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The word “collective” is used a fair bit in the mountain biking world. One of the more renowned film studios in the sport was The Collective, and that studio was responsible for one of the most definitive MTB movies of all time: Seasons.

In brand terms, you may have heard of Canyon. They are fond of removing vowels for some reason, and their team is known as the Canyon Collective or, in their parlance, “CLLCTV.”

This summer, we’ve had several groups all training as Mansfield Nordic…from the Juniors to the Pro Team to the MNCU collegiate group, there are a number of different skiers all putting in work. While the goals and experience may vary, we’ve been able to come together on many occasions to train together. This is no small feat…it can be incredibly tricky to mesh plans, locations, schedules, and coaches all on one workout. Yet it seems almost natural. Unforced.

Speed workout at the Range: Pro Team, College Team, Junior Team. One Team.

To me this is very telling of what MNC is and how our club operates. When pro skiers train alongside high school freshmen, it is not some elaborate structured session with intros and autographs. Everyone is just showing up to be a part of the same experience. It’s a collective. There are no egos and there is no intimidation: and that allows for everyone to get the most they possibly can from these experiences.

A 3 hour run with 20+ friends

Is everything going to function this smoothly at all times? That’s foolish to expect. But we’ve already proven that a collaborative attitude can take us a long way!

Last weekend on a long and scenic run on the old long trail, we discussed the smell of evaporating or freshly-fallen rain.

“I know there’s a name for that!” I said, and struggled to recall the term. Of course, these days you can just look up anything you don’t know immediately within a couple of seconds.

Petrichor: a distinctive, earthy, usually pleasant odor that is associated with rainfall especially when following a warm, dry period that arises from a combination of volatile plant oils released by soils into the air and carried by downdrafts. (Merriam-Webster). 

That was a new word for trivia night, and coincidentally a smell we’d be experiencing a lot in the week to come. But it also hits on something deeper. The concept of their being an overarching feeling or atmosphere that you can really pick up on.

There was a distinct moment during training last week where a sense of joy and satisfaction washed over me with the return of familiar feelings in all the senses.

It was a humid sunny day and the team and I had just gone on a run from the MNCC up Dugway road. Along the way we chatted about skiing, training camps, nature, prom, vlogs, and more. We scooted down an embankment to dunk our heats in the water at the Triple Buckets swimming hole on the return trip, and finished that first portion of our session back at the MNCC as the sun was starting to get a little lower in the sky and cast shadows across the gym floor.

We turned on the speakers and distorted guitars began to fill the room, competing for sonic space with two loud and powerful fans also droning loudly with their own tune. Weights clanked on the bars and racks, the flywheels of the two SkiErgs whirred intermittently, and the sound of loud footfalls from box jumps and hurdles echoed as well.

The smell of sweat was unavoidable, and white clouds of chalk floated across the low sunbeams streaming through the windows. Everyone knew what to do; this was a standard lifting day with exercises people were familiar with, so it was not about asking questions or deciphering printed strength sheets. The team just got down to business, and it felt instinctual.

It was a moment you’d close your eyes and recreate if you were talked with embodying “summer ski training” and it almost got me emotional! The sense of “place” was strong literally and figuratively. That energy carried through the rest of the week and it felt like the humid, sweaty, chalky, clanging ski-specific version of petrichor signaled the real start of the training year.

Here’s some more photos:

First team rollerski, featuring some double poling technique work and…

…ending the ski with a roll over to Dominoes to pick up our order

A very wet 3000m that included a delayed-start due to thunder

A nice wooden pug we found on our ski in Vergennes on Sunday!

It was nice to take a break from structured team training in April, but it feels even better to be back and undertaking a new season! The rain this week didn’t make the great photos, and we kept things local without many crazy adventures so as to ease-into the big goals we all have for ’25/’26.

With rainy and gloomy weather, it has for sure been amazing to start right off with access to the MNCC and an indoor facility. We’ve continued to add little things here-and-there, with even more pieces of equipment on the way. We’ve got a second SkiErg now mounted on the wall, with more to go up when their replacement cords arrive. More banners now adorn the walls, and additional bars and weights will enable more athletes to train simultaneously.

The first “hard” effort of the year was a 500m SkiErg test. This is a simple, short test that is easy to repeat and doesn’t knock you out so much as to ruin the ability to still do a strength session or distance workout before or after…we hope to keep it in our back pocket for a few tries this season to see how we’re improving on our double poling power and, yes, pacing (which is still important even on this test!).

We’ve also started to try incorporating a new warmup for the gym and some running sessions that is really focused on multiple aspects of lower body activation and running injury prevention. We go through this set below twice: once you’re familiar with the exercises, the whole thing can take under 10 minutes. Between this and our usual band activation warmup, we’re doing our best to keep our bodies in good form.

On Saturday we put that early running training to work accomplished a pretty involved interval session: a loop run in the rain with miles 2, 4, and 6 (if you were a U18) at L3 pace. This was a great ‘capacity building’ workout as it mixed both distance and intensity in a smooth way. It can be hard to do this on rollerskis, and not something to undertake every single week no matter the format…but when running, the muscular demands are more limited so it does make this overall load manageable despite some obvious soreness from early-season running.

It’s a great way to build running mileage and efficiency, and we ended up with 9 miles total on a route that took us from the green in Jericho Center, down Schillhammer Rd, down Barber Farm to Tarbox, up to Fitzsimmonds and then back to the center (if you know the area). It was about 70% dirt which was also key, since I don’t know if any skier prefers pavement when they are running.

The week ended on Sunday with the actual SUN for the first time in a while! Was it the best day of the year thus far, weatherwise?

We celebrated with a 10 mile adventure right from the MNCC in Jonesville. You can pick up an old section of the Long Trail half a mile from our home base, and follow it up through some beautiful stretches of forest between Stage and Notch Roads…you can even find some cool vistas and streams when you don’t follow the trail (whether or not that is intentional). We followed the trail up to the Preston Pond area, where we then took a left and popped out on Stage Road for a few downhill miles back home.

There’s already ideas in the works for more great long running/trail loops that we can accomplish right from the MNCC. Richmond is truly a one-stop resource for hiking, running, biking, rollerskiing, and more!