Our MNC University squad spent the weekend in Bethel, Maine for a training camp.
Bethel?!
Yes, a new location for us, but a great one for some awesome workouts! With the Gould Academy campus in this town, there was no way to not find great rollerskiing and running options. With some outreach to the Nordic coaches on that staff, we got the lowdown on the toughest hills and smoothest trails to explore. Bethel really is an amazing place to be a skier!
On Friday morning we loaded folks into cars and caravanned across a couple states, but not before stopping for a mid-journey run on the trails of Dog Mountain in St. Johnsbury. A unique place to be sure, and the humidity was stifling, too.
In Bethel proper we took to some quiet and scenic backroads for a classic ski Friday afternoon, catching the beautiful evening sun. That was a nice double-session-day, but the real challenge would come the following morning when we drove over to Sunday River for tough striding intervals up Sunday River. With a 6km climb there was no hiding the effort:
Shea, Amelia, Ava, Hattie, Emma, and Libby near the top! As the sign says, it’s steep, but they didn’t take it easy.
Keelan leads the start of an interval at the very bottom
It was a great hill, and the predicted rainstorm held off the entire time thanks to the amazing forecasting skill of Shea Brams. Even without precipitation, the humidity certainly wasn’t letting up, so a nice dip in the river at the base of the climb was a welcome treat…and of course the squad posed for a flexing bridge shot:
After some lunch at the rental house, a few episodes of Black Mirror on Netflix, and some naps to top it off, we did have plenty of rain for the afternoon workout: a run on the mountain bike and nordic trails behind Gould, followed by a very muddy game of speedball on the campus soccer field.
On Sunday morning, we put a Presi Traverse into our back pockets for another week, as the weather was calling for thunderstorms (and a 4am wakeup car shuttle would’ve been needed). To make up for it, we certainly needed an epic workout of course. I thought back to the very first Mountain Camp in 2016, when we skied on a quaint road near Santa’s Village on Route 2. Brandon and I mapped out how that could take us from Santa’s Village all the way to Lancaster, then down the Connecticut River through several tiny NH towns until a bridge to Vermont. From there we devised a route to take us up to tiny Victory, Vermont and over toward Kirby, all on dirt roads with running as the second mode of travel in this “duathlon”.
It has now become somewhat of a “theme” to have our training camps end with a long workout taking us in the direction of home!
Sure enough the pavement was skiable, the scenery was beautiful, and everyone had plenty of snacks given our stop at the grocery store the night before to stock up on Presi supplies. Nothing caps off a training camp like a 2.5 hour rollerski that leads into a 2.5 hour run!
Rose and Libby striding it out
Covered bridge fueling stop on the VT/NH border
The bustling center of town in East Concord, Vermont!
Hour five, at this point running through the swampland of Victory, VT (population: 70 as of the 2020 census)
Ending our camp (just as the wildfire smoke blew in) with ice cream and Pizza Hut in St. J
This group has been a ton of fun to have around this summer, and they have been working HARD and also doing a great job of forming their own culture and atmosphere. We took some time at this camp to share a little about ourselves, and also began drafting a mission statement for this program. We’re super excited that Brandon Herhusky has been able to lead this program, and everybody is looking forward to more!
You can check out the newly-published MNC University page on the dropdown menu from our homepage, and check out info and rosters that include athlete bios (a growing collection).
Several in this crew had never rollerskied before, and everyone was able to confidently get around the 1km loop at the Village Community Park (WCS) by the end of our day. A pretty sizeable chunk of skiers even ventured safely out into the neighborhoods for a quick trip around some familiar cul-de-sac pavement.
