Archive | Junior Blog

Thanks to everybody who stopped by for our Wax n’ Waffles event yesterday! While we didn’t get to have our traditional, larger end-of-season party up at Craftsbury this spring, it was still great to connect with club members and celebrate a sunny, surprisingly-snowy spring day.

Folks enjoyed the snow at Cochran’s in all sorts of ways, from sledding and snowballs to skinning and schussing. With lots of waffles and tasty hotdogs from the “grill cart” nobody was hungry.

Coach Liz deserves a big thank-you for coming up with this idea, and putting all the pieces into place to make it a success. Who knows, maybe next year this will be our main event to cap off the season? We are also grateful to Cochran’s for use of their space like the awesome patio, grill cart, and the entire facility itself. While some septic issues meant the base lodge was not available, the sunny weather and warm temps made the outside experience plenty enjoyable and fun.

You can check out a small photo album at the link below, and also a great video Coach Sara put together. To celebrate all our graduating “seniors” (including Nico and Greta who are UVM freshmen this year, but in their last season as MNC club skiers) Sara put together footage from their earlier years all the way through current times. Fun to see the years all play out!

Wax n’ Waffles Album

MNC members and families,

Our collegiate training group, MNC University (MNCU) is growing! With a full slate of applicants for 2024, this collective of awesome athletes is looking to be one of the strongest in the nation.

This training group has members from all over the country, beyond just Vermont! If there’s one thing that’s extra tough in our state right now, it’s finding a place to live.

If you are interested in hosting an MNCU athlete this summer, please reach out to me (Adam) and MNC U coach Brandon (bherhusk@uvm.edu) and let us know. Maybe you have an extra room in your home, a space above your garage, or know someone looking to rent a spot. If you have the need, this could be a great chance to:

• Make a little extra income from rent
• Score some accessible babysitting!
• Nab some reliable transportation for a younger athlete looking to get to Jericho on Tues/Thurs mornings!

Thanks for considering helping out some of these athletes!

MNC U at their Bethel, ME training camp last year

Even if you were 100% burnt out on Nordic skiing, you couldn’t overlook Cochran’s Nordic Cross this weekend. This is an incredible event that puts most of the strongest and fastest skiers in the entire country together, and then has them crash and fall spectacularly while wearing ridiculous outfits and costumes.

World Cup and Olympic skiers? Check

NCAA Champion(s)? Check

Junior National Champions? Check

BKL Festival Champions? Check

Regular everyday hardworking skiers? Check

Skiers on waxless fishscales? Check

Skiers on alpine boards? Check

Skiers in race suits? Check

Skiers in inflatable unicorn suits? Check

Nothing is spared at this event…Jimmy Cochran and co put the groomer to work literally carving massive jumps, berms, and banked slopes out of the last remaining snow of the season, and fire up the T-bar for a bunch of Nordies to ride. In heats of 5 these racers start at the top of the mountain and traverse the whole mountain itself. Drops, corners, gates, jumps, climbs, flats, step-downs, hay bales, pond jumps, steeps…there wasn’t a type of terrain that you didn’t see out there.

Ben Ogden, Johnny Hagenbuch, and co. Just a couple Olympic and World Cup skiers (and NCAA Champions) fighting over a hay bale

Now, it’s important to note that as a coach, I find this event extremely important for skiing as a whole. It brings out the fun and the craziness to celebrate the end of the season. But it also promotes skill development, and rewards more than just the old school, Sisyphean training philosophy of “go uphill, rest, go ski long distances, rest, repeat ad-nauseam.”

As I’ve alluded to in previous posts, I’m pretty proud of this club’s ability to handle tricky terrain and transformed conditions. After all, we skied most of our season on artificial ice chunks. Out of necessity we scraped and skidded around most every downhill corner we came across this season, and no amount of Chola binder could keep around all the klister adhered to our bases. After day one, the courses were altered at U16 Championships because the transformed, icy downhills were claiming too much skin…but that hadn’t been a problem for our MNC crew. When they salted the courses at JNs, it was the MNC skiers who stayed on their feet and cruised right around pileups and jumped over broken skis and poles in their way.

Many, many layers of staggered corners and berms, all being negotiated at the same time!

While a goal this coming season is to increase our uphill capacity and ability to push hard when the conditions are slow and tough, it’s nice to end the season playing to our strengths…sketchy snow, technical prowess, and elements that bring out the fear-factor in some (but not us!).

This was likely the most MNC representation ever at Nordic Cross, and of course there were falls and general chaos. But the crew skied great! There were strong performances and even some big wins in all categories, from Oliver Tremble and Fiona Repp taking the titles in the kids race, to Julie Longstreth winning her masters division, to Greta Kilburn winning the whole women’s race (both the whole first round, and the subsequent head-to-head “top 8 final”) ahead of at least two NCAA Champions, 5 World Cup skiers, and a whole host of the top Junior and Collegiate skiers in the country.

Your CHAMP Greta Kilburn, ahead of another MNC name in 2nd place, Ava Thurston!

Oliver Tremble is not known for taking any prisoners out there

Some (like Justin Beckwith here) wore costumes so all-encompassing you’d have no idea who the skier was…

…and some (like Jonah) wore as little as possible: he paid the price by falling and getting the first “road rash” of the season, well before rollerskiing has even begun

There are a couple events like this around the country, but I don’t think anybody does it as well as Cochran’s does. The ski community owes a big thanks to Pennie Rand, Jimmy Cochran, Eli Enman, and all the other facilitators who came up with this concept, made it into a reality, and keep expanding it year-after-year. Over 200 skiers were competing on Sunday! And I doubt anybody had less than a great time.

Event founder Pennie Rand in her element!

Nordic Cross Results (Bullitt Timing)

Photo Album (by Hanna Holm)