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Junior Photos: Rumford Eastern Cups

Wow what an amazing weekend January 18-19 up in good ‘ole Rumford Maine!! I say amazing for many reasons: we skied on a full 5km race course both days, on very good conditions. We had an incredible turnout of MNC athletes and families. We had a great team dinner with something like 30 athletes and parents. And, to boot, the many of the athletes had really strong race results!

Thanks to many people for the weekend: Sharon Henry for organizing the team dinner, Ed Hamilton and Don Harmeyer for waxing assistance – especially Sunday which were challenging / changing conditions, Gary Solow for photos, and all the parents for making such a commitment to trek to the boondocks for a weekend!

All the of the good photos below are from Gary. The few grainy and low-res pictures are from me. I apologize as there are a few athletes whose pictures I didn’t get.

Tatum, Marika and Eliza working hard in the mass-start

Forrest Hamilton off to a quick start – wearing the yellow “leader’s jersey”

Will Solow trying to find the draft

Autumn Eastman looking fast in the skate race

Callie Braun in the women’s 10km

Team dinner and sweet-16 for Tatum!

Charlie Maitland has been kicking butt in HS races and also had great performances in two long races at Rumford

Henry Harmeyer in the men’s mass-start 15km. Off to the right – in black – is MNC coach Jake Hollenbach!

Bill Harmeyer coming through the lap in the skate race.

201 is national champ and now 4-time Olympian Kris Freeman en route to victory. Amazing that our juniors in New England have such high-caliber competition. #203 is Sylvan Ellefson who recently won a National Championship in the 30km skate race out in Utah. And #202 is Matt Liebsch who narrowly missed the 2014 Olympics.

Graduate Emma Hamilton (now at Bowdoin), Autumn Eastman and Cally Braun all smiles at team dinner

Graduate Emma Hamilton (now at Bowdoin), Autumn Eastman and Tatum Braun all smiles at team dinner

Ed Hamilton making the skis even faster! Thanks Ed

that’s me – trying to keep the klister on the skis and not on everything else

Will Solow and Ben Longenbach in the tough 5km classic race

Don Harmeyer working hard, as always, in the wax tent. Thanks Don!

Eliza Thomas got her first experience as a J2 at the Eastern Cup level

NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPION (in the Youth Men’s Biathlon Pursuit) Nathanael Kuzio

Ben Hegman skiing to a strong result in the 15km classic. Not far off the times of 2014 Olympian Kris Freeman in the prior race on Saturday!

Masters This Week

By Adam Terko on 26 January, 2014 in Masters Blog

CONDITIONS AT THE RANGE ARE GREAT!!

Classic ski on Tuesday
Skate on Thursday

We will continue with some agility drills and no poles skiing and break into smaller groups to address individual coaching needs. We had some great ski sessions last week and want to carry over that energy and enthusiasm to this week.

ALL of us masters skiers need to work on

Balance
Strength
Proper Body Position
Timing
And then applying the power to ski efficiently and faster

In addition to technique work we will offer some pre-Marathon race pace intervals on Tuesday.

MARATHON TIPS

We are racing the 12.5 km loop – details TBD
For those competing at Craftsbury on Saturday we recommend Thursday be a very EASY day. On Friday if you have time, ski for about 30 minutes easy with a few short 20-30 second pick-ups while you are out testing wax and skis. Rick will be at Craftsbury on Friday afternoon for kick wax testing and will be there on Saturday morning to help. Be sure to checkout the TOKO site for wax tips later in the week – http://www.tokous.com/Waxtips/New%20England%20New%20York/new_england_wax_tips.htm
Remember it is better to go into a race over-rested than over-trained. There is nothing to be gained and a lot to be lost by doing long hard interval sessions a few days before a race.
Race Morning – arrive early 1 to 1.5 hours before the start if you are unsure about your kick wax. Do all your glide waxing the night before the race.
RELAX – it’s just a race. Get in a good 15-20 minute warmup.
Ski hard and enjoy the experience. It’s normal to be nervous but it’s how you handle it that makes a difference. Channel nervous energy into positive race energy.
Hey we are Masters Skiers!…The beer tastes the same weather we are first or last.

MNC High School Racers kicking butt!

By Adam Terko on 26 January, 2014 in BKL Race Blog, Junior Blog, Masters Blog

Lots of high-school ski results are available via the CVU Nordic website.

Last Friday was one of the most exciting and anticipated races of the year for high school athletes: the annual Pursuit Race at the Range! MNC skiers really kicked major butt this year, with a SWEEP OF THE PODIUM on the girls side (Amy Bruce MMU, Abby Grab MMU and Chloe Lemmel-Hay Essex taking 1-2-3). Then Molly Larson (MMU) was 5th and Anna Franceschetti (CVU) really kicked butt and earned 7th overall! Some of our other Essex gals narrowly missed the top-30 but they are still relatively new to the sport (Kate Moino and Sarah Tallman). Other summer participants including Leslie Roberts (BFA) and Rachel Slimovitch (CVU) were amongst the top 30 overall.

On the guys’ side, Ethan John (Essex) went down in a crash at the start but came back for 2nd overall. Ethan Thibault (Colchester) had one of his best races of the year to get 6th and was in a3-way sprint for 4th. Casey Silk and Charlie Cobb were in the teens, Nigel Sarrazin and Ben Carnahan in teh low-20s, and perhaps performance of the day from Essex was Caleb Guziak –also soccer goalie extraordinnaire — in 20th.

Great job to all teh high school athletes so far this winter! There are so many athletes it is hard to keep track of everybody and I apologize if I missed some names. It is really fun to see all the hard work from the Summer and Fall earning athletes positions on their Varsity teams, helping them become Team Captains, and not to mention great results compared to athletes across the state! Go MNC!

Masters Ski at Craftsbury

By Adam Terko on 24 January, 2014 in Masters Blog

Some of us have decided to have Informal masters ski at Craftsbury Saturday 1/25 10 AM. Classic skiing the Craftsbury race course. Join us if you can. Start together and ski at your own pace.

BK and Masters 1/20-1/26

By Adam Terko on 19 January, 2014 in BKL Jackrabbits, BKL Race Blog, Masters Blog

It’s going to be on the cold side this week so please be prepared. With a deep base of man-made snow and now some new powder on top, conditions at the range will be excellent.

Monday 1/20 – MNC BK Duathlon at Craftsbury
Tuesday 1/21 – CLASSIC –
Thursday 1/23 – SKATE

Upcoming events

BK – 1/26 Paintball biathlon at Mountain Top https://www.nensa.net/calendar/index.html?id=1461

January 29, 2014 TOKO Wax Clinic at the Ski Rack with TOKO and SWIX reps!

Masters – Crafstbury Marathon 2/1/14 https://www.nensa.net/calendar/index.html?id=1482

Feb-1-2 Eastern Cup/UVM Carnival Ski and Cheer at Trapps. Details TBD.