Sports

Thurston sets high bar in skiing

By James Biggam
TIMES ARGUS
Skiing is a sport where the podium order can be determined by a matter of centimeters during breathtaking finish-line lunges.

Ava Thurston eliminated that need for drama the past four years while taking Vermont’s Nordic world by storm.

The Harwood standout often prevailed by minutes — not seconds — while adding eight individual state championships to her trophy case. As she entered her senior season this past winter, Thurston’s selection as the four-time Times Argus Skier of the Year was basically a foregone conclusion since Day 1. The Highlanders legend may as well be named Skier of the Century — or at least dating as far back as 1985 when the state held its first varsity Nordic championships.

Thurston also won individual cross-country running state titles during each of her four years competing for the Highlanders. She will graduate this spring with an unprecedented 12 crowns after triumphing every season at both the classical and freestyle portions of the Nordic state meet.

In addition to her high school achievements, Thurston also rose up the ranks at the national and international levels. This season she beat some of the top NCAA athletes while also finishing in front of Olympians and members of the U.S. Ski Team. Her day-to-day regimen was a constant juggling act and she managed the hectic schedule with unwavering poise and determination.

Depending on the day, Thurston represented either Harwood or the Mansfield Nordic Club. She worked with Highlanders coach Tom Strasser and MNC coach Adam Terko to strike a balance with her training and racing. And while she could have prioritized just the biggest events, Thurston stayed true to her Harwood team and led the Highlanders to a runner-up showing at state championships.

The Waterbury native rarely faced a close battle during high school competitions, winning the Division II classic championship races by an average of 95 seconds during her four-year reign. She recorded an average winning margin of 74 seconds during the freestyle state meets, showcasing her versatility on a variety of terrain.

In both running and skiing, Thurston also helped prove that the top of the D-II field could be superior to the large-school teams in D-I. Although she was technically rivals with D-II teams like U-32, Craftsbury and Middlebury, Thurston had a knack for uniting the competitors and fueling Vermont’s dominance at Eastern High School Championships. In skiing, she beat the D-I winners by an average of 71 seconds at state championships.

Thurston placed third at New England Cross-Country running championship in Thetford on Nov. 13 and was on snow shortly after the Craftsbury Outdoor Center opened Nov. 19. She flew out to Utah for U.S. National Championships from Jan. 2-7 at the 2002 Olympic venue in Solder Hollow, where spots for the 2022 Winter Games were on the line. Thurston finished 17th out of 79 finishers during freestyle sprints and placed 30th out of 149 racers in the 10k classic race. She competed in the junior event for the 7.5k freestyle mass-start race and wound up sixth out of 86 athletes.

Thurston enjoyed another string of breakout results during U.S. SuperTour action Jan. 29-30 in Lake Placid, where the 1980 Olympics took place. She was 13th in a field of 170 athletes during the classic sprints and finished sixth out of 124 racers in the 10k freestyle race. The following weekend she braved a blizzard in the Northeast Kingdom while finishing third out of 126 racers in the SuperTour freestyle sprint at Craftsbury. The event also served as the UVM Carnival, featuring the top East Coast NCAA skiers. Thurston finished ninth out of 187 racers in the 10k classic and crossed the line sixth out of 100 athletes during the pursuit.

Thurston returned to Craftsbury Feb. 24 for the classical high school state meet, where she posted a 5k time of 14 minutes, 43.5 seconds. Division II runner-up Maggie McGee crossed the line in 16:18.2, while D-I winner Hattie Barker finished in 15:51. Four days later Thurston won the 5k freestyle state championship in 12:57.9 at Rikert Nordic Center in Ripton. Her younger sister Thurston placed second in 14:47.6, with Barker taking top D-I honors in 14:19.

A trip to Minneapolis from March 6-12 yielded some of Thurston’s most impressive results during junior national championships. She won all four races at the U18 level, defeating the top U20 skiers along the way.

Thurston wrapped up her season last week at the Whistler Olympic Park during Canadian National Championships, which doubled as the SuperTour Finals. She won the 21k national junior championship in freestyle action, placed 16th out of 132 senior racers in the 5k freestyle event and finished 10th out of 87 competitors in the 10k classic race. Thurston qualified 10th in a field of 89 skiers during the classic sprints and wound up 15th after the heats.

Here are some questions for the rising star at the conclusion of a four-month winter season:

Q: Your ski season started in November? What was the turnaround like after cross-country running season?

Thurston: “That was a little unique this year. I’m always running a lot and there was a lot of time and effort and expectations put on New England’s this year. But then all of a sudden I was not running as much. Normally I just don’t phase out the running when I start skiing. But this year I had wrist tendonitis from roller-skiing in the fall, so I was only skiing a few days a week at the start of the season — sometimes in the morning. I was roller-skiing in the fall a little too much and it slowly got worse as I kept roller-skiing. It only ever hurt when I planted a pole, and when I transitioned to skiing I was hoping it would be fine when I was on snow. But it got a little worse, so I phased back into running a little. For most of December I was stilling doing running — mostly intensity — and some no-pole skiing. And then my right wrist got a lot better when I started doing treatment for it. So it was a little slower of a start to skiing than I was used to.”

Q: There were some variables, but how planned out was your season ahead of time as far as every day or every week?

Thurston: “The planning was really only around certain events, like senior nationals, and to try to qualify for some trips. And I knew that junior nationals was likely. I would check in with Terko at the beginning of most weeks — sometimes I would call him or email him and plan out the training log. With high school skiing and practices, you can’t plan out a lot ahead of time. I had some goals for each week, but a lot of it was on the fly. Terko and I would talk and figure out a morning workout or an afternoon workout — a lot of it was based on how I was feeling. I qualified for the U18 Nordic Nations Cup and it was going to be in Norway this year at the very end of January, so it was going to be a quick turnaround from nationals. But that ended up getting cancelled because of the Omicron variant and Covid. Missing that trip meant that I could do the two SuperTour racing weekends in New England, so that was really high-end racing.”

Q: Does your training volume every seem overwhelming when your’e looking at your workouts and races ahead of time?

Thurston: “I don’t do a lot of big-picture planning. Sometimes you can look at hour totals and think, ‘Oh, I’m only at this many hours for the year.’ A lot of training is around Thanksgiving — that’s the big volume. And then you keep increasing the intensity, but the weeks in the winter tend not to be that much volume. In February I was putting more volume in and trying to balance that with states. It gets tricky when you’re doing a lot of races and also trying to get in volume. This was the first year when I tried to combine everything and you have to be careful that you don’t end up overdoing it. …This year I roller-skied a lot on Cochran Road because they repaved it, and some at the range. My training log for the year begins in May, and April is a lot of resting and not doing too much. This year my target was around 500 hours. As a freshman, I had talked with Terko about it and the goal is to have us as seniors training a 500-hour year before going into college. So that was a ballpark target of mine this year. And for me it’s increased around 50 hours a year.”

Q: Did you have a handful of races you were targeting or events that were really marked in red on your calendar?

Thurston: “There’s always states, which I was really excited for this year because I knew our team would be pretty strong. And the two-day state championships coming back was awesome. I don’t think I focused too much on certain races because that can be harder. It can be good if the pressure helps you, but I wasn’t even thinking about the SuperTour races. And those ended up being some of the best for me. And the Whistler races, that was another opportunity to get in more high-level racing. I’d say that states was the one I knew about and focussed on the most. But there wasn’t one event that I thought was going to be the biggest for me.”

Q: Can you describe a typical week of training and racing with the Harwood team?

Thurston: “It was kind of a crazy winter and I’d be away a lot and then come back. During the week Monday tended to be my rest day or active rest, which meant going to Harwood and doing less. Strasser was really good with that and flexible. He knew I couldn’t do all the workouts all the time. Sometimes I would ski easier or help with the waxing. Tuesday could be skiing in the morning on my own or going to Harwood. The days I went to Mansfield Nordic would flip around a lot, but it was usually Tuesday and Thursday at MNC. We had Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at Harwood, but it could depend on the week. This year was the best year in my four years in that we had a lot of VAST trails open at Harwood. And we had a really good Harwood group where we could go out on a ton of the trails and keep going. We would cross the road and cross the road again, so it was a lot more than just the fields. We would get out farther this year and it was around 5k. My weeks changed a lot and I would also try to go to the gym once or twice a week at night. I would go regularly twice a week during cross-country (running) season, after a hard practice or after a race. And if I had a race on Saturday, I would go to the gym afterward and I was doing a bunch of strength training. We have a strength plan that progresses throughout the year with basic things like benching, squatting and TRX planks. You have these pulleys that you hang your feet from, so your legs are suspended and it makes it harder. Weekends this winter would be often racing Eastern Cups. A lot of high school races got cancelled because of the wind chill in January, so I wasn’t able to do a ton of high school races compared to other years. But I did what I could when I was around.”

Q: What were some of the most difficult races this winter?

Thurston: “The 10k at senior nationals was on my birthday and it was one of the more grueling races for me this season. I hadn’t really done a lot of races at that point: I only had one race before senior nationals. I had a really good sprint and a pretty good mass start too. But the 10k classic race was tough. It was altitude, and high school races are 5k — so that was a little bit of an adjustment. 10k is longer, but you’re trying to hold a similar pace. It was three laps, and as the laps went on I was like, ‘Oh gosh.’ Katharine Ogden skied by me and I tried to tuck in behind her. But it took a lot of energy, and by the end I was pretty dead. That was definitely one of the hardest races of the season and it was hard to get to the finish line.”

Q: How has your mentality changed over the past few years when you’re racing against NCAA athletes or Olympians or U.S Ski Team members?

Thurston: “It only changed a little this year and it was a big surprise for me at SuperTour. All those girls that I really look up to are four or five or six years older than me and they’re NCAA or pro skiers. So I was very surprised to be there with some of them. At the sprint, I was like, ‘How am I skiing with these girls?’ But the best part was they were all so encouraging and supportive and would talk to me after the race. Especially Katharine: She would have conversations with me. At Whistler, me and Terko were working with the (Stratton Mountain) T2 Team and they did my skis. I got to talk to Julia Kern and (Ogden) — and Jessie (Diggins) was there for a little while. It’s cool how supportive they’ve been. I know the Nordic world is small, but it’s a sport where I’ve been talking to the pros. I’m hoping to get down to train during a few workouts this summer with the T2 Team.”

Q: Do you have a pre-race routine you stick with or anything you’re superstitious about, or does it vary?

Thurston: “I try not be superstitious and sometimes I try not to eat the same thing before every race. I try to go with the flow because there’s a lot of things I can’t control. I do have a very similar warmup pre-race routine, but I adjusted it a little bit in Whistler. I had just come off JNs and rested a little, and then I was doing more races in Whistler. Especially for the 22k, I did a shorter warmup with not as much speed. For 5ks, I do (level 1) for 20-25 minutes tops. Then I do a little (level 3) and ski easy for a bit. After that I’ll do some 30-30’s before I head to the start. So it’s 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off for about five minutes. Sometimes you have to fit ski testing in and you have to be ready with your clothing and everything. I do my speeds with 20 minutes to go, because I know I’ll need 20 minutes to get ready. On the start line, I am rested a little bit and it’s been about 20 minutes since I’ve done hard skiing.”

Q: What are some keys to your consistency, especially after winning all four events at junior nationals?

Thurston: “In the past I would taper off a little at the end of the season — I’d get tired and my results would drop off a little. What helped me with the consistency this year is all the training and the volume that I put in over the past few years. I’ve been really consistent with training in the summer. The summer is when I can control my volume the most, and then the weeks are more uniform in the fall. Having that base, when I did get sick in the fall and I was injured in December, that didn’t take me out of the season because I had such a base to draw from. I think I had strong later races because I had that base that maybe other people just don’t have yet.”

Q: What do you consider to be your strongest event?

Thurston: “Earlier in the season I would had said a skate sprint, and I would maybe lean toward a skate sprint now. But at Whistler, my classic distance race went really well. I feel really good about jumping into any event. The classic sprint at JN’s went really well and I hadn’t done a lot of those. And I could say a skate 5k too. I try not to think of myself as a specialist, because I surprised myself with some races I did really well in this year when I didn’t think it was my strong suit.”

Q: How did your college decision play out with the so many NCAA coaches trying to recruit you?

Thurston: “In my experience, the coaches have been very receptive. The coaches that I’ve talked to, they want me to go where is best for me. They’re not overly like, ‘You need to come here and our school is going to be the best for you and you shouldn’t go anywhere else.’ I’ve had a harder time with my college decisions, but it’s been helpful to talk to my ski coaches. And college coaches have been wanting to help me through the process. I’ve had to learn to put some other things on the back burner and focus on my races and not stress out about by decision. But that has added a layer to my season that I haven’t had to deal with in the past.”

Q: Do you plan to run in college or just ski?

Thurston: “I always would talk to coaches on Zoom calls and I asked about cross-country (running). I don’t think I will run next year. But if I really miss it, I would definitely jump back into it — that’s a possibility. Personally, I want to do a lot of running as ski training. I know that pro skiers concentrate a lot on building volume in the fall, so it could be good for my ski training to see how that would work for me. But going to college and doing two sports right off the bat might be hard.”

Q: The men and women both raced 42 kilometers for the distance event at Canadian Nationals. What do you think about that trend continuing at Olympics or world championships?

Thurston: “Equal distance is a hot topic right now. And I think it would be really good to have equal distances on the world championships or Olympic level. For college, they did a lot of equal-distance racing. You have to find a medium and I think it’s really good if they match up. I personally feel it’s strange if we’re doing different distances on the college circuit than the World Cup, if college is a pipeline for the World Cup. I’m a big proponent for equal distance. In Whistler, it was the same 42k for men and women. But the men and women did a different distance for the sprint race: Women did 1.2k and men did 1.4k. I think it will be good to do the same distances. And it will be interesting to see how long it will take for that shift to happen on the World Cup level, or if it does happen at all.”

Q: How special has it been to be teammates with your sister the last two years?

Thurston: “I was looking forward to it coming into high school. We went fish-scale skiing together (Wednesday) at Bolton and it was really fun. We went up from the Nordic Center to Bryant Camp and then to Ravens Wind. And Julia is a lot better on the downhills than me. I was watching her do these drop-ins and skiing around trees and I was snowplowing. It’s cool that we can go do those things together and it’s nice to have a built-in training partner. One of the big highlights of the season, I said before Nordic, ‘What if we could go 1-2 in the skate?’ I didn’t want to put any pressure on her. But when I saw her coming in to the finish, she looked really good. I said, ‘You’re having the race of your life.’ And getting to tag off in the relay was really cool. We approach things differently at times, but it’s been really fun this year. Both the Mansfield Nordic Club and Harwood were really great teams with really positive environments. Some things really clicked with both the club and high school teams. Everyone was really focussed in a fun way and people wanted to be there and ski. I’m really thankful to have such great teams to train on: This group is just really awesome.”

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