thurs 9/13 at 5:30PM for a run or ride at Catamount Outdoor Family Center. We will also have samples of a new Mammut soft-shell jacket (Men’s, Women’s) that we will be offering in the fall at significant club discount.

So come join us Thursday, to run/ride with friends you have seen in a while, to support COFC and check out all the great trail improvements as COFC prepares for the transition to the Town of Williston Catamount Community Forrest.

Also, MNC has secured a reduced trail free of $5 for non-COFC members. Hope to see you there!

PS.. For those not familiar with the COFC trail system. COFC offers a wide variety of double-track and single track trails. So bring you mountain bike, gravel bike, trail shoes or road shoes. There is a run/ride for all levels and abilities.

Overall Summer Trail Map

Schoolin’ Em

By Adam Terko on 3 September, 2018 in Junior Blog

Busy first week of school up here in our corner of VT. Not to be deterred, we kicked off the fall with a great week of sessions and events! We got out for a few nice skis, in particular enjoying the morning sessions with MNC Academy in full force. Friday morning was particularly beautiful…cool, calm, and sunny for a classic ski out from the Round Chuch, up the well-packed dirt of Dugway Road and into the center of Huntington!

Timmy, Julia, and Meredith cruising up the dirt with not a car in sight

Made it back to the pavement, heading toward Huntington

Of course we also had some more traditional workouts like bounding intervals on the new trails at Chamberlain Hill, as well as double pole towing. It’s exciting to be back together with the St Mikes team for some joint training a few days a week this fall. On our first day with the Knights we got specific strength in on the rollerskis AND on the pegboard, which we hadn’t visited since early in the summer.

Towing each other to get STRONG

On the weekend we hit up two running workouts. First was the Bolton uphill test. Everyone had a great effort and with 17 competitors we had 16 PRs! A link to the archive can be found HERE. Biggest props of the day go to Ali (who set a PR by almost 2 minutes), Julia (who set a PR by a minute and a half), and Aidan (who is one of only a few to go 14:30 or under)!

Bolton squad! Thanks to Lisa Burt for the pic

The following day, a few of us had a great sunny run at Sleepy Hollow exploring some old classics and newly-built trails. After Bolton we made sure to go at a really relaxed pace, reminiscing on a few workouts past and starting to think about what lies ahead. There was some talk of renting the cabin for the evening to have a team weekend adventure in October!

Beautiful trails, constructed by the one-and-only Charlie Maitland!

And a Junior blog wouldn’t be complete without a little video action! Below are some clips from skate speeds and agility work at Greystone.

Junior Video Bonanza

By Adam Terko on 27 August, 2018 in Junior Blog

Island time!

Whoa, what a great week to cap off summer with!

We had sun, hot weather, and some of our best workouts so far. I’m so impressed with this gang, and hopefully some of the wealth of video footage we captured will show that excitement AND the abilities of all these athletes!

Tuesday: Classic TT

This year we have 3 longer classic races on the Eastern Cup calendar, and 2 of those 3 are mass start. Not to mention the mass start race at JNs this year is in the classic technique. It was time for a timetrial to match! We had some missing faces as fall sports like soccer and XC running started up this week, but everyone skied great despite a couple of the gnarliest crashes and road rashes I’ve ever seen…needless to say I made a trip to WalMart on Wednesday to re-stock after all the gauze we used up in the first aid kit but everyone finished the race even despite the wounds 🙂

Thursday: Skate Team Sprint

Can’t help but get excited for this format now that America is the REIGNING OLYMPIC CHAMPION in it! We had a pretty large gang and it was fun to have everyone teamed up to race against each other. This was the biggest sign of progress for all our skiers this summer: we had everyone in the same race, young and old, new skier and experienced shredder alike. And all the way to the end things stayed competitive, with tactics also making their way down to all the places as everyone got a sense for when they’d get the tag and who they’d need to chase and who they were being chased by!

Saturday: Island Time Summer Closer

Thanks to the Nolan family for hosting us all at their awesome lake house in North Hero! We all got in a nice easy skate ski on some beautifully-paved and relatively car-free roads in the sun. Then there was lots of swimming, bbq, lawn games, and more as we celebrated the summer season. It was bittersweet as we said goodbye to the college-bound and departing skiers heading in different directions this fall…we’ll see everyone again soon enough though!

Skate Clips

If the clips below of some speedy skiing don’t get you excited for this crew to tear it up this winter, I don’t know what will! From good strength training, to lots of rollerskiing, to long trail runs and mountain bikes, everyone has come a long way improving what they’re capable of these past few months. Now it’s time to keep it going right through fall!