I’ve been a skier for about 8 years, and 6 of those have involved Mansfield Nordic Club in some capacity. My first year with MNC was the winter of my junior year in high school. I attended two practices a week and a handful of races that winter. I tried my best to hide in the background of a social and always too-fast group of high school skiers. Despite the constant feeling of being in over my head, I learned some fundamental skiing lessons in my first winter on MNC: change into a dry shirt after the workout, bring a snack to eat on the way home, don’t apply kick wax in huge clumps. I slowly made my first (and eventually closest) ski friends.
The summer of my senior year, I attended Mountain Camp, a weeklong training camp with other juniors in the club. Here, I realized what a special place MNC was. A new friend pierced my ears, I practiced my rollerski jumps, and I trained more than I knew was possible. My teammates were hardworking and dedicated, but also so weird and funny. I started to fall in love with skiing and the type of people that it brings together.
At Mountain Camp I also got to know a very special coach, Adam Terko. I learned that no matter how hardworking and weird we were, Terko had us beat by miles. He explained carefully constructed, individualized training plans at our team meetings, and picked apart clip after clip of skiing video to critique our form. I learned about this whole world of skiing that wasn’t just going to do workouts, it was eating and resting and planning and watching technique videos. I didn’t know someone could care about a group of little high schoolers so much, but Terko really did.
In April of this year, I started a new training log with APU. We use these sheets to track every single workout: the type of workout, the time, the intensity, our energy. My log is like a journal. I document my workouts, but I also track my emotional state day-by-day using this log. I mark whether workouts feel good or bad, I note things I’m proud of or nervous about, and I voice my anxieties and excitements every day. My log is deeply personal, and it is usually shared only with my current coach so they can track my training progress. Terko hasn’t technically been my coach in 5 years, but he will always have access to my training log. He was the first person to add comments to my log, and I still value his input more than anyone else’s.
This blog post was supposed to be about my love for MNC, which is a special club as a whole, but it is really Terko that I owe so much to. Terko is the first person to remind me how far I’ve come, and he’s the first one to encourage me to keep shooting for higher goals. He is truly the reason I started skiing and the reason I keep doing it. If you ever have the opportunity to work with Terko, please remind him of how awesome he is. I’m so grateful to have been taught so early that skiing is such a rewarding sport, thank you Terko and MNC for the community you have created.
