Mansfield Nordic Club

Our MNC University squad spent the weekend in Bethel, Maine for a training camp.

Bethel?!

Yes, a new location for us, but a great one for some awesome workouts! With the Gould Academy campus in this town, there was no way to not find great rollerskiing and running options. With some outreach to the Nordic coaches on that staff, we got the lowdown on the toughest hills and smoothest trails to explore. Bethel really is an amazing place to be a skier!

On Friday morning we loaded folks into cars and caravanned across a couple states, but not before stopping for a mid-journey run on the trails of Dog Mountain in St. Johnsbury. A unique place to be sure, and the humidity was stifling, too.

In Bethel proper we took to some quiet and scenic backroads for a classic ski Friday afternoon, catching the beautiful evening sun. That was a nice double-session-day, but the real challenge would come the following morning when we drove over to Sunday River for tough striding intervals up Sunday River. With a 6km climb there was no hiding the effort:

Shea, Amelia, Ava, Hattie, Emma, and Libby near the top! As the sign says, it’s steep, but they didn’t take it easy.

Keelan leads the start of an interval at the very bottom

It was a great hill, and the predicted rainstorm held off the entire time thanks to the amazing forecasting skill of Shea Brams. Even without precipitation, the humidity certainly wasn’t letting up, so a nice dip in the river at the base of the climb was a welcome treat…and of course the squad posed for a flexing bridge shot:

After some lunch at the rental house, a few episodes of Black Mirror on Netflix, and some naps to top it off, we did have plenty of rain for the afternoon workout: a run on the mountain bike and nordic trails behind Gould, followed by a very muddy game of speedball on the campus soccer field.

On Sunday morning, we put a Presi Traverse into our back pockets for another week, as the weather was calling for thunderstorms (and a 4am wakeup car shuttle would’ve been needed). To make up for it, we certainly needed an epic workout of course. I thought back to the very first Mountain Camp in 2016, when we skied on a quaint road near Santa’s Village on Route 2. Brandon and I mapped out how that could take us from Santa’s Village all the way to Lancaster, then down the Connecticut River through several tiny NH towns until a bridge to Vermont. From there we devised a route to take us up to tiny Victory, Vermont and over toward Kirby, all on dirt roads with running as the second mode of travel in this “duathlon”.

It has now become somewhat of a “theme” to have our training camps end with a long workout taking us in the direction of home!

Sure enough the pavement was skiable, the scenery was beautiful, and everyone had plenty of snacks given our stop at the grocery store the night before to stock up on Presi supplies. Nothing caps off a training camp like a 2.5 hour rollerski that leads into a 2.5 hour run!

Rose and Libby striding it out

Covered bridge fueling stop on the VT/NH border

The bustling center of town in East Concord, Vermont!

Hour five, at this point running through the swampland of Victory, VT (population: 70 as of the 2020 census)

Ending our camp (just as the wildfire smoke blew in) with ice cream and Pizza Hut in St. J

This group has been a ton of fun to have around this summer, and they have been working HARD and also doing a great job of forming their own culture and atmosphere. We took some time at this camp to share a little about ourselves, and also began drafting a mission statement for this program. We’re super excited that Brandon Herhusky has been able to lead this program, and everybody is looking forward to more!

You can check out the newly-published MNC University page on the dropdown menu from our homepage, and check out info and rosters that include athlete bios (a growing collection).

With the ending of the school year, the weeks for our Junior team have shifted into summer mode. Early morning rollerskiing at the Range, overly-sweaty humid afternoons in the woods, and weekend adventures around Vermont and beyond.

An awesome crew has formed this summer: nearly 40 Juniors (and counting!) plus 15 collegiate skiers in MNC University means a LOT of poles clacking across the pavement.

The first week of our training brought sunny skies and a good mix of skiing, games, and focused work. For some of our skiers, the first few training sessions are all about getting used to the rollerski track…in this case, it only took just over a day for everyone to be solid on “Sprint Loop” which means more doors are open to larger groups able to train together within the same session.

We took a few minutes after training on Thursday to set out some goals and intentions for the summer group/season specifically. Skiers who have been with MNC for a while are familiar with the goal pyramids we use to guide our processes, although those pyramids often apply to one skier over the course of a season.

In this case, we wanted to work on goals and targets for the summer group specifically. While always the biggest season for us in terms of numbers, is season often brings together skiers from more different backgrounds, and with a wide range of skiing goals. Therefore setting goals with this group meant taking a really big-picture look at what the summer program is, and what we can work toward between now and late-August.

The pyramid, and the first few days this summer, looked something like this:

Fun relays with the college and juniors skiers together

Rolling and warming up in Williston

The all-important dynamic warmup

Nothing like a little towing to get the technique firing

And on tap for the upcoming week(s)…lots of camps and trips! We’ve got a big slate of adventures coming up and underway…The MNC University group is currently at a training camp in Bethel, ME, while 8 MNC athletes qualified for the NENSA REG (Regional Elite Group) camp that just began in southern VT.

Next week, more of our crew will participate in the NENSE RDG (Regional Development Group) camp in Craftsbury. Then it’s onto the Lost Nation Rollerski race, Mountain Camp, Mini Mountain Camp…phew, summer is busy!

We have data on the Bolton test going back many years. It’s one of the tests I “inherited” when I started coaching at MNC, so in the record books you’ll see times from 2013, with names that have long since gone to college, and even started and retired from professional ski careers!

So yes, this September will mark the 10th year of this test if the archives are accurate.

Often, I’m making claims about how much faster athletes are getting, and indeed the top times have consistently plummeted in the past 3-4 years. The times are decreasing for a few reasons. In part, it’s from us only getting faster as a club. But there has also been a marked increase in skiers taking on this test. The sample size has gotten huge, and with more skiers come more chances to throw down fast times. Skiers from other clubs give it a go, as do collegiate skiers and adults in our sport.

But individual progress has always been a key marker, and having a tab on our archive that follows evert skier over the years is super valuable.

And on Saturday, a new record fell! No, not the speed up the mountain (although Keelan Durham and Hattie Barker were close to some record times). This was a record in the number of racers in a single Bolton test day with a total of 30 competitors.

Philosophical club question: is this record more important than the record for time and speed?

My answer would be yes, because this record signifies growth in participation, excitement, and willingness to compete. Our MNC University group brought many new racers to the table, and friends-of-the-club made appearances too. 14 results were added to the men’s recordbook, and 16 results were added to the women’s record. That’s some great parity as well.

The speed records are likely to be broken again, and the likelihood it happens sooner is higher when we’ve got more competitors. So it’s really a wholistic process: more athletes and a broader range of racers means more chances for the record to fall, and a wider range of times in each test (meaning no matter what speed you’re going, you likely have someone racing near you for good competition).

That’s a much stronger barometer of ski club testing results than simply relying on “super talent” skiers or runners to keep lowering the course record!

Although some had to jet for graduation or work, we still had a pretty big group shot at the top of the lift!