Thanks to everyone who came to the event!
2023 MNC Skiathlon BKL Results
2023 MNC Skiathlon Open Results
Link to photo album from Adam Popkin
Link to photo album from Ellie Bouffard
Photo from Ellie Bouffard
Hey BKLers- Are you going to the Festival?
This year’s New England BKL Festival is taking place in our own back yard at Craftsbury Outdoor Center in Craftsbury, Vt on March 4 & 5th. It’s not that far away this year, so even if your child doesn’t want to race, you should consider going because there is a Nordic Adventure category where they get to do all these fun activities on skis.
Here is how the Festival Works:
This is a ski festival for kids and it’s a lot of fun for everyone. It’s big- there will be over 400 kids participating from all over New England. There are races both days- a skate relay on Saturday and an Individual Classic race for all age groups on Sunday. But there is lots more going on besides the races. There is a whole schedule of Nordic Adventure activities like a parade, a mini-marathon, terrain park, laser biathlon with US Biathletes, maple sugaring demos, draft horse logging demos, an autograph session with Bill Koch, and more. All the Nordic Adventure activities are included with a racer registration but your child could also sign up for just the Nordic Adventure activities if they are not interested in racing.
For MNC, we will have a big contingent of racers and Nordic Adventure skiers going. We will set up a team tent which will be our home base and hang-out spot, put together a pot-luck lunch for both days, have coaches on hand to wax kids’ skis and help them preview courses and get ready for the races. For the relay day, Coach Rosemary works hard the week before to set everyone up with a relay partner. Sometimes kids get paired with someone from another club and have the opportunity to make a new ski friend.
The races are going on all day long and so are the Nordic Adventure activities. So, your child might have their race in the morning and then they will probably spend the rest of the day on their skis, going between our tent (for snacks) and all the different Nordic Adventure activities.
Read more about the Festival and Register on Ski Reg: https://www.skireg.com/nebklfestival
BKL Practice Week of 2/13/23
Tuesday, 2/13: Penguins Classic & All others Skate
Penguins: Valentine’s Day Scavenger Hunt!
Jack Rabbits, Arctic Foxes & Racers: Valentine’s Day Mini-Marathon
It’s time for our annual mini-marathon! How many laps (or Km’s) can you ski in one hour? We will do a little warm-up and start all together at 4 pm. Kids will ski as much as they can on the designated loops, stopping to fuel up at the snack table and record their laps.
Parents: 1) Every kid should bring a filled water bottle labeled with their name. Kids will get thirsty. They can leave water by the snack table. (Remember that Range water is non-potable).
2) We need parents to bring some healthy snacks for the snack table. Valentine’s treats are OK too.
3) We need 2-3 parents to help with the snack table and to help the kids mark down their laps. If you can help, email Coach Rosemary: sheacobb19@gmail.com
Thursday, 2/16: Skate At Tomasi’s & Funky Hat Day. Practice will be 4-5:15pm. Check before you go for last minute changes.
Update Wed. 2/15, 2PM: The Range is closed for the rest of this week, but the skating should be OK at Tomasi’s Field and way better than the last time we skied there on frozen grass!
Parking: We will plan to park & drop off at the Casey’s Hill parking lot on Mountain Road and meet kids there.
Weekend Racers: Off
It’s Middle School Championships, Coach Rosemary will be at the Dublin Eastern Cup and some kids are recovering from illnesses. Get some needed rest or ski with the family this weekend.
Skiathlon Wax Rec
It’s looking like some transformed snow for the Skiathlon. There will be a chance of snow Friday night, but it will likely get groomed right into the more transformed base (on account of warmth and rain Thurs/Fri and a lack of recent snowfall).
For glide, having a neutral but mostly colder glide wax would be advised. Toko Blue or Swix PS6/PS7 would be great starting points. MNC will have wax support consisting of some liquid or wool non-fluoro topcoats, and these are best applied over a well scraped/brushed ski with a recent coat of traditional wax!
For kick, a klister binder would suit the conditions best. It’s possible we will use hardwax, but a klister binder will help the wax stay durable and handle the aggressive, transformed snow that forms the main base of the trails. You can see a clip of some klister binder waxing at the bottom of this page.
We will be testing kickwaxes on the day of the race, and can provide recommendations or even just some wax itself. For klister application, we will have our wax roller to help apply klister quickly and easily. Check in with coaches to get the latest!
Junior Worlds Reflections
The third phase of my coaching career began somewhere around the outskirts of Seattle on Tuesday, January 24th, 2023.
I am sure 17 year old Adam would’ve had a total brain meltdown at the scene which kicked off this new phase, a reflection which made me realize a new chapter was opening up.
To kick off phase one I was nervously pacing the SLU ski locker room on my first day as an assistant coach, wondering what to say and how to act for the first day of training. To kick off phase two I was putting on a new MNC uniform in my mom’s living room, realizing the pressures that would come with being a head coach.
Phase three began on the bench seat of a Ford Transit van. I was draped in a US Ski Team parka for a blanket, drifting off to sleep as Bryan Fish drove me, two other coaches, and 17 boxes of World Cup waxing supplies and test skis north to British Columbia.
Let me get this straight right away: I’m not planning to jet off and join the US Ski Team staff, or leave Vermont, anytime soon. But that van trip through the pacific northwest represented the final few hours before a new step in my career involving nerves, stress, and trepidation the likes of which I hadn’t felt since those other two key phases of my coaching.
I was embarking on a two week stint as one of the lead kickwax techs for Junior/U23 World Championships in Whistler. What was I about to learn? How would I perform? Was my current toolbox of intrapersonal skills, technical awareness, waxing abilities, and emotional intelligence up to the task ahead of me? What would be similar or different from our own coaching and waxing lives on the Eastern Cup? One of the most psychologically demanding aspects of my work with MNC is balancing my own introverted personality with the need to be direct and assertive in certain coaching and leadership situations. It’s a balancing act that often brings me to incredible emotional highs when I’m “in the trenches” on a race weekend, followed by a massive crash on Mondays, manifested by hiding from the world and all responsibilities for about 24 straight hours.
In Whistler, we had four classic race days in a row, with some athletes and coaches I was just meeting for the first time. There was really no time for an emotional low or a crash: it was game time all day, every day! And I had a blast getting to meet new people, work with athletes both familiar and fresh, and take in as much as I could. It was a big stressor to leave MNC during this time, and one of my key goals was to bring what I could back to the club, helping everyone benefit even if I had a bit of an absence.
One thing I feel I’ve done well is reflect on past experiences and use that knowledge to influence future decisions. In a training sense this is carried out most weeks…often the intervals we do in one week are a response to something I noticed about out team’s skiing, collectively, over the most recent races. On a personal level, there’s many reflections on what has been planned, said, done, or been carried-out within race events especially, and in Whistler it was nothing but one race experience after another.
So what were some takeaways?
- We have a really connected coaching group who understands one another and communicates
While there was only minimal tension at times among our Whistler staff, it was clear that it’s tough to bring a bunch of people together who may not know each other, shove them into a high pressure environment, and expect fantastic results. It made me so appreciative of our coaching group on the Eastern Cup, who is able to openly talk about positives and negatives, laugh and have fun naturally, and feel disappointed as a group as well. We’re cohesive and engaged with each other, and can actually read each other pretty well I’d say. It was very sad to lose Rick with his move a few towns over, but coaches like Kristen and Dana seem to have been able to jump right into the mix with shared perspectives and processes. That wouldn’t happen without our group being flexible and welcoming (as well as being open to change and the sharing of ideas) and I’m so grateful for that.
2. The best athletes in the world are just like our team, with a range of personality types and “roles” within the group
Did you know that Olympian Luke Jager is, from my perspective, “the Geo of the US Ski Team”? The hilarious vibes from this kid radiated through both the coaching and athlete groups all week. Whether it was full group messages about Call of Duty screennames to the entire staff and team, or just a sarcastic request for me to “test all his 20 pairs of race skis by 8am at the furthest point of the tourist trails” you could easily mistake Luke for the class clown…until you see him ski. Things felt just like our group at home, even though we’re talking about World Cup regulars and some of the fastest Juniors in America (or the world). Some athletes are quiet and focused, some are laughing and silly. Skiers had bad races and sat against the fence with their heads down, and others had great races and were literally bounding down the media zone. And there was everything in between.
3. Waxing does not need to be complicated to work well
The number one paraffin used all week? Swix HF8. That is, until testing helped us learn that no paraffin at all was faster…it was simply better to just use a glide cleaner, start with a totally “empty” ski, and spray Helx Yellow on it.
Many coaches had their own “homebrew” waxes on them, and they were tried frequently. But they never were the best. You know what was on the skis for the U20 women’s classic mass start? One layer of Start klister binder, followed by Swix KX30 blue klister. You could walk into the doors of Skirack right now and pick up the klister to give yourseld a “World Championship Wax Job” and that’s something very refreshing about our often overcomplicated sport.
4. Perspective matters in coaching and racing
It is worth reading some of the recap articles on Nordic Insights or Fasterskier about these races. Almost all of them contain quotes and reflections from the athletes, often captured RIGHT after the race and before athletes may even be aware of their final placings. Just like an Eastern Cup or race in Vermont, there is a wide range of emotions and thoughts…some skiers who had big goals didn’t achieve them, others who expected to get crushed ended up doing the crushing themselves, and everything in between. The really amazing thing to read is just how consistently honest, vulnerable, and realistic these athletes all are in their own analysis of their race, their skis, their expectations, and their realities. It’s something all athletes at every level should strive for, and something all coaches should aim to foster.
I’m not sure how many phases of my coaching career there will be, but I’m grateful to have experienced all of them thus far and I hope that I can share the knowledge and lessons more as I go forward!
