Plain Cross-Country Skiing practicing hard over the summer

Plain Cross-Country Skiing has been practicing over the summer and head coach Pierre Niess knows that the best way for athletes to find success is for them to become stronger, build their team spirit and work consistently rather than build up individual egos.

“We have some really heavy hitters in the group. We had five or six kids top ten at nationals last year. I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t still be up there,” Niess said.

Niess wants kids to become self-sufficient as a result of his coaching. Instead of focusing on building up the few superstars, he wants the whole team to thrive.

“I don’t want to single out names, per se,” he said. “They don’t need more one on one praise; they know what they have to do. My hope for the winter is to have a crew that’s really excited to go on the road and enjoy being with the team and doing the best they can.  And that’s a bigger goal for me than just taking care of the few that are already doing really well.”

Speaking with a calm demeanor, Niess asserts the need for athletes to have power and become physically stronger.  Cross-Country skiing isn’t just about being the skinniest anymore, he said, you need to have a good power to weight ratio, balance, and agility. At the Olympic level, skiing events range from a 1km race, which takes pros a few minutes, to a 50km race, which takes pros a few hours, so skiers really need to be “a complete athlete,” he said.

Caroline and Isabelle “Izzy” Menna are sisters and avid skiers who are training hard over the summer and looking forward to the upcoming season.  Izzy is 16 and Caroline is 14 and the two of them have been training every day.

“A lot of older kids were joining Plain Cross-Country team,” Izzy said. “So, we just decided that was a good way to be with kids our age and have a lot of fun.

Plain offers a competitive team for older kids and helps kids of all ages reach different goals, Caroline said.  Caroline was invited to the national junior ski camp this summer, an elite skiing camp.

“It was a really great experience to work with different coaches,” she said. “One of the U.S. Ski Team Development coaches was there. It was really fun to work with her and all of the coaches. We just did a variety of workouts and activities. “

Last cross-country skiing season Caroline competed at junior nationals. It was her first time at the event because it is for those fourteen and older. She competed in the U16 division. Izzy also competed in junior national’s last season, and it was her first time competing there.

The sisters said for summer training they do a lot of roller skiing. Roller skiing is a form of cross training where one skates on mini-ski rollerblades on a paved surface. It is the off-snow equivalent of Nordic skiing.  Other aerobic training they do includes hiking, biking and running. For strength work, they go to the gym two times a week as well as doing strength with the team.  They said they work out a couple hours every day. As they get closer to the season, they do less relaxed cardio and more intervals and sprints.

The Menna sisters as well as the entire teams training is designed by a well-qualified coach.  Niess said he was a graduate assistant at University of New Mexico working with the ski team. At the time, the college ski team was “very good” placing third at nationals, but the team has since been shut down due to budget cuts, he said.

Niess finished his masters and was told about the ski team position in Plain and became a Plain ski coach from there. He said that the team has developed so much since he has been coaching and it has been a very dynamic position.

But Niess prefers to talk about his team, instead of focusing on himself. Summer practices are optional and there are two different time options for practice.  Despite difference and age ranges from elementary schoolers to eighteen-year-olds, the team tries to practice all together as much as possible, he said.

“We have eleven-year-olds that are very intense that are training with eighteen-year-old. We have eighteen-year-olds that are recreational. We have kind of everyone training together and we try to make practices work for all of them. We give them enough of a menu to choose something they are interested in,” Niess said.

You can find a lot of activities where people of different levels can feed off of each other, like playing games, Niess said. He said there is a lot of value for an eight-year-old to see someone who is very skilled training.  For the more experienced teammates, it is good for their training to teach others their skills.

Dedicated athletes, both Menna sisters have high goals this year.

Izzy said her goal for this ski season is to get to junior nationals and to be in the top half of her age group in the national races.  She thinks that all the work and training she is doing now will help both her cross country skiing and her cross-country skiing season. Both girls do cross country running competitively in addition to their skiing.

Caroline said her goal for the ski season is to be top ten at junior nationals and be named All-American again in skiing. She would also like to start traveling to big races to gain more racing experience. She thinks her ski training and strength training will help with her cross country running as well.