We’ve had the double pole test on the schedule for a little while now. The other day on the way back from Lake Placid I said to Greg, “you know, the only problem with setting a fast time early in the summer means it’ll take more effort and require more improvement to beat it now”.
The same sentiment held true for most of the group, who either set a PR or were close to it back in June before we’d even begun much specific strength work. We’ve been increasing our double pole work both on flatter terrain and hills, but my anticipation was high for today’s staging of the test.
In the end, the crew one-upped themselves today with EVERY SINGLE participant (13 racers) setting PRs! We had some new test-takers as well (Olivia and Coach Sara) so welcome to the record books! The biggest improvements came from Andre Eastman, Aidan Burt and Ben Carnahan who knocked 38, 37 and 26 seconds off their previous best times, respectively. Pretty serious chunks of time for a 3-6 minute race! Amy Bruce also set a new MNC athlete record of 4:21!
Coach Sara and Coach Adam have also added some “Masters” times to the record books this summer, so any other coaches that want to tackle the test should try and make it out to the next event (we’re looking at you, Rick and Rosemary!)
You can see the historical archive by clicking HERE
Below is some video…thanks to Summer for heading out on course to get these clips!
From Fasterskier on 8/23:
“Double pole strength and technique is something USST Head Coach Chris Grover had a feeling the team could use some work on coming into the week, and the race series showed that to be true.
“‘We knew double pole strength and technique was an issue for many of the USA skiers and indeed we saw the deficiencies up close the past 3 days,” Grover explained in an email. “The Norwegians have so many athletes with excellent double pole technique, power, and endurance. As a nation, we need to work harder to close the gap.’”
Lots of photos to get to here and great training to recap. As always, keep up with the latest and greatest MNC internet buzz on our official Instagram Page!
First off, big news: Fall Registration is now LIVE! Check it out by following these links to Registration and Information
The past two weeks have been some of the biggest of the summer, both in terms of overall training volume and tough workouts. I’d say everyone is feeling it, but that’s kind of the goal as we are now ready for a big break to transition into the fall season. One recent highlight at the Range was the North American Summer Biathlon Championships. Racers from both the US and Canadian National teams were in town for the whole week leading up to the weekend races, so as we skied each day we got to share the rollerski loop with athletes like Tim Burke, Susan Dunklee and Nathan Smith. Along with the National teams were a bunch of Junior and Development groups…the Range was quite busy for a summer week!
The races proved pretty exciting, and although Kai was the only member to check out some of the action live with me, it was a fun experience to watch the top athletes duke it out. We even got to cheer on MNC athletes Marika and Eliza in their junior races.
The men’s mass start gets underway!
Kai doing some technique analysis of the top biathletes
MNC racer and EA biathlete Eliza leaves the shooting mat after hitting 4 of 5 targets!
Since not many took up my offer to watch the races (I even brought bagels, but Kai and I made short work of them) I brought the races to the masses. I took a bunch of videos and uploaded them to Youtube:
One of the most striking aspects of each race was the ways in which the top athletes were always finding speed, especially on the gradual downhills we take for granted on the Range loops. The section from Stadium loop to Pit loop is often where athletes chat it up and lazily drift down the trail. Not so for the racers! After watching the race footage, we did some speeds at the exact same spot and tried to learn how to best carry our momentum. Here’s a clip of a few athletes from the morning crew trying it out, with footage of top racers Leif Nordgren and Susan Dunklee up first for examples:
Another big deal has been some racing of our own, with the second edition of the Bolton Uphill Run test. There was a thick coat of oppressive humidity both days we ran the test. We raced the originally-scheduled event, plus a “make-up” day because nobody gets out of this one! Despite the tough weather and a hard intensity week leading up to the race, there were many PR efforts and even a new women’s record by UNH skier (former MNC athlete) Annavitte Rand! All results (with tabs at the bottom for more details) can be found at the BOLTON HISTORICAL RECORD
With a new PR effort of 15:45 Conor officially joins the “15 Minute Club”
Along with these bigger events, summer sessions have continued to bring together some of the best skiers in VT for awesome training. Next week everyone is looking forward to a breather as the transition back to school becomes reality. Believe it or not, the days of summer are melting away faster than the delicious mint-flavored creemees Coach Sara and I had after practice last Thursday.
We’ll watch a lot more video and have some group discussions and worksheets (no homework, I promise) in order to keep the training aspect of practice more low-key this week and absorb some of the hard work we’ve put in. Here’s some more photos from the past few weeks to close it out:
Sam L busting out some pullups at Dee PT. He’s now off for another year of college at St. Olaf!
Finishing up an easy ski with some short double pole and single-stick relays around the stadium area
BKL speedsters Sammie and Magda going all rock-and-roll before…
…perfecting their double handstands! I think they needed Ali for guidance!
Ford Sayre skier and famous skiing Instagram personality @real_nordic_skier aka Adam Glueck joined us to train and became an honorary MNC member this past week
We also took a mini-trip to Lake Placid for a ski with the NYSEF crew and coach Marge also became an honorary MNC member!
Another great week in the books! This was a recovery week, which meant some easier terrain chosen for distance workouts but no shortage of adventure! Our one tougher interval session was at the venerable Mills Riverside Park, where a few hardy souls met up for an evening of ski bounding in the thick forest. Here’s a short YouTube compilation…there are some funny looks because for a few of the clips I hid in the woods (Russian-style) to try and capture the athlete’s technique when they didn’t know I was watching!
At the end of the hill the trail turns into singletrack and climbs a steep grade. I snapped this shot of Will in black and white and it looks like it could be set in any era. You could superimpose Bill Koch or Martha Rockwell onto that background in the mid seventies and it wouldn’t look a bit out of place. That’s the great thing about ski bounding: it’s required basically the same tools and physiology for the past 50+ years!
Will bounding through the woods. 1970 or 2015?
On Friday we took to the suburbs of Williston for a skate rollerski in Southridge. Sometimes there is a dedicated structure and plan for practice, and other days it is nice to just pick a few technique elements to work on and set off on a nice long cruise. The hills at the Range are mostly short and steep, and there is kind of a lack of flat ground. For that reason I often try to seek out different goals for workouts outside of those loops. On gradual hills you can work on efficient V1, skiing ‘big’ on long gradual downhills, and medium-gear techniques like kick doublepole. Oh…and you can work on your skatepark skills:
Greg drops in for some gnar
Chloe embraces the shred-factor
We have been capping our weeks with some adventurous sessions, and that continued on Saturday with a trip “down South” to Kingsland Bay. We ran for almost an hour, then switched into rollerski gear for a 1:20 double pole on rolling farmland. There were some intermediate sprint preems along the way to keep it interesting, along with some fierce and violent farm dogs…it was a beautiful day and after the ski most of us stuck around for some fishing, slack-lining and picnic-ing at the town beach. We were joined for the session by Callie Douglass, leader of the VT Eastern High School Championship team!
Coach Callie tests out her balance
The Burt boys and coach Adam went out to fish and caught some big weeds and sticks
Post-workout picnic on the lake!
After a nice relaxing week of mostly easier sessions and beautiful summer weather we are due for a change. Next week will be a volume week and rain is expected…time to toughen up!
After the 4th wettest June on record in VT, we have been greeted with a relatively dry July. August hasn’t been shaping up too bad, either!
But for those rainy afternoons (or for an evening kick-back-and-veg session) here are some recent Nordic videos that are a blast to watch…not the least of which is from our own sessions!
First, here are some clips from recent MNC training. This first one is the most ‘serious’…a compilation of some striding after we finished out classic workout at the Range. I use an iPad app to take video, replay it in slo-mo, and disseminate it among the skiers. But those clips are all individual and sometimes it’s cool to see everyone in one place:
Now we will move on to two less serious videos that nonetheless demonstrate some of the skill and dexterity of the MNC athletes. The first is Greg Burt doing a little ‘drifting’ at Mud Pond on his rollerskis. No wonder everyone is always having to order new wheels around here:
The final video from the MNC clip section is of Charlie Maitland having a run-through of the new balance and coordination drill I cooked up. Each ‘footprint’ has a label of LEFT or RIGHT foot in order to purposely throw off coordination. I have asked around and haven’t seen evidence of it anywhere else so I am laying claim to this as my first big contribution to the ski world. After some difficulty coming up with a name “hopscotch from hell”? “crazy-dance”? “crazy boogie”? I finally settled on “hammerdance” after I found the perfect soundtrack to this clip of Charlie running through it. Special props to Ben Longenbach, who helped capture this moment by slowly pushing my on my rollerskis as I let the camera roll…only took us 3 takes!
Moving on, a big event last week was the Blink Festival in Sandnes, Norway. This festival is a series of Biathlon and Nordic races all on rollerskis. Trust me, it isn’t your average Co-Op pursuit race! These races were pretty much a World Cup in the summer…the event kicked off with a brutal race called the “Lysebotn Opp”. I’m not big Norwegian speaker but I think Opp simply means “Up”…this is an all-uphill climb up endless switchbacks of a beautiful fjord.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf-DC7SBwX4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9v-hw56GLI
All of the videos of the festival (including biathlon, nordic sprint and mass start events, and more) are available on the channel of Norwegian biathlon star Emile Hegle Svendsen. It’s particularly incredible to watch the mass start races where a giant mass of rollerskiers are all shoulder-to-shoulder ripping around corners and somehow not crashing or breaking equipment. Very cool.
The VT Co-Op had a huge turnout Tuesday for our Pursuit race at the Range. 31 racers took to the start line to complete a 5km classic interval-start race. Everyone then switched to skate gear to race the same course again, this time in a “hunting start” format based on a racer’s time back from the classic race.
We had racers from MNC of course, but also some special guests. Erin Perryman from SLU drove up from Lebanon, NH to race in the event, but that was far from the furthest journey, however…Owen Putman and Aaron Huneck got up at 4am and hauled their spandex-clad bottoms over from the Clifton Park, NY (speeding ticket included) to make the race. These two are stalwart vets of HURT Camp and when I put it out there to race on the last day of camp a few days prior they took me up on the offer! GMVS joined in, as did campers from all over New England who were attending a GMVS training camp.
It was a hot and humid day, about what you’d expect from the Range at this time of year. In the men’s classic race Forrest Hamilton took the win. Charlie Maitland followed 7 seconds back, while Greg Burt and Conor Munns tied for third. The women saw another tie, this time at the top of the podium between Chloe Lemmel-Hay and Olivia Cuneo, with Rachel Slimovitch following just seconds behind.
In the skate race Forrest and Olivia maintained their top positions overall, although there was some shakeup in the splits for the skate race itself. Erin Perryman bounced back to win the women’s skate portion of the race ahead of Olivia and Rachel, while Will Solow charged up through the competition to post the fastest split in the men’s skate race in front of Forrest and Charlie.
