Spring training has begun for the MNC Juniors, and while the “Winter of Purple Klister” didn’t provide much variety to our ski terrain in the cold months, we’ve taken advantage of the manmade alpine terrain at nearby mountains to extend the season a bit.
The training we do in the spring is on a 3-day/week basis, and right now we are transitioning into a pretty regular mix that will include running, strength training, mountain adventuring and, yes, rollerskiing (just once per week). Here are some photos of our training these past few weeks!
Here is Will skinning up Bolton. We had a unique group this day: Charlie and Tim on nordic skis, Adam on 3-pin metal-edged, fishscale tele skis, and Will on full-blown Tele gear with skins
Clockwise from top: Will, Charlie, Adam, Tim
Tim stands below the wind turbine, for good scale
Charlie getting some air
Coach practicing his turns
A day later and a few mountains south down route 100, Greg and I took a little journey to Pittsfield to ride the Green Mountain Trails (ranked #3 in VT on Singletracks!, which had just opened after a streak of dry, warm weather. For the first “real” mountain bike ride of the year it was pretty intense, with 1000ft of climbing right off the bat! We will definitely be back though, since these trails (and the atmosphere of quirky Pittsfield itself) is pretty memorable.
The rewards of the climb: a long downhill with sweeping mountainside ravines
Other rewards of the downhill: some airtime
Proof we made it to the top: our bikes at the stone summit cabin
When we aren’t in the mountains, we are working on the basics like strength and endurance. A lot of our team has suggested we take a more “ninja-centric” approach to training. We got started with the introduction of a new training tool affectionately referred to as the “double pole-up”. Wooden dowels, hooks, and ski pole straps converts any pullup bar or monkey bar into a double pole-up workout! Ben demonstrates:
Try to tell me this doesn’t look like some ninja training…
Double pole-up in action
Back home in the woods on the Essex/Westford border, another training tool is taking shape…the peg-board, which will be installed at the Range this summer!
Now we have caught up to last weekend, where Tim, Charlie and I braved ice, wind and fog for another ski adventure. This time the target was Smuggs, and it was the polar opposite of Bolton’s sun and corn…definitely a memorable experience though.
Marching up the side of the trail…more like mountaineering than norpining this day
Tim got the skis on here and there, but mostly it was hiking, sliding, and avoiding catastrophic falls on icy black diamonds. Of course the sun came out at the bottom!
