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Qualifying for the Vermont Eastern HS or U16 Championship team is a big deal. Each year, Vermont routinely sends more athletes to Junior Nationals as part of the New England Team than any other nearby state. So the yearly one-day, two-race Qualifier event is sort of like a Norwegian national championship: you have to be able to win a World Championship title in order to be strong enough to win a National Title.

The event is one of the few (if only?) event where you’re guaranteed to have a “complete” Vermont field. High School teams, Club teams, Ski Academy teams; everyone competing in the same race.

So naturally it is a benchmark: skiers look to improve and move up the list in order to be on a team, Eastern Cup athletes are still trying to beat familiar competitors from other races, and everyone can see how their team stacks up!

For the MNC gang this race represented the halfway mark of the season. With 2 Eastern Cups down and 2 more to go, this was sort of the Slam Dunk Contest held right in the middle of the season (no extra charge for cable subscribers). While there were individual successes in Lake Placid, for the most part it was time for something different: we were due for a good one.

Having this past weekend off from racing was a welcome change of pace. You might think this refers to the energy stamina needed to race hard…that’s true, but almost as important was the relief on the brain. No stress of driving, staying in another town, eating meals and scheduling life differently…we just had a basic interval session and a fun ski in the woods. Some of the crew also had the Tour De Chittenden, which, while opposite of rest and chill, still might’ve provided a good mental reset: so much racing in such a short time that there’s no chance to overthink it.

So when it came time to lay it out there for just a day this week at the Qualifiers, we finally had the good one we were due for.

It was a cold day on Saturday, with just enough wind to provide that extra chill in your lungs. The races were moved from Rikert to Sleepy Hollow, which was actually great. Closer for many of us, AND we happened to have spent most of the week training there anyway! AND on klister no less, given the wacky weather. I am in fact a firm believer of training on klister. Many teams opt to switch it to skate, though the recent skin ski explosion has also  made striding still an option for some. But you can’t substitute the real thing and even though klistering adds a lot of work to a training session (like the coach getting covered in it just for a weekday session) you can see the benefits play out when it counts.

Charles putting his strong double pole to work

That’s what we got for the morning race: a 4km classic featuring a lot of purple and blue klister. Rosemary, Sara and I each took a few seconds to say a word of prayer for our right thumbs before de-gloving and starting the process of klistering 20+ pairs of skis out on the wedding pavilion. With stable granular snow, most every team was using some type of purple klister and racers across the board seemed to be happy with their skis. That meant it was a skier’s race, not a wax race…those who could ski the klister well and use their strength and speed from ski-specific training would be apparent. Our group showed how much work they’d been putting in, as it was definitely our strongest race of the year so far. The men were up first with Aidan 8th, Brook 11th, Timmy 13th, and Charles 15th. The Eastern HS team is chosen from the top 20 ranked skiers, combining their classic and skate times. This was a particularly strong result for Aidan (usually only racing against U16s, in this field competing overall) and a huge result for Brook. To be just outside the top-10 in this race is huge. It also sounds like Charles may have ripped one of the fastest first laps in the entire field before fading a bit on the second. The men were all in a solid position to make the EHS team!

The women’s classic was an awesome display of Pug power, and I felt a wave of excitement and a sigh of relief. These were the kind of results I knew the gang had worked hard enough to earn, and after things hadn’t felt fully actuated for the first half of the season this really stood out. Quincy finished 3rd, Ava 4th, Meredith 9th, Rose 11th, Sammie 12th, Ali 13th, Hanna 14th, Lily 28th, Myla 30th. 7 of the top 15? That’s a Pack of Pugs for sure. Just outside was Lydia (31st), along with Rachel (49th), Virginia (58th) and Carly (64th)  all competing in their first qualifier (Virginia, Carly, and Rachel are all middle schoolers!).

Pug Pack

Up next, the men’s skate race. This was biathlete Timmy’s time to shine and he didn’t let the fans down with a 6th-place effort. Not far behind was…Brook! Who got

Hanna showing them how it’s done

his top 10 with a 10th place result! Aidan came in just a tick behind in 11th, with Charles in 22nd.

The women kept the engine running full-blast for the afternoon, with Ava bringing home the top MNC result of the day with 2nd place! Quincy 7th, Rose 9th, Meredith 11th, Sammie 19th, Hanna 20th, Ali 23rd, and Lily and Myla tied for 30th. Lydia showed her consistency, finishing 32nd.

The final combined results helped determine the top-20 who would comprise the Eastern HS team, as well as the top-24 U16 athletes for the U16 Championship. In the end, “Mansfield Nordic Club” was heard quite frequently during the team naming, as many of our skiers earned spots.

9. Tim Cobb

10. Brook Hodgeman

11. Aidan Burt

16. Charles Martell

2. Ava Thurston

5. Quincy Massey-Bierman (+ Craftsbury)

10. Rose Clayton

11. Meredith Stetter

14. Sammie Nolan

15. Hanna Holm

18. Ali Priganc

In addition Lydia, Rachel, and Carly will all get to compete at the U16 Championships this spring too! It’s also a strong possibility that, with JNs overlapping and the State Meet quota, we could see both Lily and Myla added to the Eastern HS roster 🙂

The story of this race day can’t be finished without a quick glance back at some details from last year. The trio of Brook, Hanna, and Meredith deserves some recognition…these were 3 skiers who hadn’t been involved with the club before the past season…with the slight exception of Brook who joined mid-season last winter. But, these were racers who had never rollerskied at the Range before, and never been involved in MNC programming for spring/summer/fall. They are also three racers who have put an INCREDIBLE amount of time and effort into this sport over the past 8 months, both at our training sessions but also on their own. The work ethic here is inspiring, and the amount of work clearly shows in the year-to-year progress these three have made.

Last year’s combined classic and skate rankings for each skier are listed, compared with this year’s qualifier.

Brook

2018: 44th

2019: 10th

Meredith

2018: 53rd

2019: 11th

Hanna

2018: 78th

2019: 15th

Hard work…it works!

Full Results via Bullitt Timing

Photos (including above) from Dave Priganc

On Sunday, Jenny was busy winning the Flying Moose 10km in Maine. Here in VT we had the busy MNC Skiathlon, with Julia and Eli racing for the Pugs and taking home some nice glassware for their speed 🙂

It was about time for a break, after about two straight months of competing every weekend. Ski racing takes a toll on more than just your body, as it’s a difficult task to motivate and gear-up to put yourself through a lot of pain each new weekend (even if you’re racing fast and feeling healthy!). The same goes for coaches…I think a lot of us were ready for a little less pressure and being able to sleep in for a few days. The final rounds of regular-season racing strike fast and furious, so the timing of an off-weekend couldn’t have been better.

For high school racers, it’s a bit of a different story as we’re in the midst of the Tour De Chittenden. In fact, the final race is about to begin at Cochran’s as I type. MNC skiers have been doing great and it looks like more hard work paying off for the Pugs.

For those of us not racing the HS circuit, this weekend was a chance to hone in on some technique and fitness and check out the next level of racers. On Saturday, a crew went up to Trapps to watch the UVM Carnival mass start race. UVM is dominating on the men’s side, and Dartmouth is equally dominant for women. We also got to watch lots of friends and alums racing, like Eliza, Marika, Will, Greg, and Isaac. Oh yeah, Bill Harmeyer won on Friday and Henry was just off the podium on Saturday (in a UVM 1-6 sweep). Nice!

After checking out the races, the group went out to the Telemark trail for a little bit of race prep for this coming weekend’s EHS/U16 Qualifier. That day is a 3km classic in the morning, and a 3km skate race in the afternoon. To mimic that we did 2 intervals about 8 minutes long: one classic, then one skate. Here’s a bit of video from the classic, bookended by a pass of the UVM women in the race a half hour earlier!

On Sunday, we had one of the most fun skis of the year! We went down to the Capital District (Montpelier) for a skate session on the top-secret trails behind Julia’s house. They’re not actually that secret…but they’re pretty special. A series of connected loops that link up to Morse Farm, these trails were a lot like the Bogburn trails although with a more skier-friendly layout, you could say. There was a ton of snow, and Julia’s dad did an awesome job grooming everything with the super-sweet Bearcat snowmobile and full Ginzugroomer setup that used to belong to the ski center. Can I just say that having 10km of trails out my backyard, with a legit grooming setup, is a life goal of mine. So it was fun to live in this fantasy world for a few hours.

The weather was warm, the trails were nice enough to use race skis, and the loops wound through fields, pine stands, and thin sugarbush forest. It was amazing! We got in a nice long ski and even had some fun with some balance drills like one-ski downhills and swapping skis on the fly.

Gathering at the trailhead, ready to rock some amazing and fun loops

Such nice trails! And of course some hydration from our TOKO waterbelts

Eli and Aidan with some idyllic Vermont ski terrain

Here’s some ski drills to try…the one foot spin (above) and the partner ski-swap (below)

The first swooping downhill out of the backyard and into a lower field was so fun, I tried to capture some footage of it and play it all together. Hopefully this makes you want to get out and ski, and maybe even cut some trails on your own property:

After the ski, the Oliver family was nice enough to make us an amazing lunch of mac n’ cheese! Thanks for an awesome day. If you can’t already tell by the tone of this blog post…it was the ideal weekend off from big races!

Lake Placid wouldn’t be too far of a trip if not for the daunting large lake that separates Vermont from New York. On a clear day you can see the slopes of Whiteface from Burlington, and the hilly, wooded terrain feels a lot like Jericho or Underhill.

But sometimes the place feels a world away, and this weekend was one of those times.

From the haphazard caravan journey to the wacky weather and misplaced tactics or untimely falls, things started out rough for the Pug crew. We’ve had a lot of experience with sprinting and, in particular, classic sprinting this season. But Saturday was just not our day on the whole, and there were varying reasons for sure. That’s not to take anything away from some great individual performances, but we do work hard as a team and of course strive to do well as a group.

The thing about an Eastern Cup weekend -and this can be good or bad- is that after the first day you’ve gotta just turn around and hit the race course again 24 hours later. In the best-case scenario this means an opportunity to get after it again and show what you’re made of. On the other hand, it means a lot of extra digging and mental tenacity to re-wire and re-focus. Sometimes that’s easier said than done.

On the whole, things shifted back into a more positive direction on Sunday. A mass start is a great chance to be a little bit angry and a little bit aggressive. Seeing exactly where you want to be, in real time, is empowering. Maybe that’s the approach we need to be continually reminding ourselves of: where exactly do I want to be? What stands (or strides and glides) in between where I am now and where that is? What can I do to keep closing that gap? It was also great to have a weekend where many of our younger Pugs got into the races and could see the Eastern Cup all coming together. Way to go Rachel, Carly, Lydia, and Carl!

One thing is for sure: we’re ready to throw more into each weekend as they come. It’s true we were under-staffed this past weekend. Without Sara and Dan I’m not sure what we would’ve done. It’s true we were in a different environment, with different courses and a different home to sleep in and the third weekend in a row with single-digit temps. But this is the gang that’s had some killer races fueled by “Room Pasta” cooked on a hotplate in a hotel bathroom (never again, Fort Kent). This is the gang that cuts blue shop towels in half with a hacksaw to make the roll last longer. The gang that isn’t afraid to do bounding intervals up the mountain’s grassy slope in the summer and then pull ticks off their clothes for the rest of the training camp. The gang that shows up to ski when it starts to get dark out, finishes under the lights, and THEN goes home to eat dinner and do homework.

You get the picture.

So it’s no surprise that a tough classic mass start in soft snow could be one of our better events. But the other thing is, we’re only at Eastern Cup #2. There’s half the Eastern Cup racing left, and more than half the races left considering the Saturday of the final weekend features two races in a day. We’re at a point where you’ve gotten into your tuck and started picking up speed in the tracks. Only option is to keep charging.

Charging hard through the snow. Not easy, but it’s what we’re in this for.

It had been high time since the gang had gotten in a real adventure…that is to say, it had been about a week. So it was time for another journey to crash in new places and race in the cold: this time across the pond deep in the Adirondacks.

As the light was fading on Friday evening we piled into two cars and crossed the bridge into New York, cruising through old mining towns and lakeside camps en route to the bustling hub of Chestertown. A town of one stoplight, one Stewarts (it is a mandatory state law that each town in NY is bestowed a Stewarts gas station) and one “Topps” supermarket, our accomodations were a lovely bed and breakfast recently purchased by an older couple from Florida. The decorations were slightly different than our usual East Cost AirBnB rentals, with nice southern charm and even a bowl of oranges waiting for us.

While Aidan, Meredith and I shopped for our remaining provisions at the bustling market, Eli and Julia somehow got a fire going without any paper of kindling, and I admit I had little faith in them and almost purchased a Duralog at the store. But if we’re ever trying to really save on lodging costs (moreso than we already try to) we can rely on those two to get the fire going in our igloo and keep us warm for racing.

After spaghetti, pizza, and salad we played a heated game of spoons and woke the next morning to another frigid cold race day. Kinda used to that at this point. The venue, just 20 minutes away at the base of Gore Mountain, is very new to the ski scene but a really awesome facility. It’s located at the base area of an alpine mountain, utilizing a lot of the former terrain. The base of the first significant climb actually ascends up the outside of an old halfpipe, while at the high point you speed down an alpine trail with only a few V-boards separating the Nordic race from the open alpine area…folks cruising in on their downhill skis must’ve been very amused as both types of skier barreled down the liftline toward the finish.

It was a brutally hard climb each lap though, which follows the trend toward harder and harder courses. It made me realize right away that next summer, we’re going to need to make some tougher timetrial and race courses by “reconfiguring” the loops at the Range when we can, so to speak. It was excellent practice, however, for the daunting Ladies 5km course that the mass starts will be held on this coming weekend in Lake Placid.

The races went well, and although Adam’s super-thin binder job didn’t exactly hold up for the entirety of the women’s race, adjustments were made to get a bit more grab in the men’s skis. The ladies stacked the top-15, and Aidan, Eli, and Cameron also got themselves in the top-15 with Aidan winning the entire race by 30 seconds. It was a nice change of pace from Vermont, and the race was hosted by our “sister” club in NY, the Hudson United Racing Team (HURT) so I was excited that we’d get to support their efforts by bringing more racers to the event.

It has been a while since the Pug Vlogs of old, but I resurrected the tradition to put together a video from the weekend. I hope you’re ready for more lifestyle clips than skiing clips…usually a bit more busy on race day and it’s harder to actually take video!