Mansfield Nordic Club

HURT Camp 2015 was a blast. This annual training camp put on by Dave Paarlberg-Kvam of the Hudson United Racing Team (hence H.U.R.T) was hot, humid and sunny as always. It was also filled with great training, fun workouts, challenging timetrials and new experiences for all involved.

Training with others opens up so much potential. The ideas that float around from coach-to-coach, coach-to-athlete and athlete-to-coach are almost non-stop. Everyone does things a little differently, but everyone also understands the general concepts that make a successful season and a fun career in the sport. It was great to see so much of what we do in VT affirmed and echoed by other coaches and athletes. It was also great to not only add in some of our concepts, drills and workouts but to take away some new training tips, games and practices.

Warming up for strength circuits. So many on the ladders at once!

Discussion of college skiing and the steps to get there from SLU coach Ethan and VT Easterns coach Cally

We began the week with a session centered around bounding and various techniques and benefits of it. From there we spent two days on the Lake George bike path rollerskiing in groups and working on lots of drills as well as easy distance. I think we were on skis for 4 hours on Sunday! The bike path is a bit opposite of the Range: lacking in turns and corners but favoring gradual terrain and wide open sections perfect for group work. Temps were in the 90s on the first few days, but luckily the camp facility is equipped with the “Splash Pad”, a perfect water feature for cooling down…and occasionally showering in:

Cooling off under the Splash Pad

For the second half of the camp the intensity wrapped up with some tough sessions and timetrials. With Rudy Project glasses on the line there was a lot of hype surrounding three testing events: an on-ski agility course, an uphill run at the local alpine area West Mountain, and an uphill skate rollerski prologue.

Warming up for agility with some rollerski hopscotch

Aaron Huneck goes big and comes up short at the 180…don’t worry, he laughed it off!

Enjoying some watermelon after the conclusion of the West Mtn TT. The summit is actually beyond the hill in the picture. It took most 16-20 minutes…just like Bolton!

All in all it was an epic week of training and a great group of skiers who learned a ton, got pushed and challenges by themselves and the coaches, and will head into the rest of the summer stronger than before. I was pretty bummed no MNC athletes made the trek down with me (I was the sole representative of this “Joint Camp”) but I think I will be putting it on the table again next year in addition to working on our own summer camp.

While we did not have any athletes in attendance, I took some video of two presentations to bring back and share with MNC. The first is a talk with Brian Halligan, an athlete chosen 2 seasons ago to be a part of the US Biathlon Team. Brian is from the Queensbury and he gave a great talk about training, racing and his time with the team.

The second video is Coach Dave giving a little talk about finding paths to success in high school skiing and beyond. Where do you want to go in the sport? How can you get there? What are some important things to keep in mind?

Finally, to see the HURT page recap of the camp with some more photos, click HERE!

What’s on tap for this week with MNC? Volume! We will kick off the week with a Rollerski Pursuit TT at the Range with skiers from around the area tomorrow, and then put in some solid training hours in on the roads and trails…based on the forecast, it looks like the HEAT from HURT camp followed me back to VT!

Everyone was exhausted after the DP test…except for Charlie M, who was only 3 seconds off from the men’s record that he and Henry H have been battling back and forth with for a year

We completed our DP test today, a great start to some more increased specific strength work. It was great to see nearly everyone achieve a PR…and many new names were added to the list of times on the course! The test runs from the bottom of the hill on the far outer loop at the Range, and climbs up a sweeping S-turn and down a short descent before a pretty brutal series of pitches up to the finish.

Things got pretty official with this bib I found in one of the Range buildings. For the AM group I was finish line timer. For the PM group coach Terko got to handle the start line and then jump in the race. World Masters here we come!

Big improvements were everywhere…check out the historical record here and check back for some more pages that list each test individually: DP Test Historical

We finished off 2 big volume weeks with the Reverse Stowe Derby yesterday. What an amazing summer day! Since we were in the Stowe area I called up the Craftsbury gang (it doesn’t hurt that former MNC Bill Koch coach Anna is now working there) and asked if they would join us. Coach Rick also came along and the workout was a big success. The plan? Rollerski from the church in Stowe along the bike path, switch to running shoes and get to the top of Mansfield! It all worked out with many different age groups and ability levels…somehow we all ended up where we planned to within about half an hour of each other. Since the coaches were skiing and hiking right along with the skiers I didn’t get too many pictures, but here are some that show what the day was all about. A big thanks to Craftsbury for joining in for some training!

Transition zone. Gathering at the Toll Road base to switch from skis to shoes and the the beginning of the hike up!

Everyone made it up to the weather station, while a few of us made the extra journey over to the “chin” for the total summit. Here’s Ben approaching the top

The crew that trekked over to the “chin”…we had to bring the Mansfield Nordic Flag to the top of Mt Mansfield of course!

The end result…90% of the soreness caused from sprinting down the Nosedive trail…good to be sore sometimes

While the Reverse Stowe Derby ended a great week, we had many other workouts to get after. Here are some more pictures from throughout the week. Remember, for everything we do check out our 2 main photo streams:

MNC Instagram

MNC Flickr

Doing a little one-pole relay action at the Range

Olivia and Chloe found some berries on the side of the trail…and promptly went missing for 20 minutes…

Some tough but solid bounding intervals at Shelburne Farms. It’s rained a lot lately but when the sun comes out it’s definitely been beautiful

We start many practices with these things. They are technically Dyna Disks but I just refer to them as “squishies”. I like to think if you cover the squishies this just looks like a unique interpretive dance Rachel and Amy choreographed

This upcoming week will be a recovery week. We will feature one gut-buster though, the doublepole test on Tuesday! It’s time to start building our specific strength a bit, so we will start with this test to get a gauge and work from there. The popular location for doublepole intervals is Meadowridge but I can think of a few other long hills we may also haul ourselves up around here!

On Tuesday morning a group of MNC athletes were lucky enough to join in with the Eastern REG (Regional Elite Group) for a workout up App Gap in the Mad River Valley. The REG is comprised of the top skiers in New England, an honor awarded via success at various levels:

-Regional (Eastern HS Champs, J2 Fest)

-National (US Nationals, Junior Nationals)

-International (U18 Scando Cup, World Junior Championships

Needless to say, it is a group of the very fastest skiers from New England and New York! MNCers Maddie, Amy, Kai, Tim, Charlie, Ethan and Coach Adam took a trip over from “our side of the Green Mountains” to GMVS, where the camp was taking place. We gathered the big crew, had some pre-workout discussion with US Ski Team coach Matt Whitcomb, got in some dynamic exercises led by new US Ski Team member Katherine Ogden and set off for some skating intervals up the gap.

We divided up cars to drive to the starting point. Maddie helped to take a selfie of MNC car #1 (Maddie, Tim, Kai, Adam)

Before starting the ski everybody got some directions and goals from coach Whitcomb and coach Beckwith. The workout was a warm-up followed by 4 intervals up App Gap, getting steeper and more difficult each time. Care had to be taken to start cautiously so that technique and pace could be maintained even at the steepest portions!

After an easy warmup, the group took off their skis for a dynamic warm-up the US Ski Team has been implementing. After a series of awkward jumps, punches, jumping-jacks and lunges we were told that the Ski Team felt this improved their intervals by 1-2%…sounds silly but that can add up!

After this quality warm-up the intervals began. I would consider App Gap to be a little less demanding than the Bolton Access road. It is about the same length from the Waitsfield side, but it begins much more gradually before hitting the really steep terrain. This played perfectly into the goal of the workout. There was a good amount of V2 in the first interval and skiers were able to work together in groups.

Maddie and Amy (3rd and 4th from left) ski with some of America’s top juniors!

Ethan leads a crew along some lower sections. We had beautiful weather: sun, 70 degrees and not humid

Being smooth was key here. I often talk about ‘noise’ when skating. That can refer to literal noise from clomping skis (especially V1), slippy poles and poorly-maintained wheels and bearings. It can also refer to figurative noise: awkward motions, ineffective body position and discomfort with one side of the body over another. I took some video of Katharine Ogden in the first interval. What is impressive is how this smooth and “quiet” skiing held up even at the steep top section after 4 intervals:

The steep sections started to break the group apart, as you’d expect. The REG members were coming off a hard couple days of fitness testing, so climbing a gap was as much a mental battle as a physical one. Interval #3 started at the base of Mad River Glen, so the imposing ski lift and runs made put the climbing in perspective.

Amy begins interval #3 at the base of MRG. Around the right-hand corner in front of her is a monster of a hill that takes a toll even when you’re climbing in a car.

At the final pitch, is was easy to see that the fastest skiers were also the smoothest. They not only got to the top fastest, they did it with grace. At the top everyone was rewarded with a sweeping view of the Champlain Valley, though most didn’t take too much time to admire it.

Toughness for sure: REG athletes with shoulder trouble decide to make it to the top with one pole.

Tim nears the summit. After this session Tim was up at the Range a few hours later for Biathlon training. Serious double session there!

Kai smoothly brings it home, cheered on by Matt Whitcomb. With his house being right at the bottom of the opposite side of App Gap, Kai has spent many years climbing this hill

After everyone reached the summit, we took a short hike through the woods to see the U16 REG athletes (Greg and Conor included) finish up their hillclimb up the ski area. We gathered for a group picture before descending to the local swimming hole. There were a lot of sleepy athletes on the ride home…as I put it to them, a workout like this requires a lot of time and thought AFTER the fact. When you have the opportunity to ski with this type of crowd and learn from one of the best coaches in the business, you better take away all you can and soak it in! The next day, it was back to business here on our side of the gap.

Thanks to GMVS, NENSA and the US Ski Team for letting us join in an awesome session!

Group shot: U16 runners, U18/U20 skiers, coaches and MNC crew! (photo by NENSA)