Fall is cranking up the intensity as speed and power get added to each workout. Whether it’s a set of 30/30 intervals to practice maintaining strong form, towing your partners along the trail to strengthen your muscles, or jumping into local races to practice the thrill of competition, the Juniors are ramping it up. The ingredients are a really productive summer of technique work, strength training with improvements in balance and coordination, and a consistent group to hammer with. When blended together the end result is a smoothie of fast winter racers!
Evidence of the above recipe:
We’re happy to again be partnering with many of the skiers from the Saint Mike’s team this fall. Some we know from last year, and others are getting their first taste of MNC. It’s great that we can collaborate because there’s a lot to learn from one another, and as the video above shows it’s easier to do hard work in a big group. Leading the charge in many of these video clips is Mikey Halligan who also spent the whole summer with the MNC crew and is looking to be prime shape for the season ahead.
What’s cool about this collaboration this fall is we’ll be joined by Pennie and Molly more frequently, the coaches with the SMC team. More hands-on-deck for helping everyone improve and put their best effort forward.
Virginia heading to the finish
On Saturday, we put a different kind of effort forward…the annual Burlington Invite! Before the high school racers take to the line, there is an open citizen’s race on the same course. We started doing this race a few years ago just for a chance to get a race in without much pressure…last year there were 30 finishes and I think this year may have been about 25. Just some light warmups and casual conversation on the starting line…they were literally still laying the cones for the course as they were getting the gun ready to send us off.
We had some great individual races, highlighted by the women’s team going 1-4 (Rose, Julia, Hanna, Sammie) and Virginia completing her first-ever 5km. She’s only an 8th-grader but she’s had an awesome summer of skiing and biathlon training so watch out for her in the U16 competitions this winter! With some big improvements over only one year ago, Julia and Hanna were :45 and 1:15 faster, respectively!
Adam and Mikey battled it out the whole race to take 3rd and 4th place, not quite matching the fearsome performance of the women but solid nonetheless.
Special shoutouts to MNC Masters representative Katie, and Ava Thurston who won the women’s varsity race, and many other MNC skiers out there laying it all on the line for their respective HS and MS teams…Quincy, Greta, Julia, Maisie, Silas, and more!
post-race vibe
After the race the MNC gang deemed it necessary to refuel with a group brunch session at Skinny Pancake before returning to watch and cheer on the Varsity racers…crepes were had and the systems were replenished for a strong bout of…sitting in the grass and yelling at people as they ran by in agony! It was a really nice day and perfect for both racing and spectating.
Julia congratulating her non-biological daughter Ava at the team tents
In the afternoon we took a short 1-mile drive to the infamous “127 Bike Path”, frequently haunted by the MNC Masters groups who train in the Burlington area. On this day we were the only skiers, and in fact the only users of the path aside from a group of tourists who were not eager to move out of the way too quickly…or were just unaware that we did not have brakes on our rollerskis. Either way collisions were avoided! No photos from that adventure as, well, it’s hardly the most photogenic spot as we literally skied parallel to the highway for an hour.
What’s next for the gang? A week with some bounding intensity on Wednesday and the CLIMB TO THE CASTLE weekend! A highlight of the fall for sure. We’ll travel over for the “Double Day” 3km and 1km races on Saturday, spend the night in Saranac Lake, and compete in the Climb to the Castle race on Sunday. It looks like MNC will be fielding a huge roster of Juniors and Masters alike. Be sure to check it out!
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