***********************************************

Overview of the Club

by Jenia Badamshina (Junior Skier and Racer in GNA)

    Gunstock Nordic Association is located at Gunstock ski area, Gilford NH. GNA is offering an intensive year round training program for X-C skiers and ski jumpers.
The main goal of GNA is to help members achieve their personal dreams as Olympians, the best skiers in their high schools or to just stay involved in Nordic skiing.

 
You might find the training too intensive for you at the beginning, but as the time progresses, you will notice improvements in your abilities.

 Feel free to ask the coaches to lower the intensity of practices at the beginning if you don't feel comfortable with it.
    There's no start and no end of the official training. We train year round. The actual ski season starts in beginning to mid November.

 That's when we start scraping the summer wax off our skis and thinking about snow. (Summer wax prevents the skis from being scratched or drying out when they're not being used).

The coaches make sure that everyone has their rock skis and then they start looking for real or artificial snow in New Hampshire or even in Vermont.

Sometimes we can't do find anything and so we have to wait a little longer until it becomes available to us. We update our website twice or more a week,

where we post the practice schedules and events. We also send e-mails to our elite skiers and those who are regularly in attendance at practices.

We usually also send the schedule to a group that is just around for the fun of it as well. Usually it is a long ride to the first snow of the season

so we encourage you or your child to bring lunch, snacks and about $10 for the pass at the ski area. We have two sessions on days like that, s

o we can get more skiing in since the snow is scarce. For beginners one session would be enough. For tough beginners, maybe not.
    As soon as the season starts, we start looking for places to race. It is usually on artificial snow too, so it shouldn't be too long.

We also encourage you or your child to bring food to any event or any "away for home" practice. The coaches will prepare skis and do the best job they can.

Before the race starts you might want to do a warm-up, that way your chest won't feel tight while you race.

After the race is over the coaches will tell you to cool yourself down by skiing slowly and no more than 3 miles.

The races on real snow are much more fun because there will be fewer possibilities that you could fall because of lack of snow and branches sticking out of the ground.

Most of the time the skis are faster on real snow. The fastest temperature for snow is around 20oF to -30oF (of course there will not be a race at the extremely low temperatures).
    Most GNA members also participate in their school ski teams. Within those teams they are usually the best skiers simply because they are better prepared for racing.

The school races don't go outside of New Hampshire and the primary emphasis on those teams is usually on camaraderie and light competition.

The most important races of the season are near its end,

 usually in February and March. Some of the GNA kids go to the Junior Olympics. This year we had a few kids qualify. They were Alex Howe, Dylan McGuffin,

Tom Stark and Danielle Baron. You have to be between 14 and 19 years old when the season starts to go to Junior Olympics.

A lot of kids also participate at the Eastern High School Championships. This year they were Alex Howe, Danielle Baron, Leah Hart, Will Anderson,

Sam Marshal, Corrine Cline and Jenia Badamshina. Easterns were hosted in Presque Isle, Maine this year and like other years, it was the last event of the season.
    For the rest of the year we run, do dryland (sort of like skiing, but without skis, poles or snow, just short exercises), rollerski, ski-walk with poles or without,

ski bound (basically run with poles) and do strength practices which include bungee cords, jumping over tires, dips, push ups, pull ups, long and short jumps,

ab workouts, cart with bungee cords (pulling yourself up a ramp on a cart) and back workouts.
    GNA has also had camps in several foreign countries in the past years. They have been held in Finland, Austria, Canada, Italy and many more.

 In Finland and Austria you can actually ski on snow. You can read more about these camps on our website (follow the link to the stories page or

check out the information on this year's camp in Ramsau, Austria).
    Our club president is Andrew Howe. We also have a board of directors which meets regularly to discuss the club's current projects and goals.

Nina Gavrylyuk and Igor Badamshin, who are both former Olympians from Russia, are the club's coaches. Nina even has 3 gold Olympic medals.
    For the practices we usually meet in the main parking lot at Gunstock Ski Area on the left near the snowmaking building (the big blue one).

During the early fall and winter we meet at our "Jump shack" which is located near the ski jumps at Gunstock.

************************************************