We’re in our third week back in the Mad River Valley since our last blog post from Italy. Days at GMVS are incredibly busy but that means the time flies by as we count down toward winter. In just four weeks we’ll be packing our bags to hit the road again, this time heading west to Sun Valley, ID and West Yellowstone, MT for our early-snow camp that includes our first races of the 2017-18 racing season.

Here are few photos in summary of the last three weeks on campus:

We’ve gotten in a lot of roller skiing, cruising scenic roads that are both paved and not. Here’s part of the team classic skiing on dirt toward the end of a point-to-point distance ski.

Nick leading the team during a uphill skate ski that wound through the Mad River Valley, hitting the bigger climbs one after the next.

We’ve been getting into the gym for two strength workouts a week but also targeting ski muscles through specific strength w0rkouts on rollerskis. Here’s Emily pushing through a double-pole speed while Greg says hi on his way back down the hill.

Most of the team got to jump into a classic rollerski race on the loop in Jericho, competing against skiers from other clubs and several college programs. Here’s Matt climbing one of the bigger hills on the 10k course.

Rena, Grace, Emily, and Matt are running xc this fall and have done two races since we returned from Italy. Here’s Rena widening her lead on the flat course at People’s Academy. All four of our Gumbies finished in the top ten at People’s. They also ran a larger race hosted by Montpelier and will run there again later this month.

As we get closer to snow flying we start in to increase the speed and intensity work. This month we’ve done intervals and speeds both on foot and on rollerskis. Here’s part of the team doing some L3 running intervals around a snowmaking pond in Warren.

Aside from training our nordic athletes are all full-steam ahead in academics, but also working hard on college applications, theater rehearsals, PSAT/SAT studying/test taking, visiting college campuses, and playing soccer with the GMVS soccer teams. It’s always amazing how much we manage to fit in during a single day on campus!

Stay tuned to our Facebook (GMVS Nordic Ski Team) and Instagram (GMVSxc) posts for daily (or almost daily) updates and photos. There’s a lot more excitement still to come before we head west for our first snow camp!

Thanks for reading!