Race Prep and Plans with Jessica Yeaton
Team Birkie has been really “lucky” to get some incredible people join the team this year, some of these are ambassadors. Jessica Yeaton is one of them and she has shared some of her race plans and thoughts on training before she kicks off her season at Soldier Hollow US nationals in January.
Jessica has participated in numerous World Cup races, world championships, olympics and won/podium in several Birkie! She is certainly someone to keep an eye open for and also ask her a question when you see her as she might know a thing or two.
We are cheering her on and I am certainly getting inspired to train well now hearing about her plans.
Enjoy the read from a Birkie Champion!!
What races are you planning to do?
The races I have on my calendar for this year are the 20k skate at USN, Alley Loop (42k in Crested butte), the Birkie, 10k skate wc in Minneapolis, 50k skate in Snow mnt ranch, FIS races in Steamboat/ Vail, and possibly the Tour of Anchorage. I also plan to do the local skimo series and the Grand Traverse at the end of March with David (David Norris also a Team Birkie Ambassador David Norris) as my teammate. We do quite a bit of ski touring here throughout the winter, and I think it’s awesome training for nordic.
That’s a packed schedule - do you have time for anything in between?
Aside from skiing, I am working full-time as a Physical Therapist here in Steamboat. I also help coach the Nordic athletes at the winter sports club a couple days a week and do some online coaching with David for endurance athletes.
How is your season prep and what do you think about training leading up to your first races?
With my first target race being USN, my preparation over the next month will be ramping up some of the higher intensity workouts on snow. I have a pretty big base from doing a lot of bike racing through the summer, so I feel I need to up the intensity on skis. After a big training block, I always make sure to start a taper about 10 days out from a big race- usually from intensity while keeping easy volume. This approach has worked well for me in the past; however, when I was racing more I would use races as a large part of my intensity- so I will likely end up doing more interval sessions this year.
Thank you so much for sharing Jessica, and perhaps we all learned something about how we can prepare for our first/second or tenth race coming up!
Wishing everyone good luck and happy skiing. Finally December.
