Starting a community day of dryland training off contemplating whether the roads would melt off was an unexpected turn.
Friday night in Vermont, Stratton Mountain picked up its first significant snow of the winter. Up North, skiing was already happening. And in the SMS Nordic office, us coaches were stubbornly hoping that things would warm up so we could rollerski. What a topsy-turvey, blessed early winter for the East.
As it would happen, we could rollerski around the SMS campus. Which set the stage to revive an old idea for a new fresh try. A NENSA community training day. Bring a wider swath of the junior skiing community into the resources at SMS for the day, with some focused training, education on training, and a peer-to-peer good session of good fun.
Towards that mission, the day was a success. The SMS team helped familiarize their peers with the training grounds they were utilizing. The day was full with training. First, a threshold rollerski workout complete with an opportunity to lactate test and hone in what L3 actually is for each individual skier. Then, an activity led by Alex Jospe outlining how to fit training into the busy life of a junior skier, with school, work, family, and snow! Then, a strength workout in the SMS gym. And finally…if there was energy left, a set of max speeds combined with agility.
It was packed. It was also a really strong proof of concept that with intentionality, skiers can gain resources for their whole year of ski preparation in a structured, high-quality training day tapping on the community resources that are already here.
The numbers for this final training day of the year were small, but very significant. As with any development programming, we have to develop it. At the end of the day, after all the juniors from New Hampshire and Vermont had traversed the hills to snow of their own, the SMS Coaches and NENSA had a good debrief. If we did this in the summer and brought in T2 – like a Camp in a day, how many skiers could we get together?
With that provocative question, and a little calendaring already happening, we’ll hopefully find out when the snow melts again…7 or 8 months from now (if our luck keeps going!)
