Without progression, we will never improve! Continuing to challenge our best is what leads to gains and growth (at ANY age) and that’s why we are revisiting the 30/30 workout from earlier this summer. You can find that initial posting right here:
It has been 5 weeks since that challenge, a perfect window of adaptation for our bodies to have gotten used to a new level of training. The mission this week is to step it up by increasing the number of 30-second bursts in each set. Last time was 2×6 minutes, and this time we will shoot for 2×8 minutes. That’s only an extra minute per set, or 2 minutes total…but the goal is to keep increasing…think about it!
In August that means 2×10 minutes
In September we jump to 2×12 minutes
October brings a longer standard set: 1×20 minutes
November means 1×25 minutes
December shortens the intervals to 20 seconds on/40 seconds of but in a 2×15 minute segment…facilitating recovery and speed-of-movement as we sharpen for race season…and then, from January onward these types of speeds are incorporated into all sorts of warmups, distance skis, and race-prep.
It’s time to increase the intervals and increase the power!
Note: Mountain Camp Participants all received NEGATIVE test results for COVID-19 and quarantined prior to the start of camp. No out-of-camp-group activities other than trails and roads for training were involved during this camp, and additional groceries were only purchased with online order/curbside pickup.
The 2nd edition of Mini Mountain Camp just wrapped-up, and there wasn’t much that was “mini” about it in terms of vertical climbs, hard work, and strong skiers. This young crew is going places…the U16 NENSA field is going to get a lot more stacked with strong MNC suits this coming winter!
I can’t say enough about the professionalism of this group, which means a lot since I feel like that was a primary topic of my post on the OLDER Mountain Camp group too. These skiers were up before the alarms, cooking breakfast and preparing for the day ahead. They were ready to train half an hour before they needed to be, and they were spending their downtime playing around on bikes and messing around outside, training more without even realizing it.
What’s more, the vibe is fun and quirky. Picture a Nickelodeon sitcom with a cast of zany characters and personality types that all somehow mesh. Mini Mountain Camp is a type of “Holiday Special” episode where these characters are thrown into a new environment with a new set of unique circumstances outside the norm. It’s an Emmy-winning recipe, for sure.
This squad undertook many of the same workouts as the older group, with some new adventures as well. One thing that remained consistent was the classic sprint held on the challenging and net-uphill course by the golf links. Here’s some video! We learned a lot about working on our striding this day, as fatigue can really bring out some tips to work on. Our big goals as a group are to stay more upright, strengthen and lock-in that core, and read the terrain to best decide on running vs striding vs double poling vs kick double poling.
We also took to the bike trails for some riding. Mountain biking has only grown with every passing year…at this point we’re borrowing an open-bed trailer just to be able to stuff all the bikes in and make sure we can get everyone on two wheels! As more and more of the team gets introduced to mountain biking, the level keeps rising. It was especially tough for Brady and Taylor to constantly see downhill bikes driving by, with rippers off shredding berms in the distance as we were stuck keeping it low-key. Those two had done some lift-serve riding at Killington only a week prior and boy did we hear about it!
Of course, there was plenty of hiking and trail running to be done. We had some slightly better (sunnier) weather for our Pico->Killington hike/run, and we even did a Facetime with the MNC crew at home who was on top of Mt Mansfield at the exact same time…the things you can do with technology these days.
2 groups and the 2 tallest in VT
BUT we weren’t done with this mountain just yet! We all woke up at 4am on Sunday, the final day, for a sunrise hike up Killington. Under cover of darkness, with one bear spotted on the drive up and one porcupine spotted on the trail, we got to the top and awaited a sunrise that…well…sort-of appeared. A faint line of clouds kept it from being totally iconic, but what can you do? It was quite an experience and there was zero hesitation from the group when it came to the early rising and early workout. Pretty sweet way to end a camp.
Pretty exciting to think of what this crew will accomplish over the next 4-5 years as they begin their journey into the world of Junior skiing. They have a great trail ahead of them!
You can find all photos from camp at this Flickr Album.
Note: Mountain Camp Participants all received NEGATIVE test results for COVID-19 and quarantined prior to the start of camp. No out-of-camp-group activities other than trails and roads for training were involved during this camp, and additional groceries were only purchased with online order/curbside pickup.
You can tell the mental fatigue of a training camp by my willingness to keep thinking about it and acting on it after the camp finishes. Last year when I got home from Mountain Camp I bought two boxes of sugary cereal, sat down at the kitchen island, watched Netflix and didn’t get up until both boxes were finished and I was sick to my stomach.
This year, I immediately sat down and started typing an email to the parents and athletes recapping the highlights, sharing video footage, and discussing themes and motivations. You could say it was a bit of a different bookend.
Our group was comprised of 14 athletes, 2 coaches, and many pools of sweat. Humidity was fierce this camp: we woke up sticky with sweat, we trained in the heat and left salty pools on the pavement, and no amount of cold showers could keep us from climbing into bed just as coated in perspiration.
For five days our group rollerskied, ran, hiked, and biked as many of the trails and roads around Killington as we could…It’s a perfect spot for training, and even though the rollerski options aren’t so numerous (unless you’re willing to drive a bit more to Bridgewater/Pomfret) there is plenty of other ways to get in a good workout. You can even make use of limited pavement in a number of good ways: We combined a rollerski up the second part of the access road with a ski-walk up the mountain. We held a classic sprint simulation on a 1km stretch of rolling uphill road near the golf course. We rode sharply downhill to River Road where we had a recovery “Gravel Ride” that was quite subdued yet still featured about 1200′ of elevation gain because we had to get back home somehow.
One important workout was a classic rollerski sprint. With the state of the country right now, who knows if and when we will get a mass start race opportunity…given the unique circumstances of safely having a group of competitive skiers together, we knew this could be a great chance to make a race happen. The one hassle? It was POURING rain outside. Luckily there was no thunder, and the morning of this sprint race we watched some footage of the US Ski Team doing a rollerski sprint race in strangely familiar weather…
So the stage was set! We had a perfect stretch of pavement: 1.1 kilometers featuring a gradual start, a swooping downhill curve, and a stair-stepper ending climb to the finish. The course had a net elevation gain but nothing TOO crazy. The qualifier was off in 15 second intervals and many of the team finished right in stride with one another:
Rose 3:28
Ava 3:32
Julia 3:42
Finnegan 3:42
Isabelle 3:44
Emma 3:48
Sammie 3:50
Sage 3:52
Hanna 3:53
Ali 3:53
Virginia 3:54
Hattie 3:56
Lydia 4:00
Mackenzie 4:07
The hardest part of it all was Dana and I syncing watches for start times, recording times, and trying to capture video clips all in the pounding rain. Remembering to bring the radios to camp would have helped. A tent would have been great, but even an umbrella would have helped. As it stood, lots of ripped soggy paper and video gear constantly wiped with a towel would have to do.
We set up heats in a rough bracket format with heats of 3, where winning would move a skier up, the middle would keep consistent, and third place would move down. Of course with 14 racers this was a bit awkward and it wasn’t perfect. There were essentially two “A” finals, won by Ava and Isabelle, respectively. Here is some footage of the qualifier and the first heat, with the photos on the Flickr album being from the finals!
Battles are what it’s all about!
We completed a number of other awesome workouts too, which I’ll share with a photo from each!
Ski up the access road: Ski walk to the top
Mountain biking (and trail running) at Green Mountain Trails, one of my favorite spots!
Long run around the AT and Kent Pond
Skate rollerski all the way up from Rutland to Mountain Top Resort
Quick break atop Pico on a long journey on the ridge toward Killington
It was an awesome week and I couldn’t be more proud of this team. I haven’t mentioned it until now, but you probably picked up from the photos and links that this camp consisted entirely of young women who are some of the best athletes around. That team makeup didn’t impact what workouts we chose to do, how hard we worked, or what the athletes were capable of. This was the most professionally-executed training camp that MNC athletes have ever completed…I thought Thanksgiving Camp last year was the top slot, but these skiers continue to outdo themselves. And yes, I will put it out there to any other club, school, or team that this is the strongest Junior women’s training group in the country.
L-R: Finnegan Mittelstadt, Isabelle Serrano, Sammie Nolan, Emma Page, Julia Oliver, Lydia Hodgeman, Virginia Cobb, Ava Thurston, Rose Clayton, Mackenzie Greenberg, Sage Freeman, Hattie Barker, Ali Priganc, Hanna Holm
Another week is upon us, and the training must go on! This Masters Workout of the Week is a focus on specific strength.
What is “specific strength” and why do we do it? Getting stronger in general will help our skiing; not just to be more powerful on climbs or more stable on descents, but also to help us execute the technique that we want to ski with. So many of us look to video clips and drills to improve our technique…both of these are super critical to improvement, but without enough strength to execute and maintain this technique we might only be able to ski the way we want for a couple kilometers before the correct body position and movements begin to suffer.
Specific strength is a way to isolate a muscle group in a ski-specific setting so that we can improve its capabilities. With specific strength work, you can also get a feel (literally) for the bigger picture of ski technique, and how different muscle groups play a role in contributing to powerful motions. Double poling for a long period of time will really make you appreciate how handy your legs can be in a hilly classic race. Likewise, doing a lot of skating without poles might make you realize how much you can rely on your arms and poles for balance rather than power and propulsion.
And those last two sentences give away a bit about the two most basic types of specific strength…double pole work and no-pole skate work. Both involve the core, and one really targets the upper body while the other engages the lower.
Some athletes like to combine workouts and do a ski with a set amount of no-pole skating and a set amount of double poling (usually with skate poles, as you are on skate skis). However, I prefer for a workout to have one focus and technique at a time unless it is a combination workout aiming for a long distance. With one technique at a time, you can get that better overall picture of how components compliment one another.
For example, you can incorporate a chunk of double poling into the middle of a classic rollerski, but it’s likely that the beginning and ending parts of that classic ski will also involve some double poling…you can therefore have a better feel of when/where it makes most sense to double pole during OTHER parts of your ski, having double poled on all sorts of terrain during a specific strength “set”. The same goes for skating, but more-so with tempo and body position…without poles you can’t quite rely on raw upper body power to compensate for good body position, driving knees, and engaged hips.
The Workout:
1 hour classic ski or skate ski
[IF CLASSIC] incorporate 20 minutes of double poling only during the middle third of the ski
[IF SKATE] incorporate 20 minutes of no-pole skating during the middle third of the ski
Try to notice your complete technique during the first and third components of the ski!
This week’s Masters workout is another nod to the NENSA virtual programming that has been happening this spring and summer. However, this one has a unique MNC connection as this event was founded and is spearheaded by MNC alum Jenny Wilbraham. See below:
The challenge for this Masters Workout of the Week is to complete a workout that is 1 hour, 11 minutes and 19 seconds. You could train for longer than that (OR do the full 71.19km!) but for this week the suggestion is to take on the 71-minute option.
For some of us, this isn’t a terribly long time to be training. For others of us, this is a serious undertaking.
The extra credit part of this Workout of the Week? If you are someone who often trains for this amount of time, try completing this challenge in a mode you aren’t as familiar with or something you’d like to get better at.
For example, if you haven’t ever rollerskied for more than an hour, use this as your motivation to push it a bit more. If you are always mountain biking and your running shoes are getting buried under the floormat, dust them off and hit the trails without wheels. If an hour and 11 minutes seems too simple, you might find taking on a different activity can make all the difference.
