Mansfield Nordic Club

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!

Congrats to our 5 athletes nominated to NENSA’s Elite and Development teams!

Elite Team: Ava Thurston

Devo Team: Hattie Barker, Virginia Cobb, Rose Clayton, Julia Thurston

Read more about these teams at this link.