Sun, speed, and Swenor rollerskis! It was a beautiful day up in Craftsbury for the Lost Nation Roll, and even more memorable than the race was the fact that this was a true big team trip. It was the first time in I believe two years that all the seats were back in the van and that thing was PACKED FULL of sweaty skiers, rattling rollerskis, smelly helmets, and Piecasso drink cups (and masks!).
We truly made the most of the day, racing and beyond. It was fun to set up a tent in the center of the upper field with snacks, chairs, water, and good vibes…and sure enough that tent became somewhat of a hub for other Juniors at the race moreso than just an MNC base.
Which also leads me to note that we were effectively the only Junior “team” to attend this race. Many Juniors represented other clubs like EMXC, SMS, and GMVS but most of those athletes (including 6 of our own) were competing as part of the REG Camp held at Craftsbury concurrently. But according to the startlists there were more MNC skiers at this race (20+ counting college skiers partly representing us like Aidan and Charles) than any other team. I’m as proud of that as I am of the way we raced, because it really shows a commitment to being a part of NENSA programming and connecting with all of the regions great opportunities for racing and collaborating.
So…onto the “race weekend” itself. Things got started with a rollerski in Essex on Saturday, which we used to dial-in a warmup routine and race prep. We also dialed-in our mental game with a fierce round of mini golf afterward.
We loaded up bright and early the next day for Craftsbury, and after a $100 stop for gas (fun times we live in) it was time to set up our base and check out the course. Here’s where I need to shout-out Aaron Carroll, who had very limited rolleski experience before coming to MNC this spring. Aaron came with us to Craftsbury for the 5k project a few weeks ago and got his first taste of rollerski loop action, and has since been working hard at the Range. And here he was ready to do his first rollerski race: that’s a lot of strides in just about two months! In their first big NENSA rollerski races were also U16 athletes Kate and Jonah. Kate was really focused on the volume this week, including some of her first non-training-camp true double session days, and Jonah spent the week at Craftsbury training in their running camp. Big props for navigating the training and racing in a busy summer.
Anders, Aaron, Nico, Kate, and Farmer ready to start!
With the presence of pro skiers and collegiate summer athletes, along with a multi-lap/multi-loop race there was a lot of overlap between experience levels. Several of the MNC skiers finished the race and reported what they learned from skiing with athletes at the highest level of the sport, including the Olympics. Geo started right as US Ski Team member Will Koch was lapping through the stadium and got to do a bit of hammering around with him.
Everyone raced hard, but a rollerski race early in July is a bit tricky to gauge. For one thing, I do like to say that “if you’re fast, you’re fast” meaning top skiers like Ben Ogden are likely to win this race no matter what…but even those top skiers winning are not likely in their peak form, just as we aren’t aiming to be either. I’m pretty proud of the work our team (especially the U18 boys) have put into learning more about training vs overtraining this year, including asking the right questions about what training makes sense when they have options to put in work outside of regularly scheduled training. The result was a week where some mega hours were trained in a responsible and balanced way… this was a volume week and we didn’t particularly compromise the big-picture training plan just for an offseason rollerski race. I imagine no other teams did either.
While “if you’re fast, you’re fast” applies, my other logic that I often repeat at the Thanksgiving Camp timetrial comes into play with this race. My takeaway is that if the race goes well, that’s a really good thing. But if the race goes poorly, it’s also not a bad thing either. The best takeaway from this race can be personal reflections on positives and negatives, and resetting of some short- and long-term goals to make the most of the next race. I also encouraged skiers to look at their times from last year on the same course, in the same conditions, and in most cases the same skis. There were some who improved by minutes!
Total focus from Nico who had a great race!
While some have been balancing training amounts and teetering the line of overdoing it this summer, others this week were dealing with big-picture questions in another way, reckoning with feeling less than 100% and the decision to race or sit things out. It’s not an easy situation and as a coach I have to work really hard to put myself in the eager athlete’s shoes to try and work through not only the objective logic (“you’re sick, obviously you shouldn’t race”) but the stress about goals not being met, fun being had without you, and a sense of dread that things will never get better. The good news? It usually does get better 🙂
Fun team, fun day!
Whenever we do a long day trip we can never just do a ski and be done…there’s always room for more activities, and if we’re anywhere near Stowe there’s always time for Piecasso and the traditional “two-slice-and-fountain-drink” lunch special. With summer in full swing we rolled up to a nice picnic lunch at the pizza place followed by a jump in one of Stowe’s swimming holes. It doesn’t get much more Vermont than that.
pizza!
swim!
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