My Digital Kappa Runway

Got a bunch of cool new Kappa gear at camp and I thought I’d share it! Kappa is an Italian clothing brand that signed a 12-year deal with the whole US Ski Team so I’m pretty stoked that the stuff is cool!

Kick it off with a little basic summer training kit. Comfy and clean!

That, but with a light jacket.

A little casual coming at ya now…cozy joggers and a trendy white tee.

Similar, but now with better lighting and a zip up hoodie

Alright so this one is a trench coat. A little left field I know. Should be good standing around in bad weather.

Kinda the alpine skiing kit. Always love snowpants with suspenders! Kinda shell material.

Shoutout Simi in the background!

A hoodie that makes sure no one forgets where we’re from.

Michelin man puffy and sweat shorts. S-tier combo.

An actually great rain jacket! Not the easiest thing to make well. And it’s visible!

The finale. Highlighter outfit. Hi-vis is important to us.

Thanks for bearing with all the mirror selfies! I also hope you enjoyed seeing what my bedroom looks like!

Thanks for reading!

Altitude!

I’m 2 weeks into camp at altitude in Utah. The first week I was in Salt Lake City living with my brother and some U.S. teammates (Luke Jager, Walker Hall, Bryan Bushey) to acclimate a little bit and hang out with my boys. I also wanted to get some extra time in thin air because lots of studies indicate the best stimulus from altitude comes with 3-4 weeks or more of exposure.

Some fun drawings at the college house

Gonna talk a little bit about my altitude training approach and process in this blog, so it’s not just a diary!

Running above SLC. Getting that sun!!

Got to go to my first big football game. Pretty crazy how big these are!

Altitude training is a method of improving aerobic capacity through your body’s natural production of red blood cells, and it has a lot of history in endurance sport. It is proven enough that athletes continue to use it with consistency, especially at higher levels or sport. A general recommendation is to spend 3-4 weeks living and training at around 5000-7000ft, and there are many nuances, but that is a basic outline. The only problem is that the training needs to be executed well to get the full effect. 

Did some popping up to Park City to get up higher in my first week.

Also enjoying some great fall colors.

I’m now in my 2nd week in Park City, Utah (7000ft) doing an altitude training camp with the US Ski Team and many pro teams from across the United States. We come here to boost the oxygen-carrying capacity of our blood (and train together!) before the season gets underway. BUT, it’s possible to do more harm than good, and that’s why I make changes to my training routine to capitalize on this opportunity!

Skiing together <3

These are my top 4 things I focus on when at altitude camp.

Getting some mega-altitude with Scott and Matt (Guardsman Pass)

1. Train less

   This is a general rule of thumb I follow when I come up to altitude, because it’s harder to recover, and training is more stressful overall. It doesn’t need to be a huge drop, but making sure to pay enough attention to how you feel after each session will help you not get overloaded. I’ve gotten too excited at this camp in the past and come home pretty wrecked, even at a similar amount of training that I’m used to at sea level. Now I really try to keep training on the safer side, in the hope to come home with good energy and the same blood boost that I’d get otherwise. There’s a lot more nuances to altitude training specifically besides training less, but they are not as important as simply managing your energy to keep the quality high. 

2. Eat more

   This goes along with training being more stressful. When it’s harder to train, making sure you get enough food is huge! Good food makes the recovery that much easier, and keeps you farther from that edge of overdoing it. This especially goes for long training sessions, where I make sure to eat a bunch of carbs throughout the workout. 

3. Iron

   Iron, or ferritin, is the body’s building block for red blood cells, so it’s really important you have enough stored to capitalize on the altitude stimulus. Before and during my altitude camp I always supplement with iron pills and make sure I’ve got some intake of red meat. It can also be a good idea to get your iron levels tested before going to altitude to understand what your needs are, and afterwards to make sure you’re still in a good place. 

4. Take it slow

   One of the hardest things to do when coming up to altitude is making sure you don’t go too fast. When you’re used to your easy speed at sea level, it’s hard to make a big change feel natural, but if you continue at your sea level pace, you’re gonna get smoked!! It helps to do some sessions with people that live at altitude, because they have that pace much more dialed. 

   This actually ends up being one of the most fun things for me at altitude for me, because you can really crawl! It’s so fun to be able to just walk hills and chill and still be in a good training zone. A good way to keep it in check is to make sure you’re able to comfortably talk.

Keeping it easy.

Thanks for reading, and if you're interested in altitude training, I'd say maybe do a little more research, because I am not an expert; these are just from my experiences. People who live at altitude might think I'm totally wrong, but also this is geared more towards the sea level dweller who takes a trip out west. Whoever you are, I hope you got something out of this and maybe have some more guidance if you plan to go to altitude in the future!

Getting some great team training. With Zak Ketterson on this one. (L3 classic/skate intervals at soldier hollow)

JC, rollin in to aprés time

Bounding with a huge crew! This is USST, NEG/NTG (junior camp), Team Birkie, BSF Pro, APU, SMS T2, University of Utah, and more teams all coming together to work together. USA has some great momentum!

Media day with a sharp-lookin team!

Next post is gonna show some of the new Kappa US Ski Team gear…it’s drippy.

Summer Update: My Biggest Training Focus...

One of the biggest questions I get in the spring and summer is “What’s going to be different about your training this year??”. The first few times I got asked this question, I almost worried about not having a big change. I would look for something that was slightly different, or manufacture one because I felt like it was important. Recently, I’ve realized this didn’t make a ton of sense, and I’ve gotten much better at embracing the type of training that I’ve done for years and have confidence with. The cycle that I’ve used for years has worked for me, and I’ve been able to continuously adapt using it.

Skiing with Luke, Zander, and Kevin! (L to R)

Given this, I’d say my biggest change or focus this year is to stick to that cycle, and weekly/monthly layout. I’m really trying to be great about the bit of recovery in between also, which I’ve grown into. The advantages of really embracing this training schedule are that 1. I know how hard I can push myself without overtraining in this structure, 2. I can keep working with my home club (AWS), and 3. I’m confident that it works for me. All of these things together have lead to a summer of content and true confidence in what I’m doing. I have a super solid structure and flow that I love, and I have my rigid recovery days that save me from overdoing it. A downside of doing it like this is that I don’t have as much flexibility to work with other people, but there’s still little ways I can move stuff around, and it’s worked out enough to join people on different programs. Check my “links” page to see a sick speed session I did the other day with Kevin Bolger, JC Schoonmaker, and my AWS teammate Zander Maurer! This was one that wasn’t exactly how my plan goes, but it was a really worthwhile session watching some of the best sprinters in world fire off speeds, and doing my best to keep that pace and relax.

Zander and myself after a running treadmill lactate step test

Now that part wasn’t entirely truthful; I am altering one part of my training: L3. I wouldn’t say I’ve been horrible about it in the past, but I’m making a concerted effort this year to truly pace my threshold training better. I, like many young skiers, want to be as fast as possible in every workout, but this doesn’t help so much in L3. I’ve done more learning about lactate and the different energy systems, and started to really pay more attention to my lactate during threshold sessions. My goal is to increase my time in that L3 zone, but make sure it’s truly 3, or under 4 mmoL of lactate. Pushing harder than that will definitely help improve speed by also training your anaerobic system, but it greatly increases the load on your body and limits the amount of training you can do at that higher speed. To be transparent, a lot of these workouts have been in the 70-90 minute range of total interval time, and while that may seem like a lot (it did to me in the past), if you’re well-trained and going the right speed, it actually doesn’t feel that bad. People with sport physiology knowledge are going to scoff at my revelations, but it’s hard to know what to do when you don’t know exactly why to do it!! Young athlete education is super important for stuff like this, and I think it’s something we might need to step up a little in the U.S. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying that close of attention…

Checking lactate levels after a time trial. (Not L3 I swear!!)

It’s fun stuff, and so far all of these things seem to be working and trining is going great!

Here’s the photo dump part of the summer update…

L4 classic with Johnny Hagenbuch

Active recovery wakesurfing!

Also with John Steel

+ the fam. Celebrating Heidi catching a grape

Then kevin got here and bonded with Lucy (feat. writing a SkiPost article: check my “Links” page)

It’s been hot here!

Too hot for us

Did a running race…

…did some homework…

…rode my bike…

…did a puzzle…

…got some sun…

…diced Kevin’s hair up…

…and hung out outside.

Loving it! Check out my links page for more stuff…training videos and articles.

5 steps to the new season (Written for SkiPost)

So maybe you read my last SkiPost article: Winding Down from Winter in 5 Steps, or maybe you didn’t, but wound down from winter anyway. Either way, I hope you took some time to chill and do things that make you happy, because returning to summer training is done best after a productive down period. The whole basis of “starting” the training year is that it had to stop at some point, and having a transition period in there is what enables you to build into another year of progress. 

Nearing the end of skiing at home

Full on down time

The traditional “Skiers’ New Year” has historically been May 1st, and some people are itching to get going by then, and others not, but either way you have to remember that it’s a long time until racing starts again, and likely even longer to you target races of next season. The first step is more for the person that is ready to go full blast again.

1. Ease into it

If you did at least a little activity during your down time, then this will be a little simpler. If you’re coming straight off the couch, keep that in mind. One mistake people make is hitting training too hard right off the bat before their body is fully ready to absorb training. You get faster by absorbing training, not just by doing it, so making sure you’re doing as much training as you can handle and bounce back from is going to be the best way to build to a high level in December, January, even March. I like to make sure I’m running with some frequency, and doing a wide diversity of activity types to spread the load out among my body. This is to make sure that I have a solid foundation when I want to start loading up more. I also generally try to do the same number of sessions I would do in mid-summer, but keep the intensity and duration lower. As you feel yourself adapting to the new training, you can gradually increase the intensity and duration.

Easing into it with some chill rides.

2. Revisit those goals

Hopefully you checked in on how your year went at the end of the season, but if not, it’s not too late. Talk to someone that knows you and your training and just go over what went well and what you want to improve. Knowing this will help guide your training, and this time of year is great for setting the tone and emphasis of the rest of your summer. For example, a couple of my big targets for this season are to bump up the L3 volume a little bit and work on increasing my mobility. This time of year I’m not doing much L3, but I can still start thinking about how I want that to look in my schedule. I can also really start ingraining mobility habits like sitting down after each session and going through some range of motion, especially while I’m not training so much that I feel too tired or time-constrained to do it.

3. Make plans

It’s hard to know exactly what you’ll be up to all summer, but this is a great time to figure out any travel or big summer event so you can work your training around that. I think it’s really important to have solid structure in your training, so the more you plan ahead, the less you’ll have to accommodate events that may interfere with your training. For example, if you know you’re going to have to travel for a wedding in September, maybe schedule a recovery week that week so you can take the travel and time off without messing with your body’s rhythm.

Find the people you want to train with!

4. Find your place

For some people this may be obvious, they’re going to be where they live. However, some people (looking at you, college kids) don’t really know where to go. This is a great time to iron out your living plan for the summer so you don’t have to change it much once training is in full swing. I’d say the biggest things to consider when thinking about where to set up camp are: who will be there, can you stay in one place, is it comfortable, and are the training facilities good. Some of this is obvious, and the biggest thing is that you’re happy and content wherever you are. Making sure this home base is solid and takes care of your needs is the base of the pyramid for training success. 

5. Get psyched!!

One benefit of taking time off is you tend to get antsy to train again, and having this drive is super helpful! There are tons of ways to develop motivation for a summer of training though, and it’s up to you to find your own. Some people always want to train, some need a team around them that motivates them, and some just need to line up some good goals. Whatever it is, being excited about training is one of the biggest tools you have to push those limits. Maybe it’s skiing edits on YouTube, maybe it’s new gear, who knows. Just get stoked!! (And if you feel like you need to take some more time off to let your body and mind fully recover, do that. Starting the season happy, healthy, and energized is going to be way more beneficial than an extra two weeks of “blah” training.)

Looking forward to this!!

I hope your off-season was great, your gear all works, and you’re all set to get better! This is one of the best, and most rewarding times of the year—enjoy it!!

U23s in Norway

Finished off my season with a very nice week in Norway. Races were at Lygna, and it was awesome to see some great results from the young Team USA. Jr Boys got us back in the medals in the relay! Stoked for them.

Cruising wtb!

Really nice skiing around here

Wax/team area

Stadium hill from the parking lot

Boys put it together!! It definitely takes a lot of strength and some good luck to be up there in this race, these guys skied real well.

Zander Maurer!

Such a refreshing change of scenery from the Olympics. It was a much chiller atmosphere, even with a ton of races and logistics. Young teams are lots of fun, and these boys know how to keep it light.

Testing for the sprint in some great conditions

Getting a little rubdown after the qualifier. Made the heats for the first time since Davos in December 2020!

Heats are so fun! That might’ve been the highlight of my trip (photo: Steve Fuller flyingpointroad.com)

Pretty on the drive home

Relay pre-start area

Double poling with my Japanese friend (photo: Steve Fuller flyingpointroad.com)

Double poled my 5k relay leg, first time doing that in a race in a long time! They’ve generally limited that well with hard courses and technique zones, but thankfully this course didn’t have a technique zone because it was pretty flat. I’d way rather them just try to do hard courses and never put in technique zones because it feels forced. It’s fun when it can go either way, and people end up doing different things. In the relay a Czech dude and I were the only ones that double poled, and I think it was the right call for me. It felt good!!

Mixed relay team. Cool format, I’m really looking forward to watching it in the Falun World Cup in a couple weeks. Wish I could be in that one.

Packing ‘em away. Big thanks to these ski techs for working so hard all week. These races are rapid fire, and these guys are testing and waxing the whole time.

hand hygiene. nice.

In Seattle. Almost home after 3+ months!

Definitely not stoked about having to end my season like this, but I’m glad for what I got to do, and it was really fun to go out with a good week in Norway. Now time to rest so next year can go better!

Not meeting expectations (And, going home!)

In a dark place in those races! (photo: Getty Sport)

The Olympics are amazing because they feel like a really big deal, especially when you’re there. There’s rings and Bing Dwen Dwens everywhere and tons of staff and attention. This makes it a great event, but also amplifies any results you have. It makes winning that much better, and losing that much worse. I had a great time, don’t get me wrong!! But I was still super bummed to not race as well as I thought I could. It’s not easy to line everything up to be fast at the right time, and for me it just didn’t really work out. 

I got sick over Christmas, and raced the Tour de Ski before I was fully healthy because 1. I thought I could recover during the tour and 2. I thought I needed a few more points to secure my Olympic spot. I didn’t know the World Cups in France would be canceled, so it turned out I didn’t need points, but I didn’t know that at the time! In hindsight, I wouldn’t have raced the tour, but that’s easy to say now. I didn’t feel like I got fully healthy before the Olympics. I had some good workouts at our pre-camp in Livigno, but the dry altitude in China seemed to aggravate anything that was still hanging out in my lungs.

Sucking pond water: Relay day. (photo: Getty Sport)

I’m describing all this partly because I feel accountable for taking up a coveted Olympic team spot, and want to be clear that I did everything in my power to be at my best, and thought I did alright. I’m proud of myself for taking advantage of this opportunity with everything I had; but, when I started racing, my lungs were still that couple percent off, and at altitude at this level, that means a lot. 

Putting this on to keep it real. This shit sucks!!!!!

What I learned from this is to take illnesses more seriously (especially when I haven’t been sick for a couple years!), even if it means sacrificing something that seems so important. I’d rather be really good in the long run than mediocre because I did damage to my body. Because of this I’ve decided to stop racing with lungs that don’t feel perfect, and go home. I’m still going to U23s because it was logistically super hard to get a good itinerary from China, and because I want to see my U23 teammates in Norway! I’ll race the sprint and possibly relay if I feel alright there, but I’m not too worried about performance there. Then after that I’m going home to fully recover, and hit the reset for next season!

My goal is to get rested and healthy in time to train hard for next year, and Milano Cortina in 4 years! I know I have the tools and capability to have a much different Olympic racing experience there, and I want to start that journey from a clean, healthy slate.

Thinking about rest and restarting the road to next season. :)

Thanks to everyone for supporting me though a tough middle of the season, and I’m stoked to come back next year stronger than ever! I’m also very thankful to my teammates, coaches, wax techs, massage/PT peeps, and other staff that made the Olympics and the whole season so smooth! We couldn’t do it without you.

Chocolate at just the right times from Karel. very thankful for everything he does for me and the team.

Having these guys makes it better!

Olympics in China!

This is gonna be the day-to-day type blog. Uploading pics takes forever but it’s worth it. More descriptive blog next up.

Mascots Bing Dwen Dwen and Shuey Rhon Rhon welcoming into the village plaza. (Some shops, lounges, and tourist things)

First impression of the trails: hard. Long hills and slow snow. Sunny though!

Village cleaning guys. The stick brooms were everywhere.

Olympic rings bridge. Chinese engineers do not mess around.

Boys opening the 3 DUFFELS of clothes. Crazy. Great trading material.

Trying it on with good energy

Vermont catamounts on a jog. Had to stay in the village. Lots of loops.

Early days under-glove thermal layer testing.

Our apartment in the background. All the US xc guys were in one together.

It actually snowed quite a bit while we were there (for the area). Wind blew everything off the hillsides very quickly though.

Covid tests every day. In our building if we were down before 10…

…but usually near the dining hall because we were sleeping IN. Kinda just gradually went to sleep and got up later and later as it went, because we’d never go to the venue before noon really.

Stick brooms making an appearance at the entrance to the dining hall.

Friendly welcome inside.

Spent a lot of time in there.

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

Not exactly top-quality food, but it wasn’t too bad. The lighting/presentation doesn’t really do it any favors. Ended up eating a lot of dumplings, steamed + filled buns, rice, chicken, and pumpkin (actually not a ton, but more than I’ve ever eaten…tastes a little like sweet potato when steamed hard). Really looking forward to well-cooked stuff, and more sauce variety. Soy only goes so far.

Ben showing off his head size and enjoying more dining hall time.

Leaving the dining hall (on the left)

Doing our own opening ceremony

Had to flex the fits. Hit me up if you wanna buy anything ;)

Chilly but happy

Failed water run. No drinking water on tap in the apartments

Pretty nice!

chill vibing

Never very fast out there.

Making sure matt doesn’t have a gun in his pants

The guy that maxes my skis: Karel Kruuser

This guy grinds for me all winter to give me fast skis, and he does really well. He also gives me a lot of these Estonian chocolate bars, sometimes when I really need them, and sometimes when I just want them. Best one was when I had to drop out of the tour. “Oh well if you’re done then here’s this!!” Saved the day. Huge thanks to all he and the full wax staff does. It’s such a big part of our sport and it’s very comforting to know I’m not being held back by skis (just slow because of myself). <3

Kevin and I got treated to nice food at the hotel near the village (where the techs stayed) on the last night.

Pretty sweet landscapes here! On the bullet train to closing ceremonies.

team staging before staging

Bird’s Nest stadium. Crazy big!!

Kev!

Pretty cool

Tons of bags on the charter flight Beijing to Helsinki. With the Finnish gold medal hockey team and a lot of skiers and other stuff.

Toasted.

The Olympics were a crazy, great experience! Got to hang out with my friends a bunch and get closer to some other ones from different nations. Got a bunch of cool clothes and got to ski at a crazy venue. Also got to visit China! Really thankful to the organizer and volunteers for being really friendly and making everything smooth.

Pretty bummed to have not raced that fast, but it didn’t come totally out of nowhere. Haven’t gotten back to fully normal since my Christmas-time cold, and I gotta take that into consideration. Still did everything I could, and put absolutely all of my energy out there, so I can’t be too mad. Looking forward to many more years of racing and more shots at this huge event.

Now onto Norway for U23s!

Le Tour! (de ski, ever heard of it?)

The tour de ski is one of the coolest events in elite cross-country skiing, in my opinion. With as many as 9 races in 11 days, it can be the most physically demanding endeavors in which any of us participate. This year (with participation and the Olympics in mind) FIS shortened it to 6 races in 8 days, which is still super hard. 3 distance races, 2 sprints, and 1 hill climb will take it out of you no matter how fit you are.

Even knowing this, I entered the tour feeling pretty rough from a cold that I got over Christmas, and hoped to take the first stages in Lenzerheide “easy”, with the idea that I’d be better and feeling rested by the later stages of the tour. I really only did this because I felt like I needed some more distance point to stay in the top 50 for making the Olympic team. In hindsight, I probably would’ve been safe without racing the tour, but these decisions are not easy to make because you never know which direction your shape will go. I ended up actually feeling alright in Oberstdorf (stage 3), but had one of the worst races in my last 2 seasons in Val di Fiemme. That was especially a bummer because of getting 8th in the exact same race there last year. Moral of the story is that you should react to how your body feels, instead of trying to make something happen.

Now I’m going to Seefeld, Austria to try to fully kick my illness and feel strong again. I’m confident I can get back to feeling like I have before!

Beautiful hotel in Lenzerheide (actually a school where they teach hospitality: cooking, hotel maintenance, etc)

Sweet breakfast view

I was only going for walks in the days before the tour in an effort to get healthy. Didn’t see the course until race day.

Damage control racing…just trying to get to Oberstdorf

Kevin and Logan after qualifying

Super pretty venue feat. interval start track for stage 2

Cooling down, topping off the stores with some Never2 sugar

Dining hall wtb

Testing zeroes with Karel

Pre-race gel. Felt alright stage 2 but still wanted to not fully drain myself in an effort to bounce back later in the tour.

To start!

Big looooooogs

Driving to Oberstdorf

Pretty place, but very warm

15k skate mass start (stage 3). Felt solid today, but still din’t have my usual energy in the last lap.

Cooling down with Zak Ketterson

Big place

Lunch! Uggs!

Driving to Val di Fiemme

Very pretty

One of the coolest world cup venues. 2026 Olympics are here!

Lol Italy

Killing time before 3pm starts (sucks)

Ready for stage 5! …kinda

Zak talking out a tough race with his boys

I dropped out after feeling really bad in stage 5, so I got to watch both the men’s and women’s races!! Jessie showing how hard the finish to the tour is

oof

Big fun team! Proud of everyone!

Day after the finish just going for a walk. I’m gassed!

Stoked to chill now and turn it around. And very proud of the whole team, staff and servicemen and all! Everyone worked so hard to make it happen, and I can’t thank you enough.

Thanks for reading!

Lillehammer, Davos --> Xmas

Whoops…little delayed on this one. Got lazy messing around with the boys. I would say I was busy with school but that was done like 2 weeks ago.

The truck in Lillehammer.

We raced on the biathlon courses in Lillehammer because they didn’t have enough snow for the regular courses. The pictures look nice, but all of that snow came right before we arrived. Before that they couldn’t even make much snow. Climate change sucks, contact those representatives when bills come up!

It was a bummer to not race on those iconic Lillehammer courses (4 min uphill anyone?), but the other courses were also fun skiing.

About as Norwegian as food can get. Heart-shaped waffles and brown cheese.

Men’s relays!

Highlight of Lillehammer was the relay day! So fun to race a relay and be in the mix for most of it. That relay spark is real, and we felt it that day even if we fell off the pace near the end. We were close enough to that gap to make real moves with a little better speed in the future. Really looking forward to more relays with this crew.

Making use of a nice (vacant) hotel gym after the races. One of the hardest parts of being on the road is getting good gym access to keep that strength up. Gotta capitalize when you get it!

First ski in Davos

Stepping out for sprint race prep

The Davos races weren’t that sick for me; I was about the same time back both days as I’ve been this season, but slightly better than last year. Bright spot for me was better pacing and technique in the distance race (compared to last year). I skied more smoothly and with more power, and felt like I started at a better pace. I still pushed a little hard in the middle and wasn’t able to finish as fast as I needed to. Bright spot for the team was a sick semifinal performance by Ben, and amazing show of depth by our women in the 10k with 5 in the top 30!

I had made the call to not go to Dresden before these races because I felt like I wasn’t moving quickly enough to race well there, and not going gave me a less-interrupted training block to prepare for the tour de ski.

Boys ski after the races. (L to R: Me, Luke, JC)

Twilight team sledding

Lil look inside the wax truck

Evening jog

Pretty!

Pretty Logs!

Some boys after intervals. Fear the deer.

Schoon

Some skiing with the Canadian boys Graham and Russell

Cheers to sun

Cozy

Moonlight sled

Solar drying of the laundry

took a lil outside nap

Dematone necessary

POWER BEEF

Americano

Tree shopping. Gotta make sure it’s the right size

Sweater shopping. Included because funny Luke hair

Peace! Thanks for reading/looking. Tour up next! Enjoy the holidays!

RRR (Ruka Race Report)

It was cold.

Jogging it out the night before the start of the season. Zanden.

The classic sprint went alright for me. Nothing crazy bad or good. Would’ve liked to be faster obviously but the good news is I have some rocket teammates that I can learn from for the future. When those boys’ names (Luke, Ben , JC) were showing up in the results at the finish, I was hyped! Especially hyped to watch them in the heats, because I knew they could really mix it up. JC went through and almost made the finals, and Ben and Luke were really close. Only gonna be a matter of time before they’re looking at podiums.

The next day (15km classic) was more my speed, and I was a lot more nervous for it for that reason. I was still able to chill out and remember it’s the first distance World Cup of the season, and was able to still start chill. I stayed up on the fast corner on the south part of the course (couple people around me didn’t), and was able to finish hard, so I was happy with it. And I was happy with staying strong and relaxed technically, and not being too far out of the front of the race was good for the Sunday pursuit.

Staying relaxed (NordicFocus photo)

Taking a little break after my finish, watching the race

Sun in Ruka! Means its cold!

Venue in the background by the jumps. We stay in the apartments on the right side of the picture

Sprint boys doing some apartment strength

Chilly Sunday morning

I felt even more ready for racing on Sunday, as I usually do in the early season, but it was super cold, and the race directors kind of tempered expectations on whether the race would happen or not. The women ended up being delayed by 40 minutes, and then again by a few hours, so they warmed up 3 times. Rough! We got to go at our race time, but didn’t know for sure until 30 minutes before the start. Some drama at the actual start with Norway and a couple other big names not starting. Apparently the timing crew didn’t know about this until they didn’t show up, so they had to delay and restart the clocks a couple minutes later. Good going with the flow practice.

This race last year was so much fun for me, because they use the 2.5km course that has good rest and hard work, and the 6-lap 15km just flew by. This year was the same. I started right with the British guys, and Andrew Musgrave was having a good one, and pushed the pace the whole time, which helped pull me and others around me through the field. Got a little rest over the top of the course on the last lap, and blasted it in to 11th! Pretty stoked with that result (5th fastest of the day too!) but the best thing was just enjoying the tactics and fun of pack racing.

Ready for more of that this season!

Leading the group (NordicFocus photo)

Lil late on this post, so Lillehammer is already tomorrow! Starts with a skate sprint, then 15km Saturday, relay Sunday. They’re using the biathlon courses because there’s not enough snow for the regular courses. Kind of a bummer to not ski the iconic courses here, but the backup courses are really fun! Time to go again!

Lillehammer!