Congrats to Ava Thurston who took home the State title at Thetford last weekend…it should be noted that Ava was the fastest runner in ALL divisions! Way to go!
Many of our Juniors have been racing hard for their XC teams all fall, and got to put it all on the line at the State Meet. Thetford’s course is actually a hilly, twisty XC ski course designed by John Morton, so it’s no surprise to see Nordic names racing strong. Some will head to New Englands while others are finished with one season and beginning to turn the focus toward snow.
The Middle School championships were a day later in some BRUTAL conditions at Hard’Ack. Way to tough it out!
You can read up on Ava’s win in the Waterbury Record right here.
This past Saturday, the forces of Masters rollerskiing in NY and VT collided in an epic battle on wheels. Thanks to some friends at Peru and NWVT for joining in a fun day of racing…and the action continues across the lake this coming Saturday when the Green Mountain crew takes their skills over to the Adirondacks.
Ready to COMPETE for glory
MC Killa Kort
You can check out the results archive from this year (and past editions) right HERE.
On a whim and thanks to a text conversation on Friday night between Ben Lustgarten and Hanna, we were lucky enough to have Ben join us for some bounding intervals on Saturday. All week, these intervals had received complaints from the gang…
“The worst thing we do”
“These make me grumpy just thinking about them!”
“Why don’t we go mountain biking instead”
So it goes without saying that motivation seemed low going into these. Luckily it was in a begrudging way for the most part. People realize that hard bounding workouts can be some of the best ways to develop those last few drops of fuel that tops-off the tank after a summer of good training. It’s just that, well, it takes a lot of effort to get that reward.
Getting situated before the start
I like to think of hard bounding intervals as an epic character-building experience. Sure, a lone skier striding through a farm field with a barn in the background is an iconic scene. But for a racer, the image of a lone figure in mid-bound up a steep hill in the woods (often at either extreme of soaked in sweat or drenched in sleet and snow) is easy to come back to for motivation. I encouraged this imagery on Saturday, although spirits were still a bit low. Maybe this also had something to do with Ben’s warmup which involved a lengthy 45 minutes at a pretty darn fast running pace! As it got harder and harder to handle just the warmup it was good to remember that was a World Cup skier we were being dragged around in the woods behind. New experiences and takeaways.
We have a system that I think works really well for this workout. It should be noted that this becomes MUCH easier with the use of a van! In the past we’ve done bounding up the ski hill, or alternatively at Honey Hollow down the road. In both cases, the only way back down after the end is to run all downhill. For this workout, we met at the alpine parking lot and then actually shuttled DOWN to the start of the Broadway trail which is actually a snowmobile/Catamount trail segment a ways down the access road. That way, the intervals end at the same elevation as the cars, meaning we can cooldown on mixed terrain rather than destroying our legs and joints even more. So with the shuttling underway and the long hill ahead of us, we squashed the last of the negativity within the first interval and continued up, up, up.
Follow Ben…if you can!
With some varying recovery times among the group, Ben was able to leapfrog through the group a few times during the early intervals so that most people got a chance to hang with him for as long as they could. That alone was character-building even if it was an early interval…these take a lot out of you. The real sign that we have some strong skiers in this group: the more intervals completed and the higher up the hill we got, the more people seemed motivated for more. At first it was a challenge to do 4, then everyone did 5, most did 6, and the number 7 was tackled!
Ready for another one?
For the last intervals, all the cards were on the table! Full-gas, as Matt Whitcomb would say. Hunched on the ground, breathing at maximum, and all that negative energy converted to ski racing energy. The sign that we had completely turned the tables from a doldrums of the chilly arrival earlier that morning was when we got back to the van and the team asked if we could hike up the alpine mountain for a cooldown. The fear of the hills had turned into a hunger for the climb, so up we went even further.
Thanks to everyone who came out for MNC Trivia Night on Friday. From a delicious dinner spread to a wacky and engaging trivia contest, this was a great way to bring so many members (and non-members!) together.
This event was spearheaded by Victoria Priganc and Maria Nolan, with some emcee skills provided by Dave Priganc. We owe a huge thanks to Cochran’s for use of their lodge…nothing makes it feel more like a skiing event than race bibs dangling from the ceiling, goggles and helmets on racks, and medals and awards from snowy competitions hanging left and right.
We raised over $1,300 toward the MNC Van. We’re so grateful for this support, as well as the support of our member donations through the Annual Fund and multiple sponsors such as:
The Free Fall rollerski race cancellation did not deter us from holding our own version on Tuesday with the MNC Juniors and the St. Mikes team. The competition was fierce! Even bigger were the prizes at stake…there might have been a few hundred dollars up for grabs at the NENSA event, but with our freedom to bend the rules this race featured a prize of ONE MILLION DOLLARS…if you don’t read the fine print. Congrats to Gaelan and Rose who took home their very own large checks:
That’s right, big payouts at this rollerski race!
The weather was just about perfect…compared to what we’d be in for on Thursday. Silas and Hanna out on course.
Always a good scene post-race…
Snapshot of TT results: thanks for timing Rosemary!
Although Pennie managed to capture about 10 minutes of total footage (great clips of every skier) I figured I would put some of the clips together in an edit that everyone can check out:
Of course in an intensity week, there’s not just ONE hard effort. On Thursday we underwent a brutal double pole test. It’s the same course we’ve always done, but the brutality came from the weather…38 degrees, a forceful wind, and a pounding rain. Everyone’s first “chilled-to-the-bone” session of the year.
When it’s too cold and rainy to take photos until after training…
We were rewarded, though, this Saturday for a trip to Stowe. The workout? Start on the Stowe bike path, and ski up to the Mansfield Touring Center. From there, put on the running shoes and run up the backside of the ridge to the Haul Road and, eventually, the cabin at Trapps. Then straight down Parizo (not as fun on foot as it is on skis…) to the Trapps parking lot where the van was waiting for a recovery stop at Piecasso. The weather and scenery was not to be beaten!
