In a week with less overall training, I like to take some practice time with the Juniors and devote it to some other activities. We’ve written down and shared goals, discussed past timetrials and races, and re-arranged gear and supplies at the Range.
This week, we fit in more unique events during our typical practice times!
On Tuesday coach Sara and I came up with some questions to help drive a “Junior Team Mission” for the season. We asked questions like:
-Why do you ski with MNC?
-What kind of relationships do you want to see within this group?
-What can MNC do for you? OR, what does MNC do well that you like?
Athletes used some notecards to write down their responses, and one of the first things I did was create a word cloud. Now, this is not a statistically-significant method of analysis, but for a group setting with so many different faces I think it is a great visual tool. There are a few odd words included, of course (the word “England” shows up as a result of “New England”, and the word “High” is awkwardly large due to the phrase “High School”), but here is the cloud that the responses produced!
MNC word cloud. The bigger the word, the more prevalent it was in the responses
I won’t get philosophical (yet) on an interpretation, and will instead let the reader take time to look and review what some of these words are. As a team we will also do the same…what do the sizes of respective words show about our group? Good or bad? How can we reach new levels and what should we retain as it is?
On Thursday, we did a fun activity that was a little less intellectually-stimulating…it was inaugural Toko day, when our new Toko waterbelts were distributed! Of course, that meant a group photo shoot to show off the new gear:
The Toko “Blue Steel” look (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09nTwccQTUA)
The Toko Pyramid
Thanks Toko!
We were also up to more of our usual business…rollerskiing, lifting weights and running around in the mountains. Here are some more assorted pictures and videos from our week!
Aidan testing out the triple-medball pushups at Dee PT (with Eliza providing support)…yes, that last medball is really a basketball…we’re so strong we’ve broken all the other ones!
Greg and Will battling it out…one on rollerskis and one on real skis!
Some nice smooth skiing footage…going for butter-smooth style!
Frigid and windy atop Mt Mansfield for #NENSAPeakWeekend
More hiking action at Butler Lodge! The MNC flag has covered a lot of ground this week!
Jim Fredericks gave us some stretchy bands that we use for rollerski towing, but today Greg, Aidan and I killed some time in the parking lot after the hike by hitching one up to some trees and making a slingshot…with frequently painful results! The MNC Youtube Channel has lots of interesting content from this crew!
Congrats to all the runners (both middle school and high school) who raced so well in the State Championships this past weekend! Results can be found here:
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