Archive | Junior Blog

After what felt like nothing but flooding and fires in 2023, the new year kicked off with snow and cold temps…and things really dropped down low in Lake Placid over the weekend.

With an overnight low of around -7 on Friday, it was one of those race mornings where the jury had to meet and decide if the races needed to be delayed or cancelled. But the thermometer was on our side. Faces were taped, pants and jackets were doubled-up, and lots of cold glide wax went into making bases shiny and speedy in snow that could at times feel like sandpaper.

This was the second classic sprint of the Eastern Cup season, and just like Waterville our crew showed they can really ski this technique! Whether warm and slushy/icy, or cold and snowy, MNC is on top of their game. In the qualifier we had several standout performances, including Anders slotting into 12th overall which was incredibly impressive given this was a full Supertour field. On the women’s side, Kate got in there with a 27th overall, meaning she’d be lining-up with only a few other Junior athletes and, primarily, against top Supertour athletes from teams like APU, BSF, Craftsbury, and Sun Valley!

In the Junior and U16 heats we had a large contingent of MNC racers: Virginia, Elsa, Greta, Julia, Nico, Niko, Jonah, Brooke, Astrid…that’s a lot of races throughout the day.

Just because someone didn’t make the heats didn’t mean they skied poorly: it was really interesting to have a classic sprint in both of these first EC weekends, because it meant I was able to watch several in our group quite literally get better at the format simply by gaining the experience and having another go. For example Stella was oh-so-close to making the Junior heats and only one spot off, 4 seconds back. That’s compared to Waterville when she was thirteen spots off, 13 seconds back. There are many, many races happening out there beyond just those head-to-head heats!

Anders leading his quarterfinal heat

When we got down to the rounds themselves, it was an amazing day for MNC. Helping us out was local Jericho-based event announcer Pete Davis, who may have just a sliiiight MNC bias, but nonetheless found himself announcing all sorts of MNC action since our skiers kept moving through the rounds and making waves!

“Podium cheese” for Kate, just like on the World Cup! 

Anders ended the day as the top U18 men’s racer, Kate ended the day as the top U16 women’s racer, and Jonah ended the day as the top U16 men’s racer. Three age group victories in a single race? That is certainly a new record for the club. To continue the impressive trend, Greta skied through the U18/U20 heats to take the win in those rounds, meaning we had four MNC skiers atop podiums throughout the day.

Although not everyone advanced, our group raced really well in the head-to-head rounds. On Tuesday and Thursday nights, our group is quite large…to the extent that I tried to coordinate with Coach Liz and Coach Rosemary about blocking off certain trails at the Range so that we could do intervals without overwhelming the BKL and Masters groups. But there’s probably something to be said for getting good at navigating skier traffic, dodging crashes, and staying light on your feet among many other athletes all vying for space!

Sunday was…surprise surprise, another cold day! This time everyone geared-up for a mass start on New England’s toughest course. There’s no way around it, this thing is designed for international competition and it shows. Watching NCAA races here last year and seeing the best college racers in the country literally torn apart by these hills was something else.

A possible secret to Lorenzo’s success: Sour Patch Blob

But as coaches often can be heard telling athletes when anything tough presents itself: “it’s the same for everyone out there.” and this held true. Things got going with the open women’s race, and it was great to see some MNC skiers putting up their strongest efforts yet this season. Elsa had a really great day, skiing transitions with power and making time all over the course to spend most of the race a handful of seconds and critically out-of-reach of a pack of charging Juniors behind her. Moving up a ton from her start position was Paige, who through her consistent cross country running career (she’s committed to SLU for XC running next fall!) used her combo of great aerobic ability and ski skills to charge up through the field.

The men’s race started off with a bang, or rather a snap/crash/crack as a gigantic pileup took place right under the first bridge. Wouldn’t be mass start racing without a little chaos. Anders made good on his strong distance classic race in Utah and delivered another strong performance with a 3rd-place U18 showing in this tough field. With his best showing yet, Lorenzo had a great race to put to rest some doubts the previous day he was having about his form and ability. It is always good to remember that so much can change in any direction on a race weekend, and it’s so rare that every race is just the best day possible. It all adds up over time!

Just like sprint day, there were highs and lows. I think one aspect of Eastern Cups and brutal courses is the compounding of any little thing being off…at this level, it does not take much for one small hindrance to really snowball, and it’s again a reminder that taking one weekend in a vacuum doesn’t necessarily define a month, a season, or a career. There will be more big races, more small races, more short races, and more long races.

In the U16 races the start corral chaos was limited, but MNC did suffer a few mid-race crashes that could’ve been much worse were it not for our tough and stalwart athletes. Kate and Mia went down pretty hard on the “cannonball run” downhill, but shook off the snow (and according to Kate, gradually remembered where she was and what she was doing there after such an epic near-blackout crash) and charged back through the field.

While those charges were happening, fighting up ahead was Brooke in the midst of a battle for the podium with some Canadian and American skiers alike. On the last climb Brooke hung tough in 4th place, and then made the pass in the long straightaway finish stretch to take her first Eastern Cup podium! This was super impressive for a number of reasons, but one of them may go unnoticed on paper. Brooke is the middle school State Champ 2 years in a row now, and you’d obviously assume her strengths lie in the climbs. There’s no doubt this helped her stay in touch with the pack and near the front given the tough course…but Brooke didn’t have that podium in the bag until the final few hundred meters of flat double pole.

Whereas she used to be a bit on the uncoordinated side, Brooke has made huge improvements in keeping herself stable and strong at higher speeds and when tired. The fact that she duked it out and came across with a pass after the long downhill and flat finish stretch is really a testament to that!

Kate fought all the way back to 8th overall (7th American) with Astrid and then Mia (in her first Eastern Cup) and Charlotte only a few spots behind. This group is really consistent and able to work together in training and at races, and it’s cool to see!

Brooke and Astrid after their sprint heat…can you tell they are a bit tired and chilly 🙂

The U16 men’s race was dominated by a trio of Canadian skiers from the Nakkertok club in Ottawa. Although they tried their hardest to take the American challenge to them, the group of US U16 boys didn’t quite have it on this day. What played out instead was an interesting tactical battle. Jonah stayed relaxed on the first lap, but then when the climbs began on lap 2 and Matthew McIntosh made his move, Jonah tried to follow.

He wasn’t feeling fully healthy though, and was worried coming into the race that a lack of sleep and some aggressive coughing meant he wouldn’t be able to fire on all cylinders. Nevertheless he basically pushed until his body gave out, which unfortunately happened to be about 40 meters from the finish line where everything shut down. A great effort, but one in need of some rest and recovery!

James, on the contrary, had been under the weather for a number of bigger events this year, including Thanksgiving Camp and several races. But he was back to full force this weekend, and skied a great race to stay strong with good technique throughout and fight the whole way. Also joining him was the Devo group of Liam, Oakley, and Isaiah getting in their first Eastern Cup experiences!

Kristen with a tired-but-content Devo squad after their race

The turnaround is quite fast for Eastern Cup #3 in Craftsbury, with a more relaxed weekend and then a focus straight to the next big event. We are truly in the heart of winter now!

Park City, Utah.

You will never find a more concentrated hub for cross country skiing in America.

When I first got into cross country skiing, and I mean really into cross country skiing, I was about 17 years old. This was the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school. I had rollerskied before, but this was the first summer I did it with regularity. I had gym equipment at home, but this was the first summer I actually got stronger. I started my first training log (a yellow Staples notebook), filmed my technique on a chunky Canon digital camera, and started a ski blog, just like everyone else in 2007.

YouTube existed back then, but you weren’t going to find many cross country ski clips on there. The only one I vividly remember was this finish from the 2007 World Championships, where Petter Northug first did the “Petter Northug thing” and announced his presence to the world. We didn’t have smartphones, but this clip was all we talked about on the bus ride to Eastern High School Championships in Rangely, Maine that spring.

So where did some of my earliest cultural understanding of skiing come from? Two books:

“Momentum” (by Pete Vordenberg) and “Endless Winter” (by Luke Bodensteiner)

These books are vastly different reads when it comes to tone:

Vordenberg’s “Momentum” is a philosophical memoir that skips back-and-forth through time, pondering success and failure in both sport and in life. Big questions about human nature abound, creative metaphors tie chapters together, and deep introspective sections are relatable to many athletes.

In sharp contrast to this style is “Endless Winter”, written chronologically in journal form over the course of the 1993/1994 season. Endless Winter was written by a college student (this was Luke’s senior thesis, I think?) and very much for the college crowd. It is dripping with machismo, loaded with MTV and Street Fighter references, and dotted with misogyny.

For every line in “Momentum” that embraces the nerdy, eccentric world of endurance athletics, there’s an outrageous line in “Endless Winter” that tries to insinuate the US Ski Team was living in a cheesy Hollywood ski movie during the time of writing.

The juxtaposition of these styles means that, depending on your mood, you can pick up the title of your choosing and flip to a favorite passage for any occasion. Both are amazing snapshots of the mid-90s, though the journal form and steady stream of pop culture references of “Endless Winter” do more for capturing the decade than any nostalgia in “Momentum”.

What else do these titles have in common? Park City, Utah.

You probably have to go all the way back to Putney in the 1970s and 80s to find anything as close to a centralized home for US cross country skiing. Even in the 90s, before the Salt Lake Olympics, training groups and coaches and athletes from around the country flocked to Park City. Although it’s currently a collegiate powerhouse, the University of Utah was no slouch 40 years ago, either.

Before I had ever set foot in Utah for the first time, with only the internet and books to learn about the broader culture of skiing in the US, I read about mythical trails and hills and locations…Hermods Hill, Emigration Canyon, Agony Hill, Mid Mountain Trail, this place called “SoHo” which was not, in fact, the same place Warren Zevon sings about in “Werewolves of London.”

Despite starting to learn of the legendary people and places of SLC, Park City, and Heber City in 2007, over ten years passed before I set foot in the area. I stepped off a plane in the Salt Lake airport for Junior Nationals in 2018 and I felt like a scholar of ancient history finally being guided to a holy land after years of studying scripture. And no, that’s not a LDS reference or joke.

In the six years since that JNs, I’ve found myself in Utah many more times. During the warmer months we’ve grown fond of the area for the same reason many skiers have always gravitated toward the area: amazing trails, good rollerskiing, abundant lodging, varying elevation for training, and great spots for downtime. During the winter?

US Nationals

MNC was represented out in SoHo by a team of 4 MNC athletes. We joined forces with 5 athletes from Ford Sayre, in what felt like an awesome collaboration. Travelling with, living with, racing with, and just spending time with different athletes and coaches and groups is a really rewarding part of our sport.

Utah was also experiencing a pretty snowless winter, so ironically we left behind artificial snow loops in Vermont for a 3km artificial loop in the west. However, a trip up to Bonanza Flats on a training day left us all pretty speechless…this was a trail network at 9000′ publicly groomed by Pisten Bully. With blue skies, sun, and mountains in every direction, we were feeling pretty spoiled and grateful to be there.

But of course, you can’t go to US Nationals and not race in the races…things kicked off with a 10km classic featuring lots of steady climbing. Despite the absurdity of it, we actually did classic rollerski intervals the day before we left Vermont, in order to get some hilly striding in…the snowmaking loops we’d been on most of the winter just didn’t have many hills!

The whole crew looked great striding, but not everyone felt amazing with the altitude (a theme for the East skiers in general, not just our MNC/Ford Sayre group). However, it’s important to note that part of this whole US Nationals experience is just seeing the broader ski world, and learning about racing at altitude. You have to rip the bandaid off somehow…

Julia striding the first climb. These are the kind of tracks and snow we dream of…

With a brief one-day pause to hang out on the couch, recovery, visit some thrift stores, and catch up on homework, we then tackled sprint and distance days back-to-back.

Some super strong races were had…Gillian had an awesome classic race and a strong sprint, and Anders had one of his best classic races ever and battled in the Junior rounds of both the skate and classic sprint. Annie Hanna and Sarah Glueck had strong mass start skate races, and James Underwood really popped-off (or was “locked in”?) during the skate race.

But there were certainly tougher times as well, and while not everyone had the highest of highs, everyone experienced some difficult moments or races. I’m really glad that our skiers got to take on a challenge like this: sometimes the most important memory won’t be the thrill of crossing the finish line, but thinking back upon a 20 minute conversation had while sitting on the back bumper of a Uhaul box truck. These can be equally important moments in a ski career.

So whether it was the first time in Park City/SoHo for some, or the 200th time for some of the longtime coaches at this event, the week was full of action, ups, downs, and stories.

Mexican food: a critical part of ski trips!