Congratulations to Aidan Burt, your NATIONAL CHAMPION in the U16 Men’s Classic Sprint at Junior Nationals! A short 10 minutes after that finish, Quincy Massey-Bierman and Ava Thurston battled to the line for 2nd and 3rd place in the Women’s Classic Sprint!
There’s plenty of more racing to come, and these racers will continue to race hard along with their New England and MNC teammates Rose Clayton and Ava Thurston in Friday’s classic mass start races and Saturday’s freestyle relays!
Follow the action on the US Ski and Snowboard livestream and SuperiorTiming!
This past weekend I got to experience a different kind of race weekend. For the first time in recent memory, the BKL Festival didn’t overlap with a Junior race or some other engagement. After a string of busy, stressful, and chaotic race weekends, Sara, Rick and I were able to head down to Rikert and do wax support and race-day action involving ears on hats, parades, cider and doughnut missions, and a real party on snow.
Man, THIS is the kind of thing that makes New England skiing so great! Actually, you can say that about so many aspects of our skiing world, from this youngest level all the way up to the Masters racing scene. I often get to see all the fun our BKL skiers are having at the Range, but seldom do I get to watch them race other than the Skiathlon or a few other overlapping events. It was a ton of fun to see such strong efforts, and there was a real vibe of fun and joy even during the races themselves.
The true testament of such an infectious attitude? I was staying at my mother’s house in nearby Ferrisburgh for the weekend…after the first day, I came home raving about the day and sharing all the photos from Dave Priganc. Before long my mom had dug out the old photo albums and was riffling through photos from some of my trips to various BKL Festivals of years (and millennia?) past: namely Notchview in 2001 and Waterville Valley in gasp 1999. The oldest skiers at this year’s festival were still not even born yet when I was “competing” at those festivals, but it’s fun to look at the old festival packets they printed out and pick out some familiar participant names…Sophie Caldwell, Ida Sargent, Alex Howe…
Whether or not some of the top names at the 2019 BKL Fest will be on the World Cup in 10 years remains to be seen. But the cool part is looking at many other names who aren’t on the World Cup but are still involved in the ski world…a few names you may have heard of:
Cross Country Skier Magazine editor Danny Kuzio, Skida founder Corrine Prevot, current coaches like Anna Schultz (Craftsbury), Kate Barton (Midd), Perry Thomas (UVM), Jake Barton (Craftsbury), Shane MacDowell (NYSEF)…
When you have a sport that brings so many different people together beyond just racing fast, you can bet that many of this year’s festival participants will be skiers for life, taking the sport in all sorts of new and exciting directions!
Brady arrived on Sunday after a very successful swim meet Saturday. He threw down a fast race…
…but wasn’t afraid to throw out the tongue mid-race!
Is it possible to find a photo of the Carlson siblings without awesome technique? Kate and Taylor must’ve picked up some more Scando-tips since they just got back from skiing in Norway over break!
The weekend was also a chance to see that next generation of Eastern Cup competitors! The 7/8 field is a mix of athletes, some of whom are U16s headed to Junior Nationals already. Our club has some strong athletes who are headed in that direction next year, and after the races on Sunday there was already a buzz about all the training that we were going to do over the summer to take another step forward in 2019/2020. Of course, you also had the really cool “graduation” ceremony where these athletes were honored as they transition up. Congrats!
Some of next year’s Juniors!
Julia and Finley hamming it up
There are SO MANY more great photos on Dave’s Flickr site…be sure to check it out!
The final element this weekend helped me see in yet another new light was just how great our coaches are for helping provide the right environment for MNC to bring out the best in young athletes. It isn’t always easy to ski in the cold day-in and day-out, and we all know the Range isn’t the most family-friendly place to ski. But we’ve got a ton of creative coaches who make it happen. When you see everyone together embracing skiing, that creativity and dedication really shows. THANK YOU to Rosemary and ALL of our BKL coaches!
Check out Meredith’s GoFundMe page for Junior Nationals, and consider supporting her on this awesome trip! The expense of the trip is quite high, but it’s an incredible opportunity that athletes from across the country strive for each season. It’s a huge honor to compete for Team New England and any support that helps athletes like Meredith is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Congrats to Ava Thurston (U16G), Aidan Burt (U16B), Rose Clayton (U18G), and Meredith Stetter (U20G), the four MNC athletes who qualified to represent the club and New England in the 2019 Junior National Championships! This crew will travel to Anchorage, Alaska next week with Adam (U18 Boys coach) and Sara (U16 Girls coach) for a big week of racing against the best in the country.
MNC skiers Tim Cobb and Sammie Nolan were incredibly close and are currently named as 1st boys alternate and 2nd girls alternate, respectively.
This is a new mark for the club in recent memory, with 4 athletes attending as well as all three age groups represented!
Pressure and stress can do some crazy things to a person. Whether you stay up late, wake up early, fidget with your nails, grind your teeth, or pace every time you stand up…you know what your ‘ticks’ are. For the past two weeks that deep-seeded feeling of anticipation has set in as we’ve crashed head-on into the final two Eastern Cup weekends. I can’t speak for everyone on the team, but for the past week in particular I’ve been singularly-focused on Eastern Cup #4. Add in the forecast for wild weather on Sunday, the very last Eastern Cup race, and you can imagine the insomnia.
We’ve been boosted, though, by so many things. Positive attitudes and the knowledge that the hard work is paying off…particularly after a few great days at Eastern Cup #3. Combine that with a deeper staff of coaches at races to dial in everything from skis to on-course management, AND a giant heated wax trailer big enough to fit 4 wax stations and enough skis to form a wallpaper of base material…and the ingredients for kicking butt are starting to simmer.
This final weekend was our best yet, unequivocally. Saturday rolled around and found us at a new venue, the Dublin School. With a course full of
Aidan firing on all cylinders
gradual climbs and hairpin descents, aggressive and powerful skiing were rewarded. It had Aidan’s name all over it, given his penchant for big jumps, spins, and tele turns. In a combined field of U16 and open skiers together, Aidan skied to 11th place in both the morning 3km and afternoon 1.5km (winning both races for U16). Timmy slid across the line next for the Pugs with two solid races that immediately bumped him WAY up into the points standings for Junior Nationals. Eli, Brook and Charles felt a bit flat but all had good performances. Particularly relevant for Brook and Charles was the chance to do well against some competition they’ll face in a few days for the State meet.
In the women’s race Ava crashed on a corner by skiing TOO aggressively into the trailside crust, but rebounded for the afternoon. A lot of nervous energy was spent by coach anticipating how some of our JN “bubble” skiers (those very close to making the team) would do. For the women this was a good number of skiers…Rose, Meredith, Sammie, and Ali all were in striking distance. On Saturday it was Ali who really started to get her groove back and was skiing with confidence and lots of SPEED.
It reminds me of a quite underrated Disney movie from my childhood, The Emperor’s New Groove…the search to get the groove back, that is. Which is doubly ironic because Ali actually has an extreme Llama phobia (no joke).
Ali’s New Groove
Having the kind of races that put them right in contention were Rose and Meredith. In particular, watching Meredith attack the V1 sections with a furious-but-stable hop-skate was such a great example of how far she’s come this year, from barely ever rollerskiing to training like none other. Both her and Rose set themselves up to fight for a JN spot the following day.
Meredith charging!
Rose charging!
The Dublin School was an awesome place to ski. The school is investing a lot into Nordic right now and you can tell: modern courses, snowmaking on the way, a yurt that’s likely to be a real lodge very soon, and the logistics to pull off a great Eastern Cup. Also, the weather was FINALLY warm on race day for the first time in…months? That brought out the spectators, and having four races in one day also meant other skiers went out to yell at their teammates and cheer them on. It was starting to feel like serious spring skiing fun out on the snow.
Hanna skied to 13th for her best U16 finish yet!
Charles skiing with a lot of dynamic confidence
After a really nice team dinner at our favorite Covered Bridge restaurant (thanks parents!) we woke up on Sunday to find…Holderness Crazy Weather Eastern Cup Round #3. That’s right, for the 3rd year in a row it was quite a day out there, with a classic race at 32 and snowing…heavily. Then sleet. Then a brief break…then more sleet. Then more snow…you get the idea.
I looked back at the testing/wax log and counted up that we put 13 different kick wax options and combinations on the snow that morning. 14 if you count zeros. Thanks to all the club members and friends who chipped in to contribute to our big fleet of zero/waxless ski options! We ended up at 50/50 for the most part in the women’s race, and all of the open men raced on zeros.
Sammie taking. No. Prisoners.
There was panic in the wax trailer, no doubt about it. The schedule and race starts wait for no coach, so we were in full scramble to get wax on skis for the older women’s 10km. I’m really proud of how several girls handled the chaos without freaking out…because there were moments when I certainly was! In fact, this might’ve contributed to what was the womens team’s Best. Day. Of. The. Year. I am hypothesizing that everyone was so frantic and focused on what the heck they were going to have under their feet that they forgot about the fact that they had a big race on the line. So when Sammie blasted through the lap zone having caught and passed a big competitor, AND put another 30 seconds into her…I was losing it! It was the Sammie Nolan we saw this fall, skiing like she was chased by wolves and crushing the competition with tempo, power, glide, and climbing speed.
Then when Rose and Meredith both came by about to catch their competition for JNs from multiple bibs back, the excitement only got higher. How do you know it was a good day? Rose saw who she was catching, knew she was skiing herself onto the team, and looked at me with a smile and stuck her tongue out as she headed onto the second lap.
I got to be there when those first three crossed the line, with huge high-fives. In fact there were a LOT of high fives that day. Sammie ended the day 9th overall! Meredith and Rose were next in 11th and 12th. Following that was Julia in 20th for her most killer race of the season, and then Jenny (29) and Lily (31) also popping HUGE races!
Difficult classic conditions? Julia doesn’t make it look like it!
With all the best Juniors in New England in one spot, THIS is how we knew we could race all year
The only bummer was Ali, who raced without having taken her inhaler beforehand and struggled with breathing problems…she looked AWESOME on the first lap but you could tell it was fading fast when you can’t take in air. But like I said earlier, that groove was back…especially when she hit the big optional jump they included coming down the hill into the lap zone…whether or not hitting that jump was intentional on her part or not, I won’t say 😉
Coming up next was the open men. Timmy laid it ALL on the line to race into 13th overall. In a CLASSIC race! He did all he could to nab that trip to Alaska, but either way he looked phenomenal double poling. The effort he’s put into getting stronger in the gym this year is evident. Charles and Eli both beat several racers they hadn’t been close to all year, and were skiing great.
In fact, results notwithstanding this day showed the value of so many things we put effort into practicing. Crazy difficult classic conditions require great snow-feel, balance, coordination, and patience. Often, skiing “hardest” is not the way to ski “fastest”. We do lots of weird things to work on this…sometimes when rollerskiing I’ll spread leaves on the trail and dump water on them to make the pavement slippery. Sometimes we’ll wax with less kick than normal on purpose. We hit ladders in the gym, jump onto Bosu balls, and use the TRX to hone our core strength…and seeing everyone manage the skis out there was amazing. For example: Sammie. Meredith, Lily and Hanna were on kickwax: mostly a combination of two waxes I boiled together in an old soup can earlier in the week (no joke). Rose, Julia, Jenny, and Ali (and all three guys) on the other hand, raced on zero skis. It’s important to note that zeros are not like skins or fishscales: they do not provide “easy, perfect kick”. They require finesse and a keen technique to ski them well. The fact that half our group skied on one thing and the other half on something completely different, with great skiing from all, shows how that hard work pays off.
Speaking of hard work paying off, after the wet, snowy races it was time to gather for the naming of the Junior Nationals team. Already locked-in were Aidan and Ava! Next up was the older group naming. Skiers were called, and familiar names were rattled off. And then, in the 11th U18 spot was…
ROSE CLAYTON!
And called up two names later…
MEREDITH STETTER!
It was hard to contain the emotion. JNs is a huge goal and EVERY ONE of the Pugs worked incredibly hard. It came down to the last weekend, and when all the cards were on the table so many of the MNC gang threw down their best races of the season. A bittersweet nod goes out to Timmy and Sammie. As of right now (Monday night) Timmy is the first alternate not yet selected, and Sammie is the second. MNC club members: do your lucky dances and charms because other skiers (particularly those busy college kids) have until Wednesday to possibly decline their spots.
Junior Nationals Pug Squad ’19! Ava, Meredith, Rose, Aidan. Adam (U18 men’s coach) and Sara (U16 women’s coach)
You can read a bit more on the JN team and MNC presence HERE.
Regardless of Junior Nationals, Eastern High Schools, U16s, or Eastern Cups…I am SO PROUD of everyone on this team for what they accomplished this year. It was not an easy year. A very “heavy” year, as I’ve put it several times. Having everyone accomplish what they did, at every level, feels like such a fitting way to head into the post-season of final races. So much of what these skiers did was a mix of personal drive and team support, and when that balance is on the vibe is at its most killer. After a spring, summer, fall and winter of ‘cultivating the vibe’ this group of Pugs made it happen.
Man, THIS is the kind of thing that makes New England skiing so great! Actually, you can say that about so many aspects of our skiing world, from this youngest level all the way up to the Masters racing scene. I often get to see all the fun our BKL skiers are having at the Range, but seldom do I get to watch them race other than the Skiathlon or a few other overlapping events. It was a ton of fun to see such strong efforts, and there was a real vibe of fun and joy even during the races themselves.
