On January 19th MNC athletes have the option to travel to Gore Mountain in New York to compete in a Mid-Atlantic JNQ race. While this race does not count toward our own New England JN qualification, it’s a great opportunity to race in a new place and experience some different competition. For MNC racers not competing in high school races this is a perfect race to get tuned-up for the following week’s Eastern Cup in Lake Placid.
MNC has a house rented in Chestertown, NY the night of Friday, Jan 18th. Our plan is to depart from VT on Friday afternoon and make the roughly 2-hour drive to Chestertown. We’ll prepare skis and cook dinner that night, and compete in the 5km classic race Saturday morning.
Event details, registration, and schedule can be found HERE
Link to register for MNC race trip (travel, lodging, meals, wax support) can be found HERE
Our beautiful rented home in Chestertown, NY. Let’s hope it looks a little snowier when we arrive 🙂
Well, despite the beautiful fluffy snow falling outside right now, there was significantly less to work with last week. Luckily, Craftsbury came through yet again with a great 1.1k snowmaking loop that basically had it all…steep climb, moderate climb, twisting curves, and flat straightaways. We headed up there on Saturday and had our first ski on real tracks with good snow: and of course klister!
It was a small group but we had a really productive first ski, getting in some drills and laps of both no-pole and one-pole skiing. Everyone initially agreed the wax wasn’t perfect for kicking…but I held my ground and said that we needed to practice being okay with imperfect kick and striving to make the best of it as a way to learn and gain confidence. Aidan probably had it the worst as I threw him on a hardwax cover to make things as fast as I could…I think it was a good experience though!
Season off to a good start!
Pastry goodies from Sweet Simone’s on the car ride home! Photo by Aidan
With the snow on the ground and the season about to get underway for real, it’s time to announce our final schedule and signups for Race Trips and Camps! This year we’re going to have 2 mid-winter travel events with group options: a Race Trip to the first Eastern Cup in Fort Kent (December 15-17), and a Team Camp in Lake Placid (Jan 5-7).
Registration is open for these camps at 7:00pm tonight (Monday, 11/20). More information and registration for each can be found at their respective Events pages on the website calendar:
Finally…if you did not check out some of the opening FIS races this past weekend, they can all be seen in their entirety on Youtube. Both Gallivare and Beitostolen races are up. For those interested in distance racing all of the longer races are absolutely worth a watch, but for a quick fix of intense action be sure to watch both the women’s and men’s classic sprint finals from Beito. Big attacks in both races making for some good motivation 🙂
