Nordic skiing draws large crowds who love snow and community

This year’s Nordic ski team is off to a great start, coached by Engineering Department Head Nat Woodruff and led by captains River Wolaver, Zoey Candito, and Addie Mager. The large team, historically having up to 60 members, is composed of both middle and high schoolers and is a mixed-gender team, open to anyone who wants to ski. 

The team practices every day after school from 4-5:45 p.m., except for Fridays, when they wax their skis. On Saturdays, they either have a meet or train at a ski location or somewhere with snow, including on lakes. “Wherever we can ski, we get out,” said Woodruff.

Nordic skiing, also referred to as cross-country skiing, is commonly practiced in Scandinavian countries like Norway or Sweden, partly due to their geography, temperatures, and heavy snowfall. But many athletes in New England ski regularly, too. “I’ve been skiing since I was in middle school,” said Wolaver.  

Woodruff said this year’s girls’ team has many standout skiers, including captains Wolaver, Mager, and Candito, but he also mentioned Elizabeth Sawicki and Aria Haupt. As a result of their talents, “the girls got second in the state last year,” he said. 

Because of this, Wolaver noted that this year, “our major goal is to win States.” 

“We were only five points behind the Greylock team [last year], which is our major competitor,” she said. “We were so close to getting first.”

Wolaver said they are only going “to improve from here,” and will “continue the hard work we put in last year.” To achieve their goals, the team hopes to use every resource they have. “If there is any day of snow we will try to get on snow even though it [might] be a long trip,” she said. 

The captains play an important role on the team. Wolaver said they are almost like assistant coaches. “We help organize practices, and we help plan fundraisers to raise money for the team,” she said. They also organize team bonding events, such as pasta dinners and game nights. 

On top of that, they teach new skiers how to ski and ensure the safety of the team. “When we go out to run it’s usually dark out because the sun sets at like 4 p.m. now,” said Wolaver. “We ensure kids have reflective vests on and headlamps. Also, when we roller ski we make sure people have helmets on.

Many of the middle schoolers have never done Nordic skiing before joining the team. “We can start at the ground level and build them up,” said Woodruff.

There are a lot of different techniques for Nordic skiing. “Traditional skiing [is one], which is kind of your back and forth,” said Woodruff, but “skate skiing [is another], where you push side to side. We train our skiers to do both.” 

Their practices consist of workouts that are rated by difficulty, with each focused on different skills needed for skiing. “Level five is the maximum and one is the minimum level of effort you can put in,” said Wolaver. “Some days, [for example], we do level four workouts on roller skis to focus on our skiing form.”

If there is no snow, they do roller skiing to simulate snow skiing or conditioning and strength training to stimulate their muscles. “[We] train our bodies to do the right thing before we get on to snow,” said Woodruff. 

“Practice is a little wild, because we never know what the weather is gonna bring.”  

Not having enough snow is a problem especially “compared to our competitors,” said Wolaver. Other teams are either from the west, where they get a lot of snow, or the east, where they can make snow. “We are in the middle,” said Woodruff. “Trying to ski on snow as much as we can is a challenge”

However, the Nordic ski team is very determined. “ I think that the hard training here and there really paid off,” said Wolaver. “Even though we don’t have access to many of these resources we are able to get second place and do goods and needs.”

So they will continue to work hard no matter what the brings because it is a sport that “you have to love it,” said Woodruff. “It’s amazing to be able to be able to slip over the earth, and just glide.”   

It’s super hard, it’s a hard sport, but it’s just a very cool feeling to be out there flying through the woods.”