Author Archive | Adam Terko

Coach Perry Thomas has helped bring together a great group of collegiate athletes as part of MNC this summer! Unofficially dubbed “MNC University”, this crew has met separately from Juniors on most days and pushed themselves with some key workouts.

College group DP sesh

More and more, sessions are aligning with certain Junior workouts to form the biggest spring group we’ve ever had at once.

Having this group be it’s own entity with it’s own coach (I attend some rollerski sessions to help film and support, but Perry is still the lead on those days) has helped it gain much more of an identity than in seasons past when we’ve tried to have it just be part of a general Junior programming.

Instead, what we have are two groups (College/Junior) that each get the training that benefits them. As our Juniors grow in numbers and scope, covering a wider range of abilities than ever, this has proven extra beneficial. But our collaborative training schedules mean that on certain days some Juniors may jump up and train with the college skiers…or, if looking for more on-time the college skiers can arrive at a Junior session too.

With summer around the corner, the Junior squad is poised to grow. We’ll see new faces, new rollerskiers, and the return of skiers from spring sports in great shape. It’ll be exciting to continue working together as much as possible to get the most out of summer training. Having a dedicated college crew has definitely brought another level of strong programming that is capable of benefitting all MNC skiers!

Well, the long runs continue to increase in their scale. This weekend the college group (colloquially known as “MNC University”) joined the junior group for the “Triple Crown” loop. This run encompasses three trail networks: Sleepy Hollow, Hinesburg Town Forest, and Carse Hills, and a road route back to the start.

The dirt roads are hilly, the singletrack it rooty and vintage, and the entire run is 18 miles long.

We had a table of snacks, a van full of bikes in case people needed to swap to wheels partway through, and a gathering of 21 athletes lined up and filling the entire parking lot of the Audubon Center in Huntington. It felt less like an MNC training day and more like an actual running event with only a registration form and prize raffle missing.

No bikes were needed, it turned out. Everyone went full run, and compared to the handful of participants last year this felt like totally new scene. Not everyone in this group has rollerskied a ton, and running comes naturally. Others loathe running but crave the double pole workouts and rollerski agility. Here we had an “armada” (as a few of the team described it) strung out like a neon snake along switchbacks and narrow bridges. I believe we’ve entered an era where MNC has the greatest depth and highest level of pure, raw athleticism the club has ever had.

The last mile of 18 was a pretty rapid pace, as four or five jockeyed for the lead and a breakaway formed. Instead of collapsed bodies at the end, everyone milled around on their feet and even jumped into cars to take off for work obligations. Things have come a long way from the days when getting folks to show up to a run longer than an hour was like pulling teeth!

After a tense and strict summer of divided small groups and many precautions, we’re excited to begin rolling out a picture of a much different training season ahead! While we aren’t out of the woods yet, the vaccine distribution and uptake in Vermont has led to a very rapid easing of guidelines as interactions become safer and our immunity grows. I wanted to share a brief outline of some of the fun things out Juniors have to look forward to this summer.

June 22: First day of Summer training!

With schools getting out and scholastic sports coming to a close, Summer is one of our favorite seasons and it’s simple to see why: we can all be together! The focus is high and the adventures are many. This year, we’re excited to get back to using the MNC van as our vaccination rates create safer environments for time spent in close proximity. This means more trips, better training locations, and workouts like point-to-point rollerskis and shuttled bike laps.

June 28: Regional Elite Group Camp

MNC has three skiers qualified to take part in this year’s Eastern Regional Elite Group camp! Hattie, Ava, and Rose will train alongside the best in New England, along with US Ski Team coaching support. They’ll be joined by MNC members and training group skiers Isabelle Serrano and Quincy Massey-Bierman!

July 1: Tentative Range Access

We received word from the National Guard that civilian organizations will once again be able to apply for leases and access to the rollerski track at the Range! This is great news and it means safer training, awesome terrain for skiing, and a return to one of our favorite spots. If we do indeed return to the Range, summer will truly feel like “normal” once again.

July 3: Williston Parade!

Another sign of better times and a return to group activity? We’ve once again signed up for the Williston Independence Day Parade! This is a fun day where we use the van, the MNC trailer, and a few bucketfulls of SNOW (from the UVM ice arena) to rollerski in the parade! The snow is a crowd favorite, as is the Hawaiian shirts that became an impromptu staple.

July 21-Aug 1: Mountain Camp/Mini Mountain Camp

Can you believe Mountain Camp is in it’s 6th year?! This camp (and it’s corresponding camp for younger skiers, Mini Mountain Camp) fills up every year and this year is no exception…now with the longest waiting list ever! We’re excited to be back at camp again for a highlight of summer programming.

August 1: Junior NTG Camp

Ava has been nominated to the US Ski Team’s Junior NTG (National Training Group) and as such has been invited to some camp opportunities through the US Ski Team! The first of these occurs in August in Park City, Utah. Way to go Ava!

Here’s to a great summer!

Last weekend was the perfect stretch of days for outdoor adventure. The Juniors have been meeting once per week in April, a new thing for us! Usually April is totally off, but this year multiple skiers asked if we could meet up once a week for a run in order to spend more time together. As the weather turned nicer and the pandemic began to take a healthier route in VT, it felt good to spend more and more time as a group.

We began with a 5 mile run on the first week, then upped it to 6 or so following that. Next it was closer to 8, and then a 9-miler with even a few choice miles at a slightly faster pace as we worked on our form and fitness. When official spring training started in May we undertook a 3000m run test, following that up with some 1-mile repeats based on our 3ooom times and getting a little footage to analyze our biomechanics.

So with all that under our belts…we bumped it up to a longer run this past weekend in beautiful Pleasant Valley. This stretch of land in Underhill/Jeffersonville/Cambridge was showing its best side on Saturday for a scenic 13-mile jaunt. Everyone did great, and we enjoyed pastoral farms, tree-lined dirt roads, and swimming holes alike. We averaged about 9:45 pace, which was relaxed enough to keep a conversation going the whole time (ok, maybe not on the final few uphill stretches…) but quick enough to ensure true running and not the lax plodding and poor angles skier runs are sometimes known for…what a workout!

What more needs to be said?

The 3k run is a very standard test for XC skiers. Used for years and years as a basic measure of fitness, it has gone in-and-out of fashion among some teams.

The difficulty of it is similar to skiing in terms of aerobic capacity (as opposed to, say, a 400m run) and it is very repeatable and easy to access with tracks all over the place.

What hurts its effectiveness? For one, a track is entirely flat…and I can’t think of a single ski race that was on an entirely flat course last year. This means that running economy and footspeed can be pivotal: you can train effectively for a very fast 3km time on about 30-45 minutes per training session, which is not what could be said for ski training. It also doesn’t require the same upper body demands, which have really come into the forefront of Nordic skiing in the past 10-15 years.

But hammering is hammering. This test was used a lot last year during COVID as a way for teams and skiers across the country to measure their speed. Many colleges use it as a benchmark too, so we’ve taken to running a few 3k tests each year.

Our other main benefit from this test, in my opinion, is figuring out more about how fast we can and should be running during on-foot days. Many XC and track and field athletes run really fast on training days and workout days alike…it sort of comes with the territory, especially among teams where Nordic skiers don’t make up the primary bulk of the team. If we know how fast we can run about 2 miles, we can work backwards to figure out some target times for easier runs and even intervals, based on varying percentages of that “max speed” at 2 miles.

The first 3k test of the year happened last Saturday. The MNC Spring gang went over to South Burlington, which was nicely vacant on account of the Burlington Invite happening at the same time a few miles away. This also meant we had a lot of people running the 3k on the same day! Special shoutout to Emma Crum who took a huge win in the BHS Invite with a blistering 10:47, and was followed closely by Rebecca, Hattie, and Finnegan.

We had a lot of quick times and some huge PR efforts, like Taylor and Emma Page who PR’d by 30 seconds each, and Virginia who had a 40 second improvement over her previous best!

You can check out an archive of all the 3km times here. This includes the overall list, as well as separate tabs for each day at the bottom.

The crew at South Burlington

Donut deliver for Taylor’s birthday!