Our summer training has begun, with numbers quickly closing-in on the most we have ever seen! With our college training group, Junior athletes, and U14 rollerskiers, we are going to be reaching over 50 skiers and taking things to new record levels. This past week kicked-off our “traditional” summer program, with some Summer Olympic challenges. The group broke into teams and competed in everything from medicine ball shot-put to mountain biking to an gymnastics course.
It was a fun set of activities with times and scores that didn’t really count for anything…but just getting a big group together was a gold medal endeavor after making it through summer training last year! It is so great to be headed toward normalcy with programming and safe surroundings.
Everyone got a short rollerski in, and our new-to-rollerskiing group was already cruising about 10km only a couple days later. Thanks to our great familiar coaches like Perry, Sara, and Rick along with new summer coaches Kirsten and Craig from BHS! This summer is going to be a ton of fun.
A mountain bike relay, with only the newest and fastest bike model
Relay race with rollerski baton
Medball shot-put throw
“Gymnastics” course, while attached to a team rope
A big group for skiing as the “closing ceremonies”
Our collegiate training group (MNC University, as it has become known) had a great training camp in Lake Placid last weekend. It was pretty cool to experience our first training camp in about a year. We travelled across the lake to put in some serious efforts and hours in the Adirondack mountains, including a rollerski timetrial up Franklin Falls road, a ski on the brand new rollerski track at Mt Van Hoevenberg, and a long 14 mile trail run/hike checking off three “46’ers”.
We set up camp at Wilmington Notch State Park, right at the base of Whiteface Mountain. Much like the traditional North Conway location of Mountain Camp, this area is close enough to feel like a short drive, but totally different in terms of surroundings and vibe: it really feels great and helps the focus to be in a more unique location than our usual roads and trails.
After a trail run on Friday afternoon and a night of rainfall, we experienced perfect weather on Saturday and Sunday. We got right down to business with a rollerski timetrial up the notorious Franklin Falls road, the route used by the US Ski Team for big tests before the Climb to the Castle route got formalized. GMVS drove over to join us in this competition, and with a brutal net-uphill 10km course under a hot sun, it was definitely one to remember. You can check out some video footage below!
After a nice long cooldown on a much flatter road, it was off to the swimming hole for cliff jumping and rinsing off. Once Perry pointed it out, I could not get over just how BAD everyone’s sweaty pole straps smelled. So, a cleanse in some river water was definitely key.
Some serious “west” vibes on this track right now, at least until the grass grows in
That afternoon, we got to check out the brand new rollerski loop at MVH. As someone who spent time at SLU as an athlete and coach from 2008 to 2015, I spent a lot of time in Lake Placid. I got to see and experience the re-working of the famous Ladie’s 5km loop, as well as the construction of the rollerski loop at the jumping complex. But these new updates totally change the game…the rollerski loop is only 1.8km right now, but you can clearly see the room for intended expansion. And the new lodge and trail updates are truly insane. Justin Beckwith calls it “Soldier Hollow East” and he is not wrong.
We were warned again and again by organizers and locals that the loop is “really scary” and I brought the first aid kit right to the side of the trail…however, I think everyone underestimated the kind of skiers this group was made up of. Everyone rolled right around with no problem. There’s definitely some high speed sections, but nothing we couldn’t handle. My only complaint? They ripped out all the trees to make this place, even trees in between some of the trails. Obviously this was for construction and/or TV “spectator/camera” purposes…but the lack of grass and open terrain (especially on a hot sunny day) reminded me a little too much of Soldier Hollow…if you know me, you know the East Coast pride runs deep…we like our green and our trees! I have to say though, having a rollerski loop you can just go up to and ski on felt very European. Would you look at that? We didn’t have to submit reams of forms, papers, lease agreements, and US Government nonsense along with an arbitrary payment structure just to ski on a rollerski loop! Thanks Lake Placid!
We packed up camp that night in preparation for a 5:30am wakeup and a trip into Keene to complete a big Adirondack loop. Starting at the Garden trailhead, we ran 3 miles in to Johns Brook Lodge. From there it was up Gothics, my favorite high peak (complete with metal cables bolted into the highest, steepest rock portions for climbing) and across to Armstrong and Upper Wolfjaw. All three peaks at “46ers” meaning they are among the 46 peaks over 4,000′ high in the park.
Looped back to the lodge and ran the 3 miles back to the van for a total of 14 miles and just under 4 hours of training time. Woohoo! Trips to New York are of course never complete until you stop at Stewarts on the way home, where we loaded up on milkshakes, burgers, soda, and all of that delicious post-hike food. It was an awesome camp, and such a good feeling to be working hard together, travelling together, and being in a true camp environment after a long 20/21 season. MNC University is killin’ it!
This past weekend was the first running in 2021 of the Bolton Uphill Test. This 1.4 mile sufferfest is a lot of elevation: plenty of aerobic, muscular, and mental challenge.
In lieu of a blog post recap, I realized it might just sum things up better to share the email I sent to the team after the test. It’s a good summary of how to view/interpret the testing archive data, who nailed some big PR efforts, and more!
The standing rule: breaking a course record = pint of Ben and Jerry’s
Hey all,
That was a seriously massive day. Massive in the amount of people, massive in the numbers of PR times achieved, and massive in the course record drop by Rose. I am attaching the archive below. This is the test we have the MOST data from, and it is organized in a few interesting ways for you to analyze:
Tab 1) By time
This is the overall record, nothing fancy. Every time that has run by every person, every time they have done it, in order by race time. We have data going back till around 2013, when some of you were probably in like 1st grade.
Fun to note…the women’s record in 2015 was 19:23 (Amy Bruce) and the men’s record was 14:35 (Henry Harmeyer). OH HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED.
Tab 2) By athlete
This one is super interesting. Everyone who has done the test is listed, and the test dates are organized left-to-right. For each person, you can scroll left and see their times over the years. For those that just did the test for the first time today, your times are added at the bottom.
With the exception of weird weather days (sometimes there’s snow on the course, or it’s like 20 degrees and hail) it is really nice to see a lot of people getting faster and faster as they do the test more and keep training.
Tabs 3+) By date
This is where you can see the times from individual race days. I’ve started doing averages which is a little bit unfair because sometimes we just don’t have too many people. But to have a BIG day like this and see a men’s average of 15:46 and a women’s average of 17:39 (remember, the old RECORD was in the 19s) is really really strong.
If you haven’t gathered by now, I think you all killed it. We’ve got an incredibly strong team, both HS and Collegiate, and you can all really push each other in a number of workouts. Some of you might really excel at this test, and struggle in something like the strength or DP test. Others might have completely flipped places with a teammate in the DP test and running test. Keep striving to work on your weaknesses by training hard with your teammates who may have a different skillset, and offer to lend YOUR skillset to help work with others on certain days.
Going forward, I think (but have not confirmed w Perry) that it would be good to do the Honey Hollow test one more time this summer, to see if we can improve there. We often then do Bolton once more to cap off the summer, usually 2 weeks after the conclusion of Mountain Camp to check that we have recovered from camp and gained some new fitness benefits.
PR PERFORMANCES (for those that have done the test before)
Our supporters at New Balance Williston are offering several specials for Father’s Day! If you’re looking for some new shoes for dad, this is a great time. Help support the brands that support MNC! Check out some details below:
A quick link to a recently (re)published Fasterskier article about rollerski safety, with advice from the US Ski Team. Our Juniors have really stepped it up in the past years, although it has admittedly been a multi-year process.
No matter how friendly to skiers our community is, there are always a few bad apples. It’s also too easy for any of our skiers (and coaches) to get distracted now and then, and when safe clothing and signs and habits are on our side it really keeps the odds working for us.
