Archive | Junior Blog

The snow dances continue as we await some real snowfall here…it has been a trying time to be a skier, but thanks to great efforts by Craftsbury, Rikert and Sleepy Hollow there has been skiable terrain if you know where to look!

Craftsbury hosted the first HS race of the season. It was a highly-anticipated event after a summer of great training, big improvements and more than a little trash-talking. When the dust settled, MNC-affiliated skiers took top honors in each event.

Aside from winning the short prologue stage of the Tour De Chittenden last season, Greg Burt spent much of last season duking it out with MNC senior athletes Ethan John and Charlie Maitland. On Saturday, Greg asserted himself with a strong win in the men’s Varsity event, while joining him in the top ten were Peter Unger, Baxter Bishop and Tim Cobb.

Towering equally high over her competitors (literally), Marika Massey-Bierman skied an incredibly smooth and quick race to take the victory in the women’s event. With slow and slushly snow, skiers that kept a good rhythm and rode flat skis really maintained their momentum and it was clear without looking at results that both Marika and Greg had very good control over their technique and power. Congrats!

Winning ran in the family this day, as Aidan Burt and Quincy Massey-Bierman surged to wins in their respective races, as well. Could we be looking at the next Northug or Bjornsen siblings? Only time will tell!

RESULTS

In search of a different slim patch of snow to cruise around on today, a few of us ventured to Rikert where we heard tales of a different strip of skiing! It is so sad to think that as of December 13th we’ve skied on a total of 2 different kilometers of snow (if you don’t count that alpine slope at Stowe). The Rikert loop was particularly thin, narrow and dirty after a bout of racing and warm weather the previous day, but it was incredible to see what they pulled off at all! Many thanks to everyone at these ski centers who have pushed the boundaries of what snowmaking can do. Winter is still on!

Getting ready to apply some klister this morning at Rikert. The snow patch can be seen in the background! Got to see some skiers from Clarkson, Bowdoin, HURT Nordic and Dublin today. 

Back during the pitiful winter weather of the 2011/2012 season I spent every day of my winter break driving to Craftsbury to ski on snow. It was a simple life: wake up, drive 1.5 hours to the loop, ski a bunch, take a nap in the touring center (back when it was just the small building by the pond), eat some lunch and ski again.

I referred to the place as “Lapsbury” and I was dizzy from a 1.5k loop that wound through the woods.

This year, we’ve so far been on a .5 out-and-back that has expanded to a 1k loop pretty much all in a field. And nobody is complaining! When the rest of the ground is mud and grass and we can still pop on our race skis and bang out a solid 2hr session we have many smart minds, a lot of research  and long nights by the snowfarming crew to thank.

Chlolo Jones enjoying some sunshine in her new boss shades. In her words, “I like my body position in this shot”. Coach agrees.

Although we are hungry for more kilometers to explore, this small loop format does offer some benefits for athletes and coaches.

-Nobody gets lost

-It is easy to watch skiers and see what they’re up to (filming video is easy…just stand in one place and wait 1-2 minutes and an athlete is sure to go by!)

-Waxing is simple, and even if it gets complicated the wax room is never more than a few strides away

-You get to see anyone and everyone! This one can be a blessing or a curse depending on just how many people are crammed into the same small loop and you’re trying to do skate speeds…

We’ve mixed dryland training with skiing this week, and we’ll continue to do so. It can be great to jump back and forth to measure just how accurate your bounding is compared to the real thing, and just how short and agile those rollerskis are…on Friday we did short skate speeds on the paved loop at WCS with rollerskis, and Saturday we did the exact same workout on the Lapsbury loop with real skis and soft mushy snow…that was quite a difference!

The first High School race is next Saturday, and the Eastern Cup Opener a week after that. Let’s hope for some flakes before then!

Speeding through the slush, chasing down a crowd

Greg and Adam may or may not be sponsored…no big deal

Until we get on the real stuff….THANKS CRAFTSBURY!

The MNC Juniors just finished up a great on-snow training camp at Craftsbury. We were relegated to a .5k loop of manmade snow but we kept it interesting. We took a lot of video and I thought I’d begin to share some of that here. I say “begin” because there are about 250 individual video clips I am slowly piecing together…our library of videos on the MNC Youtube Channel is growing! Here are a few from this week:

1. Bounding

Henry bounding in one video clip and striding again 5 minutes later! Notice the similarities and differences…how does snow change things?

For this session we waxed out skis, got our ski gear on, got our poles and boots ready…and then put shoes on to run to a field! We did 30 minutes of bounding and classical ski motions, and then went straight to the snow to translate the feelings of that power and glide onto the snow. We saw some interesting changes…some were more comfortable driving forward on skis since they could glide out, and some loved the instant kick of the dry ground…hmm…

2. Skating

In another session we did a long skate ski, with plenty of time spent using either no poles or one pole at a time. Great for lower body strength but also coordination and stabilization muscle work!

3. Double Poling

We have been double poling a ton this fall, and the results have been impressive. For this workout, we did a set of 1k double pole intervals. Most of the group was on what the Europeans call “shiny skis”, which are classic skis WITHOUT any kickwax applied! This means maximum speed. The added bonus was maneuvering long classic skis on icy twisty corners! Some of the athletes who hadn’t been through the rigors of our fall DP sessions had some kick to alternate each interval in order to make sure the double pole did not get tired and sloppy.

4. Classic Skiing and RACE DAY!

In search of snow the Junior team took a journey to Stowe this morning. The webcams hadn’t looked great the day before, but it turned out they were just pointed in the wrong direction! We found lots of snow on one of the main trails right from the base lodge leading way up the hill…no hiking required, just put on your ski boots in the parking lot and hit it! We didn’t stay too long on the flats before skiing straight uphill (much to the enjoyment of the alpine skiers and boarders trudging uphill).

We hit some jumps and managed to challenge our nerves a bit on the icy descent back down. Nothing builds up your confidence on downhills than taking your nord-boards to a black diamond alpine run! We may not have done drills or intervals, but we took a step toward getting our “snow legs” under us and hopefully when we hit the real nordic trails at camp next week the skinny skis won’t feel quite so weird and long!

Scroll down for a few photos and a video recap:

Getting the gear on. Excitement is high!

Only one way to go…up!

Everyone knows Kai loves to climb! This is just the first pitch: far from the top of the trail!

What’s wrong with this picture (hint: it was taken after hitting a few jumps)

Tim enjoying some bluebird conditions

VIDEO EDIT!