Resting on the MNC van bumper and digging into a box of Dunkin Donuts munchkins after a 3.5 hour mountain bike ride on Sunday, I had a realization that I voiced out loud to Rose and Julia.
I realized I’d been at MNC for 5 dryland seasons now. And this past week, those two kids put in the strongest, most comprehensive, and most diligent week of dryland training in those five years. That’s not to take anything away from Hanna, who was actually still out on the pumptrack practicing her wheelies, jumps, and berm-shredding. Or from the many athletes who had also taken part in the various sessions we’d completed over the course of the past week. But what Julia and Rose accomplished says something about just what’s possible with club skiing, in ways that certainly were not around when I was the age of these kids.
A few notes:
So many of our Junior athletes take full course loads and participate in school activities in addition to skiing.
Many of our Junior athletes have jobs, often year-round.
Our training is in different locations around the area…you can’t just walk out the door to practice. You have to get there!
These italicized notes all have something in common: they’re all reasons you could see a high school athlete skip this sport and it’s demands entirely. Despite all of those hurdles, our club is hitting the pavement and trails on some days with as many as 25 athletes out exerting themselves and working hard. I probably have far too little recognition of the different opportunities that our skiers are involved in…my job is to think about skiing all day, but when it comes to the all-important training session itself, many of the skiers have just spent their day surrounded by a billion other things. That can make it hard to shift gears and focus on an endurance sport, which means an extra level of desire.
So to all the skiers out there balancing a tough schedule, know that just making the commitment to train deserves huge respect. I use this recent week as an example of how many different training adventures are out there. The goal is for even just one session to have an impact. And if you stack it all together, you get the week that Rose and Julia just embarked on. Something tells me these two aren’t the only MNC skiers who will put in some great weeks of training in the coming season and the years ahead…
Here is the story of the week:
Monday AM:
Off
Monday PM:
Off
Hey, that week started off easy enough! In the case of MNC, Mondays are always the off day. No matter what, you need to rest whether it’s the most grueling week of training or a very easy week.
Tuesday AM:
Classic session at Bolton Valley
Warmup drills in parking lot, grass-skiing (on real skis), followed by ski up last 2 miles of Access Rd and a short run on trails
Tuesday PM:
Classic Session at Mud Pond
Classic skiing at Mud Pond in Williston. Mostly double pole. On days, with two ski workouts we often do a technique-focused session in the morning (which works well in a small group) to spend time on aspects we want to accomplish in the afternoon. That way in the 2nd session more time can be spent applying what was learned in the morning rather than just overloading the mind and body.
Wednesday AM:
Long run in Waterbury/Stowe
A long easy run (about 1.5 hours) from the Hunger Mountain trailhead, down the dirt road and up a few little side trails, before an out-and-back on dirt roads into Stowe and back. Beginning with some running mobility and mechanics but otherwise just an easy jaunt.
Mid-run stop to pick some roadside apples in Stowe
Wednesday PM:
Strength at Hammerfit
We’ve been doing a LOT of strength work. Too much to go over here, but suffice to say our hips, core, and backs have never been more ready to tackle the season. Just like last year, we’ve also increased our focus on traditional lifts too and have seen lots of great results from this!
Thursday AM:
Skate ski at Cochran Rd
A short morning ski with a focus on some speeds: isolating the shoulders and the knees to work on good energy efficiency. Lots of back-and-forth speeds with video and a bit of intensity to warm-up for the same goals in the afternoon.
Thursday PM:
Skate ski and trail run at Mud Pond
A short skate ski (35-40 min) with speeds, joined by the SMC team. Then, a switch to running shoes for a scavenger hunt on the trails of Mud Pond. All in all a unique session that kept it interesting.
When MNC and SMC join forces…it’s a lot of skiers!
Friday AM:
Off!
Friday PM:
Classic Activation + Run at Greystone
Similar to the concept of doing a double session with the same technique twice. This year we’ve done a lot of “activation” workouts. This is a workout done the day before an interval set, with the goal of honing in on the key aspects of the upcoming intervals. We’ll isolate the technique and the terrain and get some short but fast repeats in, and then the following day there’s more emphasis on just getting into the heart of the workout since you’ve already done a bit of pre-loading of the muscle-memory. In this case, Saturday was slated to be some tough uphill striding intervals. Since we hadn’t classic skied since Tuesday, on Friday we skied out to Greystone and did 4×30 seconds up the hill which was a very similar grade to the next day’s workout. At the top, we did some interesting repeats on the same gradual stretch of pavement: 30 seconds hard striding (even though it was flat), 30 seconds kick double-pole, and 30 seconds double pole. Not only was it great prep for the following day, this group looked ON FIRE so of course the footage was compiled into an edit!
Saturday AM:
Road 101 Classic Intervals!
One of our favorite workouts in one of our favorite places. Add in some fall foliage and bright sun and you have one for the books! Usually we do L3 intervals from the bottom (Martell’s Red Fox Inn) to the very top. This time, with the race season looming and some more L4 on the plan, we changed it up. We warmed up for longer than usual (about 35 minutes, with some speeds) and then did:
-One interval at L3 from the very bottom (Edwards Rd) to the top, about 15 min
-One interval in L4 from the start of Road 101 to the top, about 10 min
-One interval at max effort, just below the start of the steep section to the top, about 5 min
The group kicked butt and you couldn’t ask for much more! We have both video footage and some very scenic photos from the day…be sure to check out more photos on the MNC Flickr page where I’ve been trying to add some of our images for consumption.
Hard to top this..!
Nothing says “Winter” like seeing the MNC suit in action on a chilly morning…
Sunday AM:
Kingdom Trails Mountain Bike
How do you top an epic rollerski in the mountains? An epic mountain bike ride in the mountains, of course! Fueled by a couple of lattes and donuts from a Montpelier pitstop, Hanna, Rose, Julia and I spent over 3 hours rolling through the Kingdom Trails. It was a brisk 36 degrees when we started out, but soon enough the jackets came off and we made our way through 20 miles of singletrack with all sorts of fun. Given that this was the final session of a 16-hour week, it goes without saying that doing 3 hours of rollerskiing or running would NOT have made the cut. This was a different experience, however! It wasn’t until the last hour that the real fatigue set in and we ALL went home extremely tired but extremely psyched.
The Grand Total:
16 hours of training
45 minutes of L3
15 minutes of L4
3 days with double sessions (1.5hrs each, 3 hrs per day)
One 3+ hour workout on Sunday
Two strength training sessions
This is a professional week of training. You could open any training log from a US Ski Team member and see something very similar. And as previously stated: what’s important is that this kind of week doesn’t happen without an immense amount of motivation. Training sessions don’t happen in your backyard or on the school fields right after classes end. It takes a commitment to first GET to practice, and then work hard each day. Not every day is “hard”, so to speak, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t require hard work on the part of the athlete. I have a huge amount of respect for everyone that can make it to our sessions, whether it’s one time per week or ten.
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