Author Archive | Adam Terko

Rodriguez/Kendall Recap

By Adam Terko on 11 December, 2023 in Junior Blog

The timetrials are over, and the season is here! Craftsbury hosted the first official races of the season for many in our club (Juniors and Masters alike).

On Saturday, the Rodriguez Sprints were a great showdown with the “Royal Court” format meaning every athlete not only raced the qualifying round, but three additional heats. If it weren’t for Bullitt Timing and their amazing electronic wizardry, there’s no way this could’ve gone as smoothly as it did.

Anders and Lorenzo with the Mansfield M sign

Making it all the way to the A-Final (for 4th and 5th overall) were Anders and Lorenzo, seen here starting off their round with the Mansfield “M” hand sign: someday, maybe this will be on the World Cup when the camera pans onto one of our skiers..?

Throughout a very long day of heat-after-heat, it was fun to see the matchups across clubs and age groups. What other race would feature MNC Alum Emma Page (skiing for UVM), versus current MNC skier Virginia Cobb, versus Tom Thurston?? And our club had several heats with multiple MNC suits, such as this one with Astrid and Paige:

Astrid and Paige putting some time into the competition!

On Sunday, the snow got wet but the air (thankfully) stayed dry until after the races had concluded. We had a busy schedule with 4 different mass start skate races. The men’s 10km was up first, with the women shortly after. 2 laps of the North 5km course is definitely a real wake-up call after shorter timetrials and a lot of skiing on flat manmade loops at practice.

Stella turns up to the steepest part of the course, right toward coaches corner.

The MNC crew raced well, although we identified a few takeaways that should help us next weekend in Waterville for the first Eastern Cup.

Racing a single lap of the 5km course were the U16s, who closed-out the weekend. Despite the shorter distances, both races came down to tight finishes for the top three!

Jonah taking it out hot! You can also spot Henry in the background!

Lea and Kate charging up the Screamin’ Mimi climb!

With a snow day for the school districts today, it’s safe to say everyone was thankful to have a nice recovery day without classes OR training (many of the HS teams train on Monday, so it’s hard to get that time off after racing weekends). Of course, having snow itself is a plus, as we should be able to enjoy skiing on some longer trails. We can NEVER thank the snowmaking and grooming heroes out there enough, but the real thing is always appreciated too!

Next up: the first Eastern Cup in Waterville, ME. Ironically, coastal Maine is not getting any snow from this storm, so all of our manmade lap training should really pay off in a few days time.

Tired and happy skiers!

Rodriguez Sprints/Kendall Memorial Wax Tip

By Adam Terko on 6 December, 2023 in Junior Blog, Masters Blog

For racers competing this weekend:

Craftsbury has a manmade snow base on the upper/lower fields and around the cabins, much of which is stored snow from last year. Other trails have fully natural snow that has been through several grooming cycles, without much precip expected before the races on Sat/Sun.

Cold nights and average days (mid-20s, low 30s) will be the pattern until Saturday, when things will warm up. It will still be below 30 for the qualifier, and expect snow to be fast! Things will warm up during the heats.

Saturday night temps do not drop below freezing overnight into Sunday, and there is a high of 47 with rain in the mix.

FOR SATURDAY (SPRINT) SKIS

Brush skis thoroughly with a metal brush. If you have a glide zone cleaner, use this to clean the bases.

Apply a colder glide wax such as Toko Blue, Swix 6, or Rode R20 or R30. Scrape and brush.

Apply a mid-to-warm glide wax such as Toko Red, Swix 8, or Rode R50 (Rode R50 is a yellow wax that can run cold). Scrape and brush.

Check-in with Coach Adam at the community wax room! Please try to bring skis at least an hour before your start. We will be testing spray and wool-applied waxes, as well as structure, and will put our winning combo onto all skis.

FOR SUNDAY (MASS START) SKIS

Brush skis thoroughly with a metal brush. If you have a glide zone cleaner, use this to clean the bases.

Apply a colder glide wax such as Toko Blue, Swix 6, or Rode R20 or R30. Scrape and brush.

Apply a warm glide wax such as Toko Yellow, Swix 10, or Rode R50. Scrape and brush.

This can all be done on-site at the Craftsbury community wax room, as Coach Adam will have tools and some wax on-site.

Check-in with Coach Adam at the community wax room on race day! Please try to bring skis at least an hour before your start. We will be testing spray and wool-applied waxes, as well as structure, and will put our winning combo onto all skis.

WHAT SKIS SHOULD I USE?

Universal skis or warm base/warm grind black base skis are probably best for Saturday’s qualifier. You can also bring and test dedicated clear base skis, which are more likely to be in play for the heats, if at all.

For Sunday, universal or warm base skis are in play. If you have clear bases, you can bring them to test against traditional bases.

Masters Mini-Camp #1 Recap

By Adam Terko on 4 December, 2023 in Masters Blog

We had a rainy day and a short manmade loop for our first Masters Mini Camp of the season…BUT, we had a great time!

Thanks so much to Sleepy Hollow for allowing us to use not only their manmade snow loop, but their lodge space for waxing demos, a group lunch, and a comfy couch video review.

Things got underway with some dynamic warmups, and then skiers broke into groups based on ability. Stations led by MNC coaches Rosemary, Sara, and Kristen had folks learning or reviewing classic technique from striding to double pole, as well as spending some time indoors learning about strength training and exercises.

We had some skiers out on waxless boards for some of their first skiing ever all the way to longtime MNC masters racers. The wet weather didn’t dampen any spirits on the trails.

After spending a good amount of time skiing in the rain, it was great to be able to step inside. Skiers got together with some hot cider, cheese and crackers, homemade treats, and more. Everyone enjoyed chatting about skiing and getting to know their fellow club members, and then it was into the living room for video review!

With a bunch of cozy couches and a flatscreen TV for nice viewing, everyone was able to check out their own skiing, as well as talk through footage of some World Cup skiers. Always good to be reflecting and reviewing to progress further.

After lunch and video, it was time to head outside for skate skiing. We also rotated through an indoor group that got to spend some time waxing and learning about waxing in Sleepy Hollow’s wax room. The rain was starting to change to snow, which gave us hope for a bit of a boost to winter.

You can check out a full photo album from the mini camp at the link below:

Masters Mini Camp #1 Photos

Thanks to everybody that came out to ski, and we would be remiss not to give another very big thanks to Eli and Sleepy Hollow, a ski area helping to keep us all skiing during warm spells like this with their awesome snowmaking system!

Where the snow comes from! Thanks Eli!

Juniors Classic Dialing

By Adam Terko on 4 December, 2023 in Junior Blog

One of my proudest moments as a coach is not a race victory, a team score, or an award.

Earlier this summer at a regional camp, another coach stood next to me when dividing up groups. They leaned over and said “I want to collaborate on your station, because the MNC juniors all classic ski really well and I want to start figuring out why and how.”

Many of us start out on classic skis, be it step-in skis as youngsters or waxless skis as an introduction to the sport. In some respects, that’s the easiest form of skiing there is. Want to get out on snow with someone that’s never touched skis before? It’s likely you aren’t going to jump onto skate boards.

Yet mastering classic skiing with kickwax or klister, on narrow race skis and with speed in mind, is far from easy. Classic skiing perfectly embodies that phrase “easy to learn/hard to master” due to its complexity and necessary balance of power/speed/technique/tempo/body awareness.

If you are a racer, chances are about 50% of your competitions will be classic style. It is necessary to be proficient in both techniques, and yet often teams and coaches, especially at the HS/Junior level, will opt for skate far more frequently. When you have a large team, or a group that needs to eat into training time just to get on snow (for example, taking a bus to Sleepy Hollow) this is understandable and a logical factor of planning for these teams.

Teams and coaches will also take conditions into account. If wax looks tricky, or klister is involved, a switch to skate makes life easier.

But it isn’t always about making things easy! To that end, we tend to commit to classic a lot, likely a bit more than skating, especially in the early season. Through analysis of training logs over the years, in which we track time spent in each technique, it’s clear that a huge step is made when two things happen:

An increase in strength training, when the developmental window is correct to involve this type of training
A more even balance of skate and classic skiing

Classic with our group can be tough…I often spend the first 45 minutes of a session just dialing-in wax, helping apply klister or a klister/hardwax combo, or making adjustments to skis while everyone gets warmed up. But is this really too different from a race day? Nope! And our willingness to classic ski in tough conditions pays dividends in the winter because, guess what? We’re rarely racing in nice hardwax classic conditions!

This year more than ever I have been super impressed with the level of classic skiing in our group. What is it attributed to? CONSISTENCY, more than anything else. We make the effort to classic ski, and we learn by simply putting in the time. Other little things include:

Consistent strength training that helps build good body position, stability, and power
Intervals on repeated loops, but at different speeds and efforts to feel smooth vs fast vs hard
Switching some of our rollerski ratchets to the front wheel, making it harder to kick during dryland
Doing drills where we ski on wet soapy leaves to practice slipping, or doing rollerskiing/skiing on grass
Watching video of top athletes, and video of ourselves, frequently!

To that end, here are some clips of early-season classic skiing from a collection of our skiers:

Even if the snow is less-than-ideal, my challenge to anyone looking to improve their classic skiing is to take a chance and put yourself in some tricky conditions. Work on the technique when it is hard, not just easy, and you’ll be rewarded with improvement and a more well-rounded arsenal of technical abilities!