With less fanfare than our Juniors, the MNC Masters have been out there getting ready for the season. Strength training and running groups have been meeting regularly, and will continue until the snow flies. Our roller ski crew has been racking up the mileage with a mix of roll’s on Wednesday’s with the ING crew and Sunday’s with MNC’s Coach Rick.
As we get closer to the start of the season, the weekend rollerskiers have gradually been adding both distance and an at speed component. The prior weekend to this past, the ski in Georgia covered 20 miles including a 4 mi tempo portion at the beginning. This past weekend featured the fifth running of our Southridge 6K time trial.
The TT route follows a series of three loops, each loop featuring a climb to the top of the neighborhood, followed by what typically can be a slight downhill recovery for the next lap. However, as with the prior year, a stiff head wind out of the south kept the skiers working and from taking advantage of the recovery section. But despite those head winds, a broken pole and a wrong turn or so, most group members were able to improve their times over last season. To see this years and past season’s results click here.
We’ve been putting together a lot of big workouts this past week, as having a volume week coincide with Thurs/Fri off from school really allows for some freedom. Things kicked into high gear on Tuesday with some skate intervals that went from L3 to L4 focusing on good skiing as a pack and patient pacing.
Aside from a tough fall by Alex during the warmup (always be careful checking your watch and losing track of the trail!) everything went well and the hammering was well done. It’s getting dark quickly now, and since there was some electrical work being done on Tuesday we had to finish things up before total darkness ensued. Big, exciting things happening at the Range these next few months!
On Friday, a huge crowd of runners took to the Range for an XC race hosted by MMU. They didn’t race on the paved paths but instead went through the woods straight down to the old alpine hill and climbed the brutal woods trail all the way back up. Luckily, the MNC skiers who were competing are pretty familiar with hills.
Baxter ran with the main pack and moved up as the climbs got tougher to end up 2nd
Lily (3rd here) at the front of a big group near the finish!
Sammie (2nd here) racing up the hills behind the rollerski loops!
These are all pretty blurry, but here you can see Kai rocking both the shades and hat to look like a true skier
Cheering squad, looking like a squad for sure
Once the weekend hit, the great weather continued and we had ourselves summer-like days for two busy workouts. The first was a bounding session with the St Mikes team up at Bolton. Instead of heading straight for the alpine hill, we utilized the World Cup trail at the Nordic center. We were pleasantly surprised to find the trail recently mowed, with a few new drainage ditches even added in. Things are looking up for Bolton under their new ownership, and hopefully the Nordic trails will begin to receive the renaissance they desperately need!
It was a sunny warm day with beautiful yellow leaves…a great session!
An excellent race trail that we hope we get to ski on this winter! Bounding this time, though
Ladies on the trail!
On Sunday, the grew dwindled to a hardcore few…Kai and Ali, namely. Ali, Kai and I put in about 2 hours of double poling down by Kingsland Bay, with Liam along to support and capture some footage. We grabbed some water and said goodbye to Ali after the 2 hour mark, and Kai and I continued on for another 3 hours…yes, you read that right!
Now, it must be said that Kai did not just go out and simply double pole 75K on a whim. Last year Kai had to sit out much of the training and racing due to back pain sustained from a fall while cliff jumping in the summer. It was a very delicate process to come back to full capacity, starting this spring with back injections to muscle groups and 15 minute easy runs around the Volunteers Green in Richmond.
I told Kai (and I mostly held to this) that the summer would entail a lot of me reminding him to take it easy and stay away from overdoing things. With double poling, we’ve increased the distance of long workouts from 30k, to 50k, and beyond. This was the “beyond” day and I have to say, it was incredibly impressive to see Kai double poling so far with strong technique and good energy.
So…75K complete! Now it’s time to rest with a recovery week and some extra off days!
For 2017 we are again excited to host our annual Thanksgiving training camp at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center! From November 22-26, Junior athletes will stay at Craftsbury where meals, lodging, and trail passes are all included. With the amazing snowmaking team at the Outdoor Center, skiers are often guaranteed on-snow time, and kicking off the winter season with a training camp is the perfect way to get ready for racing.
The cost of this year’s camp is $399, and the registration form can be found HERE.
On Thanksgiving Day the crew at Craftsbury puts together an amazing meal families are welcome to come join in at a fixed cost (typically $25 per person. This meal is already included for training camp participants). Stay tuned to the website for more details on that meal.
This year our training camp has space for 14 athletes, and the roster is currently half full. Be sure to sign up soon!
Ten adventurous BKL kids plus five parents took advantage of a day off from school to hike Mt. Hunger on Friday. What a gorgeous day it was! The group got quite strung out on the uphill climb due to a variety of hiking paces but everyone made it to the top where the views were awesome in all directions. It was so clear that we could see the White Mountains to the east and the Adirondacks to the west. A fierce wind was blowing down the ridgeline so we had to find a sheltered spot to eat our lunch. Carly’s mom, Carolyn, treated us all to gingerbread and whipped cream that she packed up the mountain in honor of her birthday. Happy Birthday Carolyn and great work hiking to all the kids and parents!
Next week’s hike is on Sunday, Oct. 29. We’ll be hiking Mt. Mansfield!
This past weekend the US Biathlon Team and biathletes from all over the country were back in Jericho for another round of Olympic Trials. These rollerski races were another stepping stone towards Olympic qualification for many, and it was once again a good opportunity to watch some of the world’s best athletes rollerskiing on our home course.
For this set of races, the “MNC House” hosted 3 SLU athletes who are aspiring biathletes. Lucy, Jackie, and Tim all stayed with Coach Adam and Coach Liam in the Jericho home base, and it was a good opportunity to chat about how the various teams are all training and getting ready for the winter.
On Saturday, the MNC crew had a bounding session at Honey Hollow and so we had to miss out on the biathlon action that day. It was a great workout on our favorite dirt road though, complete with peak foliage and elderly drivers motivating us by yelling about how much faster they would run back when they were in the 101st Airborne (shoutout to our favorite new Honey Hollow resident and Pugs fan).
Hey, there’s a familiar face! It’s Ben Carnahan back for mid-semester break!
After bounding, I met up with Kai at the Range for some double pole intervals. With the biathlon races recently completed, the Range was still open for skiing so we took advantage of an opportunity for Kai to get in some double poling since he wasn’t competing in an XC running race that weekend. I have to say, it was a pretty focused and productive session and I was able to get a lot of video footage. 4×7 min Level 3 on the Fall Rollerski Classic course, with the last 2 minutes of each interval stepping up into Level 4 pace.
After the double poling, Kai and I hit the gym to continue those strength gains. Oddly though, we did not see any of the rest of the team at that session…I guess everyone decided to do a strength workout at home on their own, right 😉
That evening, we had a really nice “dinner party” comprised of MNC coaches, some SLU skiers, some US Biathlon skiers, an independent professional biathlete, and a US Biathlon Coach. We got together for a group photo with the Pug sign, while also getting our best antlers out to “Moose It” for the legendary ski club Moose Nordic (click for additional photo sample).
Skiers, coaches, and biathletes embracing the Pug and the Moose!
Back row L-R: Pro biathlete Raleigh Goessling, MNC Coach Adam Terko, SLU skiers Lucy Hoschartner, Jackie Garso, and Tim Cunningham
Front row L-R: US Biathlon Team athlete Jake Brown, US Biathlon Team coach Danika Frisbie, US Biathlon Team athlete Paul Schommer
Photo by MNC Coach Liam John!
On the final day of racing I got to go watch the action, including the main races and also a mass start youth race afterward featuring both Tim’s (Cunningham and Cobb), Charles, and Marika. Great races everyone!
A big mass start group feauring Tim Cunningham (yellow helmet) and Tim Cobb (all black just behind him) and Marika
This week we’re going to be putting in a lot of volume with some big training days. Having school off on Thursday and Friday for most should help!
