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MNC Featured Athlete: Kai Richter

MNC salutes Kai Richter!

Kai is 13 years old and lives in beautiful Huntington, VT. This year he begins his 5th year of skiing in the MNC BK program. Not only is Kai and excellent Nordic skier he is also a very accomplished runner, swimmer, tele-skier and all around great athlete.

BK Festival 2013 MNC suit

Some of Kai’s recent athletic accomplishments:

Runner’s World Half Marathon & Running Festival Bethlehem, PA. 10/19/13

10 K -15 and under 1st place (29th overall)
5 K – 15 and under 1st place
combined time for 5 & 10K. Overall male winner (not age group).

Kai ran the 5 K in 18:55 averaging 6:04/mi and then followed that up with 41:41 10 K for 6:42/mi. He then donated his prize money to the last place finisher in the 10 K race and got to meet Olympic swimmer Summer Sanders and running legend and Runner’s World Editor Bud Coates.

Some of Kai’s recent athletic accomplishments:

On October 2nd Kai finished 4th in the 1.8 mi Browns River Middle School XC Meet with a time of 9:53.5 (5:29/mi).

Some other results from the past year:

Presidential 5K in Kennebunkport, ME – 19 and under – 1st place

Run for Sundaes 10K – Huntington, VT – 2nd place

Dances with Dirt Trail Race 10K, Devil’s Lake, WI – 15 & under – 1st place

Freaky 5K, Richmond, VT – 2nd overall.

Shelburne ½ marathon – 25th overall runner, 15 & under: 1st place. Time: 1:35:10 (7:18 per mile).

Questions for our Featured Athlete

(MNC) When did you first start cross country skiing?

KR: 2002. In my second year. Although when I was a couple months old, my father skied me up to Trapp’s Cabin in pulk, where I had a big ‘milkshake’ conked out asleep, and slept all the way down, even through some high speed turns when the pulk was totally on it’s side.

(MNC) I understand that you are an accomplished tele skier too. How long have you been tele skiing and who introduced you to the sport?

KR: 7 years. My parents.

(MNC) What are your favorite non-winter sports and activities?

KR: Lacrosse, single track mountain biking, cross country and trail running, basketball, swimming and snorkeling

(MNC) Where is your favorite place(s) to XC ski?

KR: Great Glen, NH, Trapps

(MNC) What is your Dream Vacation?

KR: BC powder skiing in the back country.

(MNC) You have been running a lot this summer. Do you have a favorite race that you would recommend to other kids?

KR: Dances With Dirt Trail Running Festival – all distances, but includes 10K. That is in Devil’s Lake, WI. Closer to Mansfield: Run For Sundaes in late June in Huntington. Great ice cream!

(MNC) What are your goals for the upcoming ski season?

KR: better classic technique. More short distance speed.

Masters Training 11/12 – 11/24

By Adam Terko on 11 November, 2013 in Masters Blog

Masters scheduled training for the next couple of weeks. IF it snows enough we can switch to skiing!! Please pass along the word if you find someplace with enough coverage.

11/12 Tuesday – 5:30 at the Range – rollerski intervals followed by strength
11/17 Sunday – 9:30 Long rollerski – Mud Pond Williston
11/19 Tuesday – 5:30 Range – 5:30 Combined Rollerski/run time trial followed by strength
11/23 – Saturday – If you like to run… Turkey Trot in Westford, VT http://vtsports.com/events-list/westford-turkey-trot-3 organized by MNC’s Rosemary Shea-Cobb
11/24 – TBA
11/26 – Tuesday – Start of Winter Program – snow or not. If no snow we will continue with dry land, drills, strength, balance, roller skiing and running at the range.

Important Information

By Adam Terko on 11 November, 2013 in BKL Race Blog, Junior Blog, Masters Blog

MNC UPDATE – Upcoming Events

The annual Smugglers Notch Hike/Pool Party is scheduled for Saturday 11/16/13. Please email Rick if you plan on attending. rtcostanza@gmail.com

The TOKO Wax order forms are available by emailing Rick Costanza at rtcostanza@gmail.com or Joy Grossman at vtultrarunner@gmail.com Return the TOKO forms to Dave Boucher davidnboucher@comcast.net by 12/12. Order pick up will be at the Ski Rack after 12/16.

The will be no BK session this friday so we can have our Fall BK Parent/Coach meeting at the Deborah Rawson Library in Underhill at 7 PM 11/15.

Junior Recap

By Adam Terko on 9 November, 2013 in BKL Race Blog, Junior Blog, Masters Blog

What an awesome week! In spite of the limited daylight we were blessed to resume training at the Range this past Tuesday. It is incredible what we can accomplish on the beautiful new pavement and lighted trails. This facility is one of < 10 places in NORTH AMERICA with these benefits.

I was really pleased this week with all the athletes rollerskiing at the Range. Many athletes that had never rollerskied before 2013 are now successfully skiing around nearly every loop at the Range — including the Pit and the infamous “Airplane Downhill.” Many of the younger skiers managed to complete nearly 15km of skiing on Tuesday evening, while some of the older athletes did a bounding workout with coach Eli Enman at Sleepy Hollow.

On Friday we returned to Greystone Road for a double-pole test up the ~600m hill. This test gauges strength and power in the upper body and core. We’ve done this 2-3 times per year for a few years now. Although it was a cold and blustery day, almost everyone had PR’s or were within 3 seconds of a PR. I’ll publish times a bit later but to say the least, I was a little surprised by just how well everyone did! A great Friday evening.

While we didn’t have organized MNC training today, several athletes involved with MNC were representing their high school running teams at the New England XC Championships in Manchester, NH. A few notables include:

Autumn Eastman, CVU, finishing 3rd overall in a time of 17:48 for 5km (ummm that is faster than I’ve run a 5km since I was in college.
Ben Hegman (MMU) throwing down an incredible PR of 16:01 to finish 26th overall.
And Nathanael Kuzio (Harwood) — I believe this is his PR as well — running 16:42 to finish 93rd in a field of over 250 of the best runners from across New England.

Amazing job all. Let’s keep up the momentum ’til the snow flies!

Forrest Hamilton demonstrates excellent forward body lean during diagonal stride

Junior Photos and Recap

By Adam Terko on 2 November, 2013 in BKL Race Blog, Junior Blog, Masters Blog

This past week marked the first week of “pre-season” training now that fall sports have concluded. Our group was therefore a little bigger than normal! It is really exciting to see many of our younger BKL athletes making the transition to the junior program!! We kicked off the week with some strength, technique, and specific strength (aka, double poling) at Mud Pond. On Thursday we worked on skate technique and finding rhythm in the V2 alternate technique. Yesterday was a nice warm (but windy) afternoon at Essex High School working on some dryland drills and our running heart-rate zone analysis. This workout is meant to take athletes from running at level 1 pace (easy) and progress up to high level 2 or low level 3 (moderate). We run at specific paces and record heart-rate at the end of each mile. Over many weeks or months, we hope to see small improvements demonstrated by lower heart-rate at the same pace. The boys run 1 mile repeats at 9:00, 8:15 then 7:30 with 1 minute breaks (and sometimes a 4th mile repeat again at 7:30). The gals do 10:00 / 9:15 / 8:30. We also play some hackey sack or juggle a soccer ball to work on coordination and agility.