Club Blogs

 Today a bunch of our skiers jumped in the  West River Trail Run, an 11 mile race from South Londonderry to Jamaica. About 2/3'rds of the trail is on the old railroad bed (flat and soft) while 3 miles is on a more challenging single track. This is the 7th annual race and it was exciting to see 190 racers at the event. Sierra (head cheerer) They're off 5 km mark Zander gets a feed Gavin, Will and Anna Chip Crossing BMD at 8 miles Down […]

 We view the spring as a time to prep the body for good summer training. We work on general strength, running technique and base endurance training. We try to get in 2-3 bike rides/week because biking tends to be an easy way to build a base without too much pounding. Towards the end of our spring quarter, we do a 100 mile bike ride. Today was the day and after the cold rainy spring, we were lucky to have a sunny day with temps in the 60's.  We split into 2 groups, […]

Jessie and Sadie in their semi final in Quebec.  March is Championship month for our juniors. Everyone either raced at Junior Nationals, the Eastern High School Championships or the Craftsbury 30 km (our U14's). We had great results in all of these events and then gathered back together just in time to head to Quebec City for the World Cup finals. Sophie in her semi final. We had 9 SMST2 skiers qualify to race in the world cup finals so it was like a homecoming for […]

Wow. What a weekend to be an SMS supporter! We had some great results everywhere we had skiers racing!   Asa charges the hill. In the World Cup races in Cogne, Italy, most of our skiers chose to race just once because of the upcoming World Championship races. The team crushed the sprint with Jessie winning!, Julia in 11th, Sophie 17th, Kelsey 33rd, Simi 4thand Andy 20th. Kyle came off of his sick bed and placed 26thin the 15 km while Julia placed 39thin the 10 […]

Last weekend was an exciting one for our club. Our goal is International Excellence and Local Inspiration and we came through in style. On the World Cup, Jessie was our only racer, but she came through with flying colors with a 4thin the 10 km skate and an anchor leg in the relay that moved the USA team up to 5thplace. In Finland at the U23 and Junior World Championships, Julia placed  26th, 12thand 16th, Alayna placed 27thand 23rd in the two distance races and […]

 We've had a fun and busy week without any updates..here is a quick one while we await the banquet at Senior Nationals. Things started off with a bang with Sophie and Jessie landing on a World Cup podium at the same time!!!!  We then brought seven juniors and a bunch of our SMST2 team to Craftsbury for senior nationals. No pictures except for a couple from today because we started with 2 classic races in tricky waxing conditions :). The races at nationals are used […]

 This morning we had some excellent skiing on our Sun Bowl trails. The 1" of fresh snow on top of a great base made Matt's grooming job turn out perfect skiing.  We started with a warm up and then 15-25 minutes of L3 skiing and then moved to a sprint prelim and 2 heats.  Since our trails are not very wide, we kept the heats to 2-3 people each, but had good competition based on the prelim times.  After our productive fall camps (in British Columbia or Norway), […]

 This morning was our last day of fall camp in Norway so we drove up to Nordseter and took a 2-3 hour tour (there were a couple of variations) and ended back at our cabins. On the map above, we started at the town in the upper left, skied to the top of the map, then down to the pin, then over to the right hand side and down near the bottom before finishing in the bottom center. Sometimes pictures tell more than words...enjoy 🙂

 After the skate race yesterday, we decided to drive up the hill 10 minutes and do a classic over distance ski. After last weeks heavy snow and then the 6-8" of fresh powder over the past two nights, conditions are excellent and the trees are coated.  We skied a big loop that took us 2.5 hours at a leisurely pace :).  There are maps at every intersection with pins to show your location. This is a lucky thing because there are approximately 2,000 (yup thousand) […]

Wyatt at the start.  When we heard that there was a race 800 meters down the road from our cabins, we decided to jump in. Our friend Trond sent in the names and we waited to see the start list that was due to come out last night at 5. Sure enough, at 5 pm, the start list was up. The local race that we had entered had over 850 competitors, all the way from 8 year old kids to senior racers! The races started at 11 this morning and everyone went out sorted by age groups […]

 The last several days in Sjusjoen have been wonderful. We got some fresh snow and the tracks in the picture above are 30 seconds from our cabins :).  This morning we knew it would be a good day when the sun rose over the distant mountains. Oops..this is out of order...dinner the other night from master cooks Clarissa, Sophia, Anna and Nina. We have two cabins and we take turns making dinner for each other :).  We started relatively early because we wanted to […]

      Great sprint TT with the crew from Thunder Bay   Why is this picture significant? It means despite the snow storm our plane is heading to Montreal to pick us up only 20minutes late.  I have LOTS of travel issues with the team.  So it was nice when this trip went smoothly.  It also helps that Montreal is one of the most reliable winter airports in the world! We actaully brought the factory bolt on roof rack with us, 6 bags up top no problem! When […]

 If you look closely, you might recognize some of these fore-runners :).  We were offered the chance to help fore-run and we jumped at it! Everyone found out that these Lillehammer courses are a lot tougher than they look like on TV. The team was able to ski before the women's sandmen's races and then hang out for awhile and try to get pictures with Klæbo and Johaug :).  Sadie gets cheered by head coach Chris Grover.  Looks as if the bibs were just big […]

 For fall camp this year we decided to split up. Matt went to Silver Star with the older boys while George and Sverre ventured to Norway with the girls and younger boys. We arrived in Sjusjoen yesterday and settled into our cabins before taking an afternoon ski and then crashing for a nice 12 hour sleep. This morning we drove down the road to Lillehammer for the world cup sprint races. Our friend Trond Flagstaff has set it up so we can fore-run on Sunday and he gave […]

 It has been a treat to have good skiing here for the past two days. Forecast is calling for 5-7" tonight and cold temps for the next 10 days so it looks as if it will stay for awhile :). Our U14 boys work the hill.  Conor, Zander and Will.  Nina, Sophia, Charlotte and Sage.  Charlotte and Sophia were using old jib skis...they are fun for jumps etc, but were a bit draggy.  Nina looking good.  Sage and Clarissa working on getting their weight further […]

Ben O  Yesterday NENSA hosted their final roller ski race of the season in Stowe. The race started down in the Moscow valley and wound it's way to the finish at the Trapp Family Lodge. November is an iffy time for weather and if you like cold, wet and windy, it didn't disappoint! Temps were in the upper 30's, the wind was howling and a rain/snow mix was falling from above. Charlotte  The race was an invitational so the field size was around 60, a small, but fast […]

 Every year Thetford Academy hosts the Vt. State Meet for cross country running. They have a challenging 5 km course and they host a great meet. Schools are split into 3 divisions based on size and races are run every half hour. We run in the big school division and the northern Vt schools have some good runners so competition is tough. This year the race day conflicted with the NE mountain bike championships so we only entered two runners, Anna and Gavin. They both […]

Gavin and Wyatt cruise around the soccer field.  Fall has come early and cool this month. Training has been going well and everyone is looking forward to the winter! Clarissa Zander, Conor, Will and Mathias during the afternoon ski. Wyatt, Sage, Sophia and Fin Anna and Charlotte Rolling, rolling, rolling...

 This was a bigger week of training for the team and we finished with our uphill run test and a distance skate yesterday, then a 3-3:30 combi OD followed by lunch and  a strength workout today.  In our uphill run test yesterday it was interesting to see 6 PR's, 4 close to PR's and 4 a bit off of PR's. Everyone worked hard and that is the goal. We will look at the training flow and see how people are dealing with the harder period that we are now finishing. The […]

 Fall training continues to go well with a mix of running, hiking, roller skiing, strength and a spattering of running races and mountain bike races.  It is always fun to coordinate some workouts with our SMST2 team, especially when we go to Ball Mountain Dam and the road is closed to cars so we have a private 5 km loop!  Patrick O'B is the master of video :). Nina Anna  Yesterday, Misha Golfman treated us to a rock climbing afternoon. He set up […]

 Yesterday was another busy day for our SMS "nordics". Most of the team went down to Manchester for the BBA running race, while three others did some roller ski intervals and talked physics.  First..the physics question. We all know that not all roller skis are the same speed. On our team we even try to have the slower skiers use faster wheels so they can train in the correct zone(s) while skiing with their team-mates. As we went out for our ski yesterday, we […]

 After the heavy rain yesterday, it sure was nice to have sunny day! Most of our team went to Woodstock for a mountain bike race, but five athletes remained here for a distance skate with specific strength.  Enjoy the pictures..the leaves are changing :).

 We traveled to Brattleboro today for their running race. It was wet (duh).....  ...and FUN!  Since it was pouring, they decided to race boys and girls together. This way everyone could change and get on their way home vs waiting around while they were cold and wet.  It was nice to see the large majority of coaches and athletes embracing the conditions and having fun in the mud.  Our team all ran well with Conor taking the win, Gavin in 4th, Mathias 6th, […]

Anna and Wyatt  This is a recovery week for us, but yesterday everyone either went to a mountain bike race or did some bounding intervals. Here are some pictures from our bounding workout on our school trails. Clarissa Anna Wyatt Sage Anna and Nina Sage Nina  This morning, PG Sophia L got to hop in some intervals with our SMST2 team at Ball Mountain Dam. Enjoy the pictures!

 We finished off our big week of training with three excellent days. On Friday morning we ran our 2 mile uphill test and had a bunch of PR's. That afternoon we worked on classic technique and did strength. Saturday was Peru Fair day so we did our Dorset-Little Rock Pond combi OD (skate/run/hike) and then went to the Fair. Saturday we were treated to a great raft trip by Kroka Expeditions! This is the weekend they release water from Ball Mountain Dam so we rafted from […]