No slush this year! It felt kind of odd, actually. If you raced this event for the past 2 years you know that the wet and sloppy conditions have been the name of the game (particularly in 2017 when the course conditions could be described as chocolate milkshake-consistency mixed with rocks and sticks). Of course, the true testament is that this race always happens and is always a good time.
This year we traded slush for cold, as those of us in Northern VT woke up to temps of -12 in Bolton and -14 in Westford. Crossing the mountain line into Waterbury though, things warmed to a balmy 9F and for the race it was more like low teens. Some easy kickwaxing, some beautiful snow-covered trees on a narrow old-school course, and a bright sunny blue sky made for a very Vermont-y race if there ever was one.
Another thing that I particularly love about this race is that it brings together everyone: BKL, Junior, and Masters racers all in the same event! Shows how great the club scenes are to have all ages from all across New England making the journey. Oh, and the older skiers also had the same start lineup, so it meant there was a lot of skiing with your teammates out there:
Meredith and Timmy. Biathlete Timmy beat a lot of strong Eastern Cup classic skiers, showing how fit and strong he is as he gets ready to take on the 2nd half of the race season
Not counting Max who is quite busy with USBA, every Cobb raced this year! Here’s Charlie who had a top-10 finish
One thing that was particularly nice was having a relaxed atmosphere after a lot of stress surrounding the first Eastern Cups and US Nationals. I think the Junior team really needed the change of pace, and it seems like they made it into quite a weekend with a sleepover hosted by the Grossman family in Woodstock and then the Olivers in Montpelier. Truly a dysfunctional traveling circus of motley teenagers but in the best way possible.
Rose, sporting what I only now recognize as the vintage VOLVO bibs from NENSA days of yore
Coaches raced too, as Adam, Liam, and Rosemary fought valiantly to bring home some Club Cup points for MNC
The Masters contingent raced hard and also helped rake in those Club and Zak Cup points! Mike Millar avenged his dislocated shoulder from the slush situation of 2 years ago, Katie had one of her first races with the club, race regulars Karen and Ellie fought among the fray of powder, and another great Bogburn went down in the books.
Next week will be a new adventure for the Junior team aka Pugs aka Dysfunctional Traveling Circus, as a group of us will head over to Gore Mtn for a Mid-Atlantic race. Have heard only good things about this venue, and it’ll be a nice chance to mix it up with the best of NY as we’ll spend Friday night over there in prep for a short classic race on Saturday morning.
This past weekend was also the first EISA Carnival…congrats to many of our alums who raced, some in their first collegiate meets ever.
Eliza Thomas (SLU), Will Solow (Colby), Ben Carnahan (SLU), Isaac Freitas-Eagan (Williams), Greg Burt (UVM), Charlie Maitland (Clarkson), and more. Keep up the hard work!
It is looking like excellent classic conditions for this year’s Bogburn! Temps will be cold overnight, and combined with new snow this week that means harder glidewax and green and blue kickwaxes.
Glide Wax
It is important, in cold snow, to have “hardened” bases. Putting a few layers of green or blue glide wax in your skis (as opposed to just one) will make the base noticeably more shiny and harder, which keeps it faster when the snow crystals are new and sharp.
-Begin by “hardening” your glide zones with 2 layers of CH4, CH5, Toko NF Blue, or your favorite colder glide wax. Scrape and brush between layers.
-Final layer is a blue glide wax of your choice: Toko NF/LF/HF Blue, Swix CH/LF/HF 5 or 6, Holmenkol Racing Mix Cold, etc
-Scrape off and brush VERY thoroughly! If you have a nylon or horsehair brush, polish back and forth until the bases have a nice shine
Kick Wax
A binder will be important for this race. To watch a video on how to best apply a hardwax binder, see the embedded clips on the bottom of this page.
One of the best and easiest binders to use is Toko Base Green. However, for a cold race such as the Bogburn and colder kickwax (for example Swix V30) can be used as an ironed-on binder.
-Begin by roughening up your (cleaned) kick zone, and ironing in a THIN green base binder
-Feel free to check-in with Adam on race day, but to start with for kick a good bet it one or two thin layers of Toko Blue, Swix V40, or other blue hardwax, covered with one or two layers of Toko X-Cold, Swix V30, or other green hardwax.
Even though it’s the holiday season, skier’s don’t just get to take a break! Well, maybe some downtime here and there which is well-deserved…but at the same time, this is when we need to start preparing for the busiest stretch of race season.
Holiday tour at Trapps. Also reunited with some friends like Olivia, Conor, and Greg!
It all kicks off with US Nationals this coming week in Craftsbury.
On Thursday we have a 10- and 15-kilometer classic…this one is not divided into Junior or Senior categories, so our Juniors in the race will be going head-to-head with US Ski Team and pro athletes alike. For some, it’ll even be their first on-snow race over 5km!
On Friday we have classic sprints. There is a top-30 cutoff for the “open” heats, much like an Eastern Cup, and also a separate selection of heats for Junior athletes (U20, U18, U16) who are not in the open rounds. So this is a great chance for some of our gang to get head-to-head racing in with skiers from all over the country.
Saturday is a welcome rest day…
Sunday is a freestyle mass start day. The older athletes will be racing 20- and 30-km, but our Juniors will compete in 7.5km (women) and 10km (men) mass starts with all other Juniors from Alaska to Minnesota and more.
On Tuesday, things wrap up with a Skate sprint. Most of our group is sitting this one out (and will be back in school) but there will be some Pugs representing the club here!
To prepare for the classic races, of which these will be our first for the year, we broke out the klister for some tough 4-minute intervals on Saturday, followed by a short skate ski adventure after lunch as this will be our last significant volume training for at least 2 weeks or so! Of course, we have some video footage:
Fog swept over the Northeast Kingdom last Friday, a literal cloud that kept the mystery high as everyone arrived to see just what their summer and fall of preparations would yield. The first Eastern Cup of the season is always a big event, but this year the competition was tougher and deeper than ever. Whether it’s college skiers competing at the start of their winter break, World Cup athletes home for the holidays, or Canadians driving down from up north, the first weekend is always a notch above the rest in terms of difficulty. Races that might net you a top ten in a mid-season Eastern Cup might sneak you into the top 40 here!
But racing is what we’re here to do, and along with all the other clubs and ski academies and teams we arrived ready to rock. It seemed like everyone had the game plan down; coaches and athletes alike. Having the Sprint Doubleheader a weekend prior really helped get into gear. The athletes were well settled into the warmup mode for events, the coaches (thanks Sara, Rick, Lukas, and Liam) helped the wax bench hum along and crank out splits on course, and the general level was more pro than ever before. I only regret that this first EC wasn’t an overnight race trip, but more on that later.
Thanks to Craftsbury being Craftsbury, the courses held up amazingly well. Snow was dirty and wet for Saturday’s sprint races, especially the muggy warm qualifier before temps dropped later in the afternoon. Big highlights in the morning qualifier were Ava and Sammie for the women, and Aidan and Brook for the men. During last week’s skate sprint Sammie looked a little flat after a great classic sprint the day prior. Just as she left the wax room to go to the start I reminded her “time for some tempo and energy!” and needless to say she delivered and when I saw the video that Sara took on course I couldn’t believe the combination of tempo and glide. She whizzed right up to the SLU skier who started ahead of her and attacked the whole way. For someone who, even through last year, anyone would’ve considered a classic specialist, it was a huge step. Just wait until we get on some classic skis for the next races at US Nationals and EC2! Similarly, Brook learned a lot from skiing the course a week prior and upped his tempo and “float” skills this time around. If you don’t already know him, Brook is about 6′ 5″ and not who you’d pick to excel in a slushy soft sprint course. But just like Sammie, seeing him attack the hill with a super combination of tempo and light feet was awesome.
Despite their awesome skiing Sammie and Brook weren’t able to make it into the heats. However, Will and Isaac slotted into the Open and U18/U20 heats, respectively for the men, while Aidan was set for the U16 heats. For the women Ava continued her streak of strong races with a spot in the Open heats alongside Quincy, meaning that the two of them were locked for a 1-2 finish in the U16 race. This despite Ava being sick on Friday and potentially sitting out this race entirely. Sammie was 3 spots (and 3 seconds) out of the U18/U20 heats. Also tougher to swallow being 15th (they take 12) with 4 Canadians sneaking ahead of her. Next time!
Not everything went according to plan, however. The “bad luck” award actually got handed out twice: Meredith had her pole grip fall off as she pushed out of the starting gate, so she was forced to ski almost half the race course until Sara was able to toss her a space at the very bottom of the course. Julia also had tough luck crashing in the final 100m stretch of the race after working hard to close the entire gap on the CSU skier in front of her.
Hanna had her first Eastern Cup race ever and was only 2 spots (and 2 seconds) off the U16 heats
In the Open heats Will hung tough with a heat that included Ben Lustgarten and Ben Ogden, but settled for 6th. Isaac was en route to moving on when he got a pole stepped on up the final hill and ended up down on the snow. Ava also felt the effects of her sickness and got dropped on the final climb to take 6th but still an incredibly gutsy race for the freshman and first-year U16. 2nd place in the first race! Congrats to Lil Q who took 4th in her heat and the Win for U16 ladies.
The men’s U16 final was a long-awaited showdown that everyone knew was coming all year. Aidan Burt vs Trey Jones. Trey is a first-year U16 from GMVS (formerly Craftsbury) who has been crushing all sorts of events and tests. Aidan has been equally impressive all summer and fall, but it seemed like the two had yet to meet head-to-head. In the previous week’s skate sprint they’d finished within 3 seconds (advantage Aidan) and in the morning qualifier they were within the same second (again, advantage Aidan by a slim margin). In the final they pulled cleanly away from the rest of the field. Aidan led through the lower field, and up the climb by the lodge Trey put in a furious surge to pass Aidan. In the final 100m Aidan pulled even again and it came down to a lunge for the line that was too close to call for the announcer.
A duel you can likely expect to see more of
A minute or so later it came over the loudspeaker: 1st place for Trey Jones.
Now, if you don’t already understand the context this was an intense moment. Aidan had been close to victory at Eastern Cups many times last year. He even won the relay with his teammates at Junior Nationals last spring, yet had not won an individual Eastern Cup race. After a summer and fall of awesome training, he knew he was fit and fast enough to really make it happen. And then to have the taste of victory right in front of you, only to lose it by a lunge to a first-year U16 who just took a win in the first Eastern Cup he’s ever raced as a true U16, is not easy to work through.
I think Aidan and I shared a pretty similar mindset after that moment, and I realized that a true test of Aidan (or anyone in that situation) would be how he handled the moment and the upcoming rematch the next day. So, since the U16 men’s race was the first event of Sunday, we can pick up where the story leaves off right there.
Aidan races best under pressure, and suffice to say there was plenty on him now. We were both determined to make this happen, and both possibly more serious than ever on Sunday morning. Aidan had the benefit of starting 30 second behind Trey, and Sara was at the low point of the course to give a split. The standing where Sara was at in the race? Trey ahead by 2 seconds. I was at the top of Screaming Mimi, the brutal hill 3.5km into the race. All climbing from Sara to there…the split at that point? Aidan 5 seconds ahead of Trey. I skied over to the cabins with half a kilomter to go. The standing there? Aidan ahead by 15 seconds. The focus and drive helped Aidan give it his all on the toughest parts of the course and take a victory that I think was about as well-earned and deserved as you can ask for.
And THAT right there is what the sport is all about! Working hard, taking the disappointments in stride and using them to reach new heights. It’s definitely not the last battle these two will have all year, and they’ll both keep improving and learning.
Something tells me Ali just learned the news of Aidan’s win. Yeah team!
But man, that was only the first race! Next up was the women’s race, with the U16 and older women all combined for a 5km in some speedy snow conditions. Ava was feeling better than the day before and absolutely crushed it. 21st overall and 1st for U16s! Before lunchtime had even rolled around MNC was looking at a DOUBLE VICTORY day! Pretty cool, and I think this is just the beginning. Last season the club had 2 total Eastern Cup victories. This season the gang has already equaled that total in the first weekend!
More great races followed, with Rose making up for a sprint she wasn’t happy with by totally motoring the whole 5km for 45th overall and 10th for U18s. Oh yeah, that’s including some Canadians again 😉 with more races like that (and she’ll get many opportunities with some even longer distance races too) she’ll find herself climbing up in the rankings and the seed lists with every new weekend.
Rose making MOVES
Next up for the Pugs were Meredith and Ali. Meredith avenged her pole incident the day prior with a serious step-up on the results sheet. She also met her future incoming teammate at Bowdoin next year and found out they had finished very close to each other in the race. I was able to catch the end of Ali’s race as she came up from the cabins on the far end of the course. She was in a 3-person pack with Lily Bates (Dublin) and Madeline Kitch (CSU) who she has gone back-and-forth with many times. Those three have been duking it out since they were first-year U16s and it was pretty cool to see them all skiing in sync and working together yet again. A big step forward for Ali who is coming into form after being sick last week and working through PT for her back.
Meredith flying by the cameras, with both original poles intact 🙂
This race featured a lot of other MNC racers, including another strong U16 effort from Hanna (now ranked just outside the top-10 overall U16 list after the weekend) and some races that Lily, Julia and Jenny weren’t psyched with BUT…as I reminded some of the crew and remarked to Sara afterward, everything this weekend was a HUGE step-up, for the most part, from the Fort Kent opener last season which was in many ways quite a disaster for a number of reasons 🙂
Julia may not have had her best weekend but she sure captured the “game face”
Also, we need to shout-out Rachel, Greta, and Lydia (all U16 or younger) who competed in their first-ever Eastern Cups! Congrats guys!
The longest race of the weekend, the men’s 10km, was the final event. The fresh snow from the morning was quickly getting churned into sugar and the descents skidded into an icy sheet. Being a stable skier was rewarded for sure, and that has Charles Martell written all over it. Charles had a great race that found him 15th for U18s in his first Eastern Cup longer than 5km. And I think the longer the race the better for someone this fit and strong.
Also impressive, for the 2nd day in a row (and continuing a strong streak of races this season that’s only getting started) was Eli Grossman. Fresh off learning he was accepted and has a spot to ski at Bates next year, Eli finished ahead of several college skiers and has completely turned his racing style around. What used to be “hammer hammer hammer” until a burnout mid-race has now morphed into smooth skiing and even pacing that allows Eli to use his strength and technique to his advantage. Cool to see that progress!
Eli displaying the sleek new MNC headband, which looks great even when upside-down
The same can be said for Brook, who’s made miles and miles of improvement in his technique and smooth skiing. It already paid off with his first high school race win the week prior, and after Sunday’s race Brook told me “skiing just feels so smooth and good”.
If you’ve made it this far into the recap, I hope you’re feeling as inspired and excited for the rest of the season as I think everyone else is. I said earlier in the post that my only wish was that this weekend had been some type of overnight trip racing experience…this is all anecdotal, but I feel like the group races best when we spend time together before, during, and after the races rather than just arriving at the venue to compete. Whether it’s because we get to let off some stress by messing around, or just get to stay more on the same page by travelling, cooking, and preparing for the races together, we usually function even better as a group. When it comes to the club being both strong and meaningful I think that’s a pretty cool situation.
Next up is US Nationals, followed by some racing in New York (Gore) and then Eastern Cup #2, also in New York (Lake Placid). Registration pages for all three of those options (wax support for Nats, overnight trips for Gore and LP). Below are some more fun photos from the weekend. You can see more shots (and where the above photos came from) from the following photographers:
Saturday and Sunday were two busy days of back-to-back sprint action. Sprint days are long: from the morning qualifier to the last afternoon heat you’re talking about near-continuous testing, waxing, and racing. Add in klister for some bonus fun.
For us, this was the weekend to get the ball rolling. It seems like most years we start the season and hit the first Eastern Cup still “ramping up” to full speed. With this new event, it feels like we made the most out of the weekend and are going into the first Eastern Cup at full tilt. We gave New England a taste of what we’re made of!
For the men Eli was our lone competitor as many of the guys were either resting up or competing in the first HS race at Rikert. Side note: Brook won the men’s race and Ava and Rose went 1-2 in the women’s race over at Rikert!
In the women’s race a solid group took on possibly one of the toughest 20-person fields you could ask for. Everyone made the open heats, and the structure basically consisted of
-One World Cup skier
-One Middlebury, UVM, or Dartmouth skier
-One or two Pugs
-One or two other club skiers
A totally non-intimidating heat: Jenny, Meredith, NCAA Champion Katharine Ogden, and Swedish UVM Junior Evelina Sutro
Everyone held their own and we had a lot of 3rd- and 4th-place finishes in the 5-person heats. In the men’s race, Eli skied more smoothly than ever and continued a streak of really solid performances! Sammie was the top for the crew in 13th place, just missing out a spot in the semifinals to Laura Appleby by less than a second.
What was so awesome for me as a coach was watching everyone be so professional about the day. From warming up and tackling the course, to changing into dry clothes and snacking between races, everything was DIALED-IN and it may seem like that’s trivial, but it’s a lot of important factors at play. Not to mention it was icy klister tracks and everyone looked like they were skiing really well. Lots of hard work paying off.
Julia was victorious in an epic battle with DublinXC coach Kathy Maddock
Eli in the qualifier!
On Saturday the fields we much bigger, with many of our HS racers also coming out to tear it up. Full open heats, as well as consolation “Queens Court” heats were held, though all of the Juniors made it through to the opens! The big performance in the morning came from Aidan who took on the whole field with a 3rd place finish in the overall qualifier. Brook made it through in 16th and Eli in 22nd to make it three into the opens. For the girls Ava continued to turn heads with a 5th place finish just ahead of Quincy in 6th. Not bad for two U16 skiers!
Also stacking the open heats were Meredith (13th), Rose (15th), Julia (17th), Sammie (20th), Jenny (22nd), Hanna (23rd), Ali (25th) and Lily (29th)! Also, Rachel Porth had her first race against the tough older competition in 39th!
Time to head to the start!
Hanna bringing it home up the last hill in the qualifier
In the heats there were more close finishes, and from the quarters both Aidan and Ava moved onto the semifinals. 4th in his semi-final netted Aidan somewhere around 8th of 9th (we think) while Ava made it through to the FINAL and got to duke it out against Quincy, pro skier Heather Mooney, and 3 Middlebury ladies. Although Ava ran out of gas at the very end it was another incredible performance for her…keep in mind she is a freshman/first-year U16!
Not shabby for your first sprint race ever
With two great days in the bank it’s easy to keep getting excited to see where this season will take us. The next stop is…well, back to Craftsbury! The skate sprint on Saturday to open the Eastern Cup season is the same course, same format, so we’re going in with a great card to play having already been through it! It’s time to start the 2018/2019 season…
