We had a great 2026 Skiathlon! With sunny skied, plentiful snow, amazing grooming, and a big field of racers it was a wonderful day. You can view results below, and photos from Pennie Rand:
2026 Skiathlon BKL Results
2026 Skiathlon Adult Results
Author Archive | Adam Terko
Craftsbury Marathon Wax Rec
The conditions are looking amazing for Craftsbury this weekend! Expect lots of snow, cold temps, and beautiful skiing.
Adam will be in the lower community wax room (below the main gym at Craftsbury) on Saturday morning to help with kickwaxing. If you’re looking for some help with kickwaxing, please make an effort to check-in at least 75-90 min prior to race start!
Here are some thoughts:
- It’s looking like a hardwax binder will be a great starting point. Check out a video of applying that here. On race morning, this can also be done although you will need to set skis outside for a bit to cool the binder before applying/testing kickwax.
- We will be testing blue and green hardwax for these conditions, along with more kicky options like Oslo Green. If you are on-site and looking to apply your own Oslo Green (or Blue) layer, here is a video on our favorite method!
- For glide, a few layers of standard cold glide wax will set your bases up well. Given Craftsbury’s habit of grooming often and repeatedly, we can expect conditions to feel pretty fast despite the cold temps. Toko Blue and Rode R20 are great options, and at least two layers (scraped and brushed between) will help prepare the glide zones.
- If you like to add liquid topcoats, be sure to consider application method and timing. Aerosol sprays such as Swix and Toko are best applied the night before and left to dry as long as possible, and then brushed with a nylon brush in the morning. Our race day wax help will focus less on glide waxing/topcoats but we may be able to add some speed to your skis if we aren’t too backed-up with kick!
- For the skate day, it looks like a similar wax choice would work well, although MNC coaches will not be on-site since the U16/EHS Qualifier is taking place down in Rikert.
We are doing something special here…
At US Nationals, mass start day was divided into four separate race categories:
- Men’s open 20km
- Women’s open 20km
- Junior Men’s 10km
- Junior Women’s 10km
MNC raced in all of them. And that doesn’t just mean the Pro Team, who was also racing and representing in the open races as their primary US Nationals competition. I’m talking about MNC club athletes in each race…and age groups from U16 right through to U23. The men’s 20km featured Abram Weil-Cooley, an MNC Collegiate summer athlete who attends Middlebury and skis for MNC and the Midd club team. The women’s 20km featured Maggie Wagner, a standout Middlebury skier who is redshirting from NCAA-eligible competition while healing from a foot injury. The Junior races featured the MNC racers who have been hard at work training and racing all winter!
But even in that Junior race, you were watching skiers in high school AND college, as a strong contingent of collegiate freshmen are all training and racing with MNC this season. We’ve got representatives from UVM, Middlebury, St Mikes, and Williams all in the mix. Silvester Williams has been living in VT all summer as a post-grad athlete, and has arrived in Vermont all the way from Utah. This is a club that is wider-ranging that ever before, and everyone involved benefits from that.
Maggie in the 20km (Photo by Charissa Roberts)
Silvester in the skate sprint qualifier (Photo by Charissa Roberts)
What is the draw? Why do so many athletes find (or seek out) MNC, and what does it mean for our organization?
LOCATION
We exist in a phenomenal space for skiing…the snowmaking and grooming prowess of Sleepy Hollow, our own indoor gym space at the MNCC, amazing dryland training at the Range (when available) and awesome trails and roads everywhere you look…it’s no wonder the Pro Team was able to kick off in a great way with an excited group of fast skiers: people want to train and live where we are!
But at the collegiate level, NCAA skiing can be quite ruthless. My take? The Junior/club field in American skiing is getting deeper and stronger than ever…but you don’t see any new NCAA teams entering the pool, and roster spots are shrinking, not expanding, due to budget cuts and organizational restructuring at the college athletics level. That leaves a lot of amazing skiers without groups that support their skill level. It’s not only MNC: both Ford Sayre and Craftsbury have college-age athletes racing and training with them this season, continuing their careers with their home club and deferring/delaying their college competition a bit. But here in Chittenden County we have a geographic triangulation of many colleges within driving distance. We are aptly positioned to support skiers from different schools, and even connect with new skiers who are not from Vermont but are now in our orbit!
Reese (Midd) and Stella (Williams) (Photo by Charissa Roberts)
FLEXIBILITY
Simply put, we are open and willing to welcome skiers of all ages and abilities. That is our mission statement after all, but I’m not sure if we’ve ever truly lived it until now. Class schedule keeping you from attending practice in the afternoon? We’ll get a group going in the morning. Going to school in a different state? We’ll get a Monday check-in call going every week, and meet up at races. Just looking for some help at the races? No problem, welcome to the scene!
The support we can provide has grown with the expansion of the club’s resources…we are present at US Nationals each year now. We have a wax trailer that makes bringing tons of gear anywhere in New England easier than ever. Our summer offerings have exploded to involve TWO college-age groups, not to mention the influence the Pro Team has on interest in our programs and abilities as a ski club. There is totally a snowball effect.
COMMUNITY
Skiing and racing is so much more engaging when it’s a group affair. While it can be important to have people of a similar ability to train with, many have achieved success “flying solo” in the past. That doesn’t mean that’s the most fun way to do it, though! Even if you’re just arriving at a race and having your skis handled by the club, there’s something to be said about knowing a club has your back that is meaningful to all.
Groups also have a tendency to expand naturally when things are healthy…a new skier gets their friend involved, and then a skier from back in their hometown sees what we’re up to or joins a training camp in the offseason, and it continues on from there…skiing is an extremely small world and it’s fun to be encompassing more and more of it.
Astrid and Clara at the finish line in Quarry Road (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)
Isaiah and Jorgen and Gabe off the line (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)
ENERGY
It feels like there’s a buzz surrounding the club right now. Big summer training groups that disperse back to lots of EISA schools in the winter. New faces and racers from all over Vermont and beyond in the winter. Strong results, strong presence at lots of races, a Pro Team doing great things on the national and international level, cool training opportunities and adventures all over the snow, lots of fun events to take part in, and exciting chances coming down the road.
There’s a lot to get involved with as a Nordic skier these days, and it feels like MNC is the place to be if you want to make the most of it!
Want to check out results from an awesome Eastern Cup in Quarry Road? Click below!
Quarry Road Eastern Cup (Bullitt Timing)
A special shoutout to Maggie (Open race Saturday), Acadia (U16 race Saturday), Astrid (Open race Sunday) and Mia (U16 race Sunday) for making it a full sweep on the women’s side: MNC skiers won every single women’s race on the weekend 🙂
It was a standout weekend for many other racers too across the board, from Silvester getting his first top-10s to Sophia competing in her first Eastern race as an MNC athlete! Breakthroughs and new benchmarks were present everywhere you looked.
MNC was the only club to have representation from U16, U18, U20, U23, AND Masters age groups…and this was the furthest race we’ll go to all year. What other group has this kind of presence and engagement level at these races? We are feeling proud!
Mia and the field (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)
Several Sunny Days
What a winter thus far! We’ve got it good, and we are making the most of it. This past weekend was about as much skiing and winter action as you could possibly fit into two days, and I think it captured the spirit of our Junior team pretty emphatically.
Saturday: Craftsbury Outdoor Center
Stella in the timetrial
Saturday morning got off to an early start as we all converged on Craftsbury for a timetrial. The snow was cold but not squeaky slow. The air was crisp. Snow hung onto the pine trees shimmering in the bright sunshine.
It wasn’t just a straight start-to-finish TT though: after an individual start skate effort on the 3.75k FIS course, everyone grabbed a quick drink and some gummies, maybe changed into a fresh base layer, and then hit the same course again. This time it was 2 minutes race effort, followed by 1 minute rest…then start another 2 minute interval where the last one left off.
This is a workout we tried last year, and it received good feedback. With a training block underway and a bit of time until the next “big” race, this was the perfect day to return to the effort. The goals are both psychological and physiological.
Mentally, it can be tough to rally for another 3.75km with hard efforts, having just completed the journey in a race…but in reality, we’re all able to handle a lot more than we think! That’s important to remember in a race, especially when many of our competitions have multiple laps.
Physiologically and technically, this format helps ingrain and work on strong technique and tempo even while tired. Having a rest period every 2 minutes lets you attack the course with good energy, and hit the transitions, climbs, and descents as strong as possible.
Isaiah and crew on the intervals AFTER the timetrial!
With the workout complete, it was hard not to ski for longer still with the temps warming up and the sun adding to the vibes. During our cooldown we chatted with many other familiar MNC folks and friends out skiing…a bunch of the MNC University athletes had coordinated on a sprint timetrial, and Perry was out with his stopwatch while Annie and Sydney did a 10km classic race to prepare for the upcoming US National Championships.
We went down to the “Screaming Mimi” uphill during the Pro athlete’s timetrial to cheer them on and watch their awesome skiing. They were moving. Check out this pace for 4 kilometers into a 10km effort!
But we weren’t done, either. It was time for lunch, and the touring center was feeling like Terminal C at O’Hare on Christmas Eve…skiers of all ages were hustling and bustling, and after we replenished our tanks it was time to head across the porch to the main gym, which the Craftsbury coaches had very kindly reserved for us that afternoon!
With music blasting and weights clanking, it was easy to dive into a big strength session! One of our biggest strengths as a Junior team, in my opinion, is our dedication to/consistency with high quality, broad-based strength training.
We really like to hit the gym, and it benefits us in many ways. Not only are we stronger with our ski movements, but we have the physical strength needed to make technique changes and adaptations. We’re also less prone to injury: knock on wood, but running and overuse injuries (even for those running XC or playing fall on-foot sports) are not very prevalent among our squad. While the MNCC is a pretty awesome gym, the high ceilings at Craftsbury do have a certain aura to them…
Sunday: Camel’s Hump Nordic
Everyone was a bit more sore than usual on a frigid Sunday morning as we pulled into the parking lot at Camel’s Hump Nordic. Despite its setting, the vibe at Craftsbury is fully modern (floor-to-ceiling windows, spa-esque gym facilities, snowmaking fan guns, and heated porta-potties). By contrast, the vibe at CHN is vintage in the best way possible.
We embraced all the traditionalism we could with blue hardwax, a long classic ski along the shoulder of the mountain, ripping downhills through recently-cut logging areas with vistas stretching across the lake to Whiteface, and some trailside pancakes cooked over an open fire..!
Actually, those pancakes were originally supposed to be waffles, but it turns out the waffle iron was a little bit too much wattage for the portable battery pack to handle. But it just so happens that the groomer-on-duty for the Nordic center over the holidays was Willem Smith, an MNC alum who lives trailside. Willem skied right over to his place and returned a moment later with a big cast iron pan and grill, which we popped onto the fire to turn our waffle batter into bubbling pancakes!
I’ve never been to Norway, but you can’t help but notice all the wholesome images of families and groups out enjoying long skis with waffles in the mix. It was time to bring that energy here! Definitely a memorable ski, and one to repeat in the future for sure.
Stowe Nordic BUS to the World Cup!
The Nordic World Cup is making a stop at Lake Placid in March!
The Stifel Lake Placid Finals, a COOP FIS Cross Country World Cup is happening March 19–22, 2026 at Mt Van Hoevenberg in Lake Placid, NY. Experience four unforgettable days of world-class racing as the world’s top athletes push the limits on the trails of the Adirondacks. This historic event marks the culmination of the international cross-country skiing season—and you can be there to witness it all.
If we have enough interest, Stowe Nordic is planning to organize a bus to the Sprint Event (Saturday March 21st). Cost for the bus would be $50 (plus driver’s tip). You’d also have to buy your own ticket for the event (General Admission $10-20 or VIP ticket $140). We’d leave in the morning and return home after the event.
If you are interested in joining us, please email Jean Kissner – jeankissner4@gmail.com.
