Race Recap with Kevin Bolger
Image 1. Skate 10km Race
Kevin is currently in Sweden recovering from the Swedish season opener this past weekend in Gallivare. Kevin gave us a great summary of his race prep, feelings about the races and his takeaways:
The season started here in northern Sweden, more specifically Gallivare!!
It was a shock to the system with temps around -20 Celsius when I first got here to start prepping for the races. Luckily, the forecast shifted, and it turned to be around -8 Celsius for the races! The race weekend consisted of a classic sprint, Classic 10k, and Skate 10k. I made a plan to just do the Sprint and Skate 10K.
But going back a few days, before flying up here to prepare for the races, I landed in Falun and had 3 days to fluoro clean all my skis. Roughly 34 pairs— it took about 1 hr to clean 3 pairs of skis, so I'll let you do the math. It was a crazy long process but worth it once I was able to test a few pairs of skis on the Fluoro tester, and they came back free of Fluoro, so all my work wasn’t a waste.
Maja and I flew up north to test skis and just get some time on snow before the races. Gallivare got hit hard with cold temps and early snow, so the skiing was fantastic— a perfect way to start the ski season, minus the cold temps. I wasn’t ready for that.
The classic sprint, unfortunately, didn’t go as planned. I was 31st, 0.01 out, but if I’m being completely honest, I knew it wasn’t great. When you reach the finish of a sprint qualifier, you should be close to your deathbed, gasping for air, and all the lights should be flashing. But my feeling was— I could take a lap lane and do that one more time. Pretty upset with the performance, but mentally just had to move on.
Sunday's 10k Skate was a much different experience. I think it's easy for most skiers to think a 10k is a “short race” and you just need to ride the red line for as long as you can. But if you start looking at skiers who are doing well in these races vs. what we want, you can see that pacing is very necessary. Talking through the race with my coach, we set out a plan to follow, and I thought I executed it almost perfectly! Starting out pretty fast and then settling into a nice rhythm for the first 5k, having even splits, and then slowly accelerating on the second lap, making sure to negatively split all the way to the finish, which I did perfectly. With super tight times, I ended up 20th, only 8 seconds from the top 10. As I did my post-race review, I think I could have opened up my first 5k a touch faster and still had a great second lap.
Image 2. Kevin and girlfriend Maja Dahlquist out testing the tracks in Gallivare, Sweden.
All in all, it was a great weekend. It's a bit strange going into your first races. You can prepare as best as you can, but there is nothing that can prepare you enough. You are still left trying to remember, “What should this feel like?” “How hard can I push again?” And you can't know until you’re in the race situation doing it. I have a lot of confidence moving forward. The shape is good and it will only continue to get better!
Thank you Kevin for sharing feelings and takeaways from your first few races.
Next up for Kevin is Ruka, Finland where he will meet up with the US World Cup crew including our own Zak Ketterson and coach Erin Moening this week to start off the World Cup season.
We are super excited to continue following from afar and good luck to all prepping for their seasons!
Be on the lookout for a lot more race recaps very soon.
If you want more information on the Fluor ban and the Fluor cleaning Kevin mentions, we recommend this resource: Fluor Ban FIS
You can also support Kevin through his NNF fundraiser currently ongoing through the following link: NNF Drive for 25.
