Mansfield Nordic Club wrapped up the final weekend of Eastern Cup races over in New Hampshire this past weekend. We started with a day of cold skate races at Oak Hill in Hanover, NH. The “Silver Fox Trot” race courses are really well-liked by the skiers and many of our athletes had not raced there before. On Sunday the crew traveled to Plymouth NH for sunny — albeit cold — classic races at Holderness School. Their trails are also really fun — sort of like the Bogburn with a narrower trail and more of a classic feel.
Again, huge thanks to all the parents for making these events fun with the massive “tailgate” with soup, chili, homemade baked goods, hot coffee and drinks, the fire pit, and the team dinners. While we aren’t the biggest team, I think we took the crown for best tailgate this season.
Saturday started with the U16 boys and MNC (including our “honorary” member Conor Munns) kicked some butt. Greg Burt led the way in 5th place and just 27 seconds behind the winner. Shortly behind Greg was Will Solow in 11th and Kai Richter in 12th. In terms of placing and time behind the winner, these results were the best of the season for all. Also taking part in just his 2nd-ever Eastern Cup race was Gaelen Kilburn. Gaelen has been a great runner/cyclist and has only been skiing for ~2 seasons with MNC Bill Koch and Juniors. It is really fun to see a new athlete getting exposure to skiing at this level since it can be quite intimidating. Great job Gaelen!
Amy Bruce came over to NH to tough out the cold in the women’s field. A slight miscalculation on her warmup made her arrive at the start with nary a second to spare, but in the sprint to the start she managed to grab 1 warmup ski and 1 race ski! Nevertheless, Amy skied a solid race to finish 71st in a field of over 110 including many college atheltes that she’ll be racing against next season (as a member of the Colby team). Amy has her sights set on State Champs in the next 2 weeks so best of luck to her.
In the men’s field we had Ethan John joining the Harmeyer bros. Ethan also had a strong race — maybe not quite his best of the year — but he, too, is looking ahead to top results next week at State Champs and also he is a part of a strong EHS boys team that could surprise the favorites if they all ski to their potential.
Henry Harmeyer returned to racing even though he’d only been home from Sweden for about 3 days. He and Bill both skied well — perhaps their best skate races of the year — to finish 19th and 24th overall.
On Saturday evening we had a huge team dinner that was also a celebration of Valentine’s day and Greg Burt’s 15th birthday. Including some extended family members present, we had around 30 guests at dinner which was really fun.
Sunday started cold, and windy, but the sun came out and the day went really well. Marikia Massey-Bierman matched her best result of the season with a strong 7th place finish in the U16 girls race (and just 6 seconds out of top-5). She has always been a great classic skier!
The U16 boys again showed they are a force with all 3 in the top-16. The New England U16 boys contingent is always the best group in the country and this year the field has more depth than ever. I think our top 15 boys from New England could all be top-30 in the country on any given day — they’re that good.
In the women’s 10km, MNC alumna Annavitte Rand had an amazing race to finish 2nd overall! She is doing a great job at UNH and really making progress in her skiing. Amy Bruce and Rachel Slimovitch both skied well and finished within 20 seconds of one-another. That’ll be a great MMU/CVU battle at states!
The men’s race was won by 2-time Olympian Justin Freeman (older brother of 4x Olympian and > 30x National Champ Kris Freeman). While Justin is now ~38 years old, he still can classic ski with the best in the country. Really impressive.
Bill Harmeyer rounded out his EC season with the best distance classic race of his season. He was 3rd U18 and 16th overall. Henry was a bit tired but still skied strong. Also skiing strong were Charlie Maitland (CVU) and Ethan John (EHS) finishing just 25 seconds apart from one another. Another battle coming at State Champs. Ben Carnahan also made the trek over to NH just for the race on Sunday. He started behind me and was breathing fire down my neck for the first few kilometers, and he ended up strong in 67th place. I jumped in the race and remembered 2 things: just how fun skiing can be, and how friggin’ difficult it can be.
Results:
