What a big day! 172 racers made for the biggest rollerski race in North America! Thanks to everyone who competed, volunteered, and came to support. It truly felt like an Eastern Cup on rollerskis,
The MNC crew had a great time, with some standout performances! Hanna duked it out with some strong Canadians to finish 4th in the 5km race…but 1st American 🙂
Aidan won the U16 5km race by 2 minutes, while Sammie put the hammer down at a race she was looking forward to for a long time. She was 1st place for all the U18 racers and you could tell just by watching her ski that she was going to win. Really cool!
Sammie and Ali striding up from Badger loop!
What’s more, Julia and Meredith battled it out the whole way to push to times far faster than this same course back in August…in slower conditions nonetheless. Brook snuck ahead of some college racers and skied with great tempo the whole time, while Ali and Magda laid down a solid ski working their strengths.
We ski on these trails all the time, so it’s great to see so many others racing hard. With a lot of starters and a 3-lap race it meant that some of the girls got to ski with Olmypians like Caitlin Patterson and Ida Sargent, while the guys got to share the trail with pro skiers like Kyle Bratrud and Adam Martin.
Brook pushed to the max!
Happy Pug gang!
Thanks again for a great event…results and photos (thanks Dave!) can be found on the previous blog post. We’re proud to have played a role in such a big event and we’re looking forward to even more next year. Can we surpass 200 racers??
Some trusty volunteers headed home after a long day…Rick, Rose, and Lily 🙂
We’re in the midst of peak foliage right now, which means that even when the days are grey and misty, the scenery still can’t disappoint. That was nice to have this week, since we were trying to fit in a lot of big training and saw everything from sun and vibrant colors to rain and clouds. Fall sure makes for some great photos and videos, though! There were a LOT of sessions this week and hopefully some of the media captured just how busy we were.
We took the opportunity for a week without a “race” effort to get some good L3 work in. On Tuesday morning we were still overcoming a bit of the sickness from the past week and missed a few of the gang, but the crew got in a really good set of skate intervals working on staying smooth and working transitions well. Hopefully the video conveys a bit of that, as I tried to take clips on flatter and mixed terrain instead of the usual “uphill interval” style clips. I also figured out how to do a better job of creating and uploading thumbnails to our Youtube videos, so hopefully they are even more engaging…be sure to subscribe to the channel and all that!
Gravel grind on Old Pump Rd
Wednesday was the first “rough” day of the week in terms of weather. We were supposed to have a fun MNC Bikegang mountain bike ride at Saxon Hill but a ton of rain closed the trails. Instead of ripping berms and flow, we went on a foliage tour up through Essex and into Jericho.
As you can tell in the above photo it wasn’t quite “peak” yet but getting close. A few more cold nights afterward helped.
It’s also important to keep fueled during your workouts…so even though we were mostly on dirt roads seeking the finest views and country life in Vermont, we also made sure to get back to the pavement before our crew had to go to school…because on days like this coffee is essential.
In the afternoon, we had a big group out at Mobbs Farm but the weather remained it’s dreary self. With the dropping temps and occasional shower and frost it’s easy to lose motivation. Thankfully, everyone comes to training with good energy and we usually find a way to make things fun even when it’s not picture-perfect outside.
Jax getting his strength gains going!
Things were bright again for Thursday afternoon, when we got our big gang together including St Mikes for some towing strength. We’ve done this workout basically all fall and will continue to do so weekly…we ski up a gradual hill 4 times…if skating, we alternate V2 and double pole. If classic skiing we just double pole. Each week we extend the distance of the tows just a little bit, and this week we also added in two speeds up the hill WITHOUT towing after everyone had their turns pulling their partners. We’ll keep progressing like this as we go along through fall.
We were in for a treat on Friday morning. This is a workout we tried once earlier this fall with similarly amazing weather and sun, and this day was no different. If you’re anything like us, you’re sick of rollerskiing out-and-back on Cochran Road all year…so, this workout changes it up! It involves a pre-drive of the route to check on the “trail conditions”, so to speak, on Dugway Road, but if all systems are go there you end up with an awesome route. Starting at the Round Church, taking a right onto the dirt road at Dugway, emerging into the beautiful valley in Huntington, and skiing up to the town library.
The dirt road is all gradual uphill, the scenery is unbeatable, and the traffic is pretty much nonexistent on a Friday morning at 8AM. Even when you get onto Huntington Rd, almost all of the traffic is headed toward Richmond and is going the other way, not trying to squeeze around a group of skiers. It’s by far one of the most scenic rollerskis you cold do outside of Pleasant Valley!
Dirt or pavement? Almost hard to tell in this photo…
On Saturday, we returned to another “favorite”, this time getting treated to another of the most scenic rollerski routes you could find in our area. We were ready for some classic intervals up Road 101 at Smuggs, made famous a few times earlier this year by both Juniors and Masters alike. This hill is great, and the setting is astounding. We made 3 trips up the hill, each one taking between 15 and 20 minutes. The first 2/3 of the intervals were smooth L3, and then cranked up to race pace once the steep sections hit and the pedals went down. We got some nice footage from this ski:
After the ski we had a nice team lunch down in Jeffersonville, and then headed BACK up to get in a ride and run on the mountain bike trails right off the side of Road 101. Lots of fun!
NOTES OF INTEREST
Be sure to register for the Fall Rollerski Classic: registration closes WEDNESDAY at 5pm!
Signup to contribute to the concession table here. Thanks 🙂
The chilly mornings and long sleeves are here. Changing leaves, sickness and schoolwork all collide right about now…making for some interesting sessions as wel work toward the cold rain changing to cold snow!
Sammie skating up Bolton Notch Rd…according to some bike blogs it’s 28% grade at the steepest pitch, which is steeper than any part of Lincoln Gap! Since it’s not a mile long, it doesn’t get any street cred but that’s a mean hill. So of course it’s been on the radar to attack for a while now. In the video below you can see just how steep it is and just how hard it is to skate up without rolling back down the hill! Makes for a fun Wednesday morning:
Not all about the rolling though: we did a really good set of bounding intervals with our friends from St Mikes on Friday afternoon. We started at the Round Church alongside the UVM team who was coincidentally also training from the same spot. They were out for a roll/run combo toward Cochran’s but we took the other direction and headed to the new trails at Chamberlain Hill. It was sunny and the leaves had just begun to change, and things really felt like the crisp hard training days of autumn.
Richmond, VT lookin’ fine
Running out to some sweet trails. About a mile of pavement but after that it’s all dirt
It was back to wheels on Saturday for a bikegang ride at Perry Hill, and then a rollerski adventure in the Capital District of Montpelier!
Busy week as we ramp up the intensity. Unfortunately, no fun photos from our MOST intense day, some tough L4 bounding intervals at Honey Hollow with the St Mikes team. 4-6 x 4 minutes L4 up a road like that will get you breathing hard pretty quick…or struggling to breathe at all, if you’re one of the many from our crew who got a little sick after cramming 14 folks into the house in Lake Placid last week…
But to wind it back to the beginning, here is a little video of some striding intensity from earlier in the week. We had a small group but Dith, Julia, and Aidan just got to have more video footage of themselves as a result!
As the week went on and got a little colder, we didn’t let up and were rewarded with one of those perfectly crisp fall weekends. After the big intervals on Saturday, some of the gang got in a nice hike at Mt Hunger complete with cider doughnuts and all those other fall things you expect this time of year.
It was a weekend perfect for a sunny getaway: everyone has been in school long enough for some routine to set in, and it’s been a while since we had a rollerski race to compete in. Time for a trip! Every year we go to the Climb to the Castle rollerski race in Lake Placid. This year, a new event was added on Saturday: a Double Day event featuring a 3km skate race and then a 1.5km skate race. Lots of action!
Some rollerski race ACTION!
The prologue was a fun way to kick things off, and the group did well on the technical, fast rollerski track at the Olympic Jumping complex. The big news was Tim Cobb WINNING the whole race, even ahead of Senior competitors and some competition from one of the Canadian training centers. What’s more, he did it on a pair of Marwe skis with #6 wheels, a bit slower than the #2 Swenor wheels many competitors were competing on. Aidan finished 3rd overall for a double Pug podium, while Magda led the women’s team as they went 5th-9th.
One of the most fun parts of the day was the break in between the races. It was hot and sunny out, and although I didn’t plan to bring the MNC trailer at first, I was glad I made the last-minute decision to hook it up and toss in the tent, some blankets, and an old mattress pad. We ended up having a nice little hangout spot and got to spend time visiting with friends from other clubs like Laura Appleby (CSU), Alex Frago (HURT), and some of our fellow training partners from St Mikes.
Tent Gang!
The sprints were up next and things continued to be fast and fun, with Magda again leading the women to a 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th. Hanna was next in 9th, only seconds behind…super impressive race as Hanna was just getting her rollerski legs under her for the first time this spring and barely double poling up the gradual hill at the UVM bike path…now in this sprint she was hunting for seconds, pushing around corners at 20+ mph, and sprinting up hills with ease.
In the men’s race times were super tight. Timmy and Aidan were 3rd and 4th, only .2 seconds apart and .1 seconds out of 2nd place. In the end with places/times combined Timmy was 2nd overall for the day. He was very close to winning a pair of classic rollerskis, a pretty ironic prize for a biathlete to win from his performance in 2 skate races!
BUT WE WEREN’T DONE! It was time to go home and hit the study hall, and then make dinner before resting up.
Study time and dinner shopping time. Thanks to Hannaford for supporting our trip with a gift card donation!
Some of the girls team bringing a little VT swag to Lake Placid
On Sunday morning, we woke at dawn to another sunny day. Good opportunity to race up a mountain! This is one heck of a race and it’s quite the experience. Grinding uphill for an hour is not for the faint of heart, but we had some really strong performances and a lot of fun checking out the scene at the top. Special shoutout to the MNC Masters who raced as well!
Meredith and Jenny had an epic battle to the finish of the women’s race, scoring top-20 results and sneaking ahead of some strong college competitors. It was also the 2nd strong day in a row for Julia who was solidly in-the-mix for all 3 races, from 1k to 8k! In the men’s race Aidan improved his time by a minute over last year while Cameron skied much more aggressively in packs, and Brook said afterward that “no other hill would be the same”.
Some race footage of the Pugs, also including race winners like Jake Brown, Raleigh Goessling, and Tara Geraghty-Moats
