Two Methow Valley Nordic Team Skiers Attend National Elite Group Camp

Novie McCabe, Greta Laesch and Eva Weymuller on a classic rollerski workout earlier this fall.

Methow Valley Nordic Team athletes Novie McCabe and Ella Kuzyk have been training in Park City, UT with the US Ski Team National Elite Group Camp. We caught up with Novie via email to see how things have been going.

What’s been the coolest part so far?
My favorite part so far was our L3 skate interval workout. We started off skiing with the US ski team and then ended up in our own group of junior girls. We decided to switch leads every minute or so and it ended up working super well. It was so fun to have the chance to lead and also to follow some super speedy girls! I also loved having the chance to talk to some of the US Ski Team athletes and learn about their training experiences.

Where are you staying?
We are staying at the Canyons Resort condos, about a 10 minute drive from the Center of Excellence where we do our strength workouts and eat dinner every night. Doing strength and eating at the Center of Excellence has been such a cool experience, most of the time we are sharing the gym with US ski team athletes.

Who are you training with?
We are training with a group of National Training Group/ Nation Elite Group juniors. We have also been doing most of our workouts with the US ski team and other club athletes from around the US. One of the super cool things about this camp is that it gives juniors the opportunity to train with some club athletes and US Ski Team athletes.

Any ‘A-ha’ moments or things that have ‘clicked’ during the camp?
One thing that I have learned at this camp is that it’s super important to focus on the workout at hand and not get carried away while on an easy ski. Especially at this time of year, its super important to stay in L1 on easy skis so that you can push really hard during the intense interval workouts.

What’s the best advice or feedback you’ve received at the camp?
Some of the goals that I set at the beginning of the camp were to get in some super solid L3 work and improve my classic striding technique. So far I have had some really great opportunities to work on both of those things. We have been analyzing our technique through videos almost every workout and its super helpful to have so many coaches here to give great tips!

Any good stories outside of training?
When we’re not training we have been hammering out some school work at our condos, eating lots of really good food and resting as much as possible. We have been getting some pretty chilly weather which has added a bit of excitement to some workouts, a few nights ago we got about two inches of snow in Park City which made for some chilly roller-skiing but we were all super excited to have the snow and a bit bummed that we didn’t bring some skis out with us!

MVNT National Elite Group athlete Ella Kuzyk takes flight during rollerski agility training this summer.