Mansfield Nordic Club

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Tackling uphills is something we’re always working on. Until they have every ski race on a flat track, we’ll always be looking to climb faster and glide uphill more than the competition.

On Saturday the group pushed through the rain and mist to double pole from the Hinesburg General Store all the way to the top of App Gap. A popular route for bikers, we pretty much had the roads to ourselves aside from a few cars here and there: not many bikers out in the rain, and not many folks looking to drive up App Gap for views of nothing but clouds.

Gary Solow drove along and snapped some cool photos, in addition to my own:

This is why you keep the fenders on the rollerskis, people! (G. Solow photo)

Heading up the steeps! (G. Solow photo)

Aidan, drivin’ through the rain (A. Terko photo)

Tired arms, strong skiers (G. Solow photo)

Since I was driving along in the support vehicle, I was able to get some video footage thanks to our secret trick of taping the GoPro to the sideview mirror. You may have seen videos from MNC with this angle before: the wifi remote start/stop feature and the wide-angle lens means I can capture moving film without having to balance holding a camera and paying attention to the road. You’d be surprised how smooth of a technique this is in action. Oh, and did I mention how smooth and powerful the technique of the team looked? Great progress already this year!

The sun finally came out this morning for a bonus little hike up Camel’s Hump. Everyone is getting pretty excited for a summer vacation with even more busy training!

Summit Bobo break

Our Saturday training sessions for Juniors are often a chance to make a simple workout into a more elaborate affair. This past weekend we combined what was originally a combination rollerski/run into a day of travelling down beautiful roads and then working on some trails of our own.

On the small mountain behind the Burt’s and Richer’s neighborhood is a network of homemade trails for mountain biking and trail running. After our very sunny rollerski out toward Hinesburg and back from town, our crew gathered up some tools and headed into the woods to dig, smooth, and rake a new section of trail.

Headed up to the woods, tools in hand

Under Steve’s guidance we carried large rocks to make a cliffside turn, scraped away debris and leaves to pack a smooth surface, and benched out hillside into a rideable section of trail. Nothing makes you appreciate the work of trail builders like spending over an hour crafting a portion of trail with 7 people that takes about 8 seconds to ride!

Birthday shredder Aidan tests out the work

Trail crew embracing the dirt

Not a bad weekend to cap off the first volume week of the year for the Junior Team. Yesterday we raced the first Bolton Hillclimb TT of the year and added some speedy times to the archive. For some it was the first Bolton test ever, while for others it was a nice chance to get reacquainted to the ski trails without snow on them.

You can view the updated Bolton Hillclimb TT archive HERE.

But we weren’t quite done with mountains after that. On Sunday coach Sara invited us up to the Canadian border for a segment of the Long Trail taking us up an over a few peaks, culminating with the summit and descent of Jay Peak. One of Sara’s projects this summer is running the LT in segments over the course of various weekends. While the call of the wild wasn’t enticing enough for the entire crew, some hearty souls like Ben, Will, and Timmy gathered at the Park and Ride early for a lengthy trip.

Shelter break fueled by Toko water belts

We were able to run about half of this segment, and ended up hiking/climbing the rest, dodging some wildly scattered debris that had the trail looking like a hurricane had blown through in many spots. In the course of 3 hours we covered 9 miles of rugged trail, with barely and signs of civilization or other hikers in sight until we reached the ski trails at Jay and began bumping into Quebecois trekking parties on the path down to the cars. Gotta love those uncluttered NE Kingdom adventures.

Taking in the view from the top of Jay

Some burgers and club sandwiches at the Jay Village Inn were the ideal way to replenish our carbohydrate stores after the session. Good eats for the money; thanks to Tom Thurston for the tip on that one. We were some of the only people in the joint, and after watching us devour our meals from the other side of the restaurant our waitress came over and asked if “we’d just run a marathon or something”. Guess our eating gave us away, or else our sweaty dirty bodies did.

Until next time, Long Trail!

Mountaintops FTB