Archive | Junior Blog

It’s hard to wait much longer for the race season to arrive…I’ve kept blog posts relatively short and direct lately, but don’t let that fool you into thinking this isn’t the most prepared we’ve ever been to ski fast. In fact, this is primed to be our biggest Junior year ever, and we’ve grown SO MUCH it’s hard to believe everything that’s happened since May.

Not everything has been smooth sailing. In fact several elements this season have forced us, both individually and as a team, to really think hard about what kind of group we want to be, what kind of athletes we want to be, and what kind of people we want to become. Despite some tough situations in a number of different instances, I think this group has come together stronger than ever. If it weren’t for teammates supporting each other, maybe that wouldn’t be the case. In fact, I’m led to believe that more tough decisions, difficult discussions, and emotional weight have come to the surface BECAUSE we are a stronger and more deeply-connected group than ever before.

And just as we’ve made it though some hurdles, we’ve also set ourselves up to smash through other barriers and leave New England and even the rest of America SHOOK, as Meredith would say. I’ve said it every year but…there hasn’t been a season yet where we’ve trained this much and this hard. And I hope to keep saying that every year as we raise the bar.

Not always easy, but always worth pushing. Sammie in last weekend’s TT

It’s time to RACE, and given how everything has shaped up this year (from our long epic distance workouts to our testing events to timetrials and early-season races against other teams) we are ready to throw down. I ALWAYS say that we’ve never trained harder, but sometimes I feel an air of apprehension as the first big races loom on the horizon behind the wind-turbine-capped hills of Craftsbury. Not this year…it’s all excitement and impatience!

A gang ready to send

We’ve raced the new courses on Craftsbury’s trails, we’ve made our presence known at the NENSA rollerski series, and we’ve spent the spring, summer and fall working toward improving at every opportunity. That process is so fun in and of itself, but now it’s time to get after it even more. Let the races begin!

Aidan and Eli tearing up the new 5km “South” course at Craftsbury

With a need for a little recovery after a busy and productive Thanksgiving Camp, it wasn’t too stressful to see our snow/venue/lighting situation fluctuate pretty wildly this week. First there was the power going out at Sleepy Hollow, cutting the lights out in the middle of some skate speeds. Then it was the Range lights going out just after some intervals had thankfully been completed. Now we’ve weathered a day of rain and it looks like the cold is coming back as we begin the final prep for the Eastern Cup season.

On Saturday we made a trip up to Craftsbury for some classic intensity on the new sprint course, and everyone looked great taking the technical gains into the higher speeds. We kick things off with some short sprint races for the Sprint Doubleheader Weekend in two weeks so it was a good preview of how things ski and what to expect. We’ll incorporate some more practice with the actual structure of a sprint race next week to really get in full Game Mode.

Then the rough weather set in for Sunday, but that didn’t stop us from attempting a backcountry expedition. The wind and rain were pretty terrible in the parking lot but once we hit the woods toward Bryant Cabin things calmed down. The snow was incredibly East Coast-ey crust that made turning impossible, but if you could ski through trees and crud in this type of stuff NO downhill on a racecourse will seem challenging!

Deep into the Vermont forest with LOTS of snow!

Of course, like most of our adventures, there is of course a short video to share our exploits 🙂

Racing season is right around the corner! We have several big weekends coming up: they both look busy and it is a great idea to get registered sooner rather than later.

First up is the Craftsbury Sprint Doubleheader on the weekend of December 15th/16th.

It is recommended that most MNC Juniors register for Sunday’s freestyle sprint as this offers the most opportunity for experience in head-to-head racing in heats, as well as matching the technique/distance/course of the following weekend’s Eastern Cup Opener. Those looking to compete in both Saturday’s classic sprint and Sunday’s skate sprint should check in with Coach Adam!

Next up is the Eastern Cup Opener at Craftsbury the weekend of December 22nd/23rd. This is one that every MNC Junior should have on their radar. All signs are pointing to this being an EXTREMELY large event: please register early and avoid any potential hassle later! Registration links for both events are below:

Sprint Doubleheader Weekend Registration

Eastern Cup Opener Registration 

The roads are snowy and the Range has requested that we do NOT ski on the trails until the weather turns colder for them to firm up.

Local school districts have also cancelled all after-school activities this evening.

This was a Thanksgiving Camp full of “mosts”.

• Most snow to be had (30+ kilometers all skiable on race skis for the whole week)
• Most food to be had (the size of the dining hall has literally doubled)
• Most training to be had (endless options)
• Most motivated group (endless enthusiasm)

It’s no secret that we’ve worked hard all spring, summer, and fall. If you’re reading this blog right now, you’ve probably read the rest of the summaries from this website all year. And seen the Instagram posts. And watched the Youtube videos…so you know what we’re about. What’s difficult right now is that there’s just not one single media compilation that can fit or capture everything we accomplished this past week. That goes for training accomplishments, emotional accomplishments, teamwork accomplishments, and more.

The good news is that we have a whole season ahead of us, and it feels like we’re only just beginning to taste the possibilities. We put in hard work when it came to distance workouts this week, but also some important other sessions. We got in freezing cold skate intervals in Murphy’s Field, and showed some guest skiers how far we’ve come with strength training over the course of the year. We dialed out zones with the now-annual “kickwax reduction session” and then dialed in our speed with some of the fastest fifty meter sprints in the Northeast Kingdom.

Then, we raced on Sunday and started to show why we’re aiming to be stronger than ever before. In a 5- and 10-km skate race against teams like Williams, Harvard, UNH, CSU, and Craftsbury the Pugs straight-up threw-down. Just taking video was making me and Sara more excited than ever, and we kept shouting our excitement over the radio to each other as we watched MNC skiers fly by on separate parts of the course.

“Julia has a really good tempo up this hill!”

“Eli caught up to Everett and is hanging on!”

“Ava’s glide is so smooth, nobody’s gonna catch her!”

“Timmy’s V2 is so strong! And Charles V2’d up all of Moss Run!”

Good results were exciting to see, but so was great skiing. Everyone was limited to LF wax so it was a nice simple affair as far as ski prep was concerned. We used up the last of an old chunk of LF8 and put on some structure and let it rip.

Women’s 5km

Men’s 5km

Men’s 10km

So…where does that leave us now? Hungry for more! We are experiencing a boost to start winter off with great on-snow options, we get to kick off the “official” winter season with BKL and Masters programming, and the real races are right around the corner. Go Pugs!

Pausing briefly to look ahead…

Bonus video! Check out Jenny’s edit from Thanksgiving Camp below 🙂