SuperTour Period 1
Hello devoted Team Birkie followers, supporters, new fans, and friends!
The first races of the season are now behind us, and we are much overdue to catch you up on all we’ve been up to over the past month. Grab a cup of tea and settle in because this is going to be a long one!
After our training camp in Canmore, the team headed back to the Twin Cities for a much-needed recovery week, and to replenish our oxygen stores after 3 weeks spent at altitude. While we were happy to be back, the snow situation around the metro area was pretty dismal… we had to pull out the rollerskis again for a couple frigid, slow workouts, and we logged many hours running the trails around Wirth Park.
We also got to meet many of you that week! We spent an evening at Borton Volvo with the American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation and Birkie supporters to learn about new developments planned for the Mt. Telemark property in Cable. The following weekend we held a group run with Performance Running Gym that ended with coffee, cider, and donuts.
Meeting a lot of great new people with Performance Running Gym
But you can’t keep skiers from snow for very long! The team packed up our bags again the week of Thanksgiving and set off to spend the long weekend in Cable for the Turkey Birkie, a season-kickoff ski festival held on the Birkie Trailhead’s snowmaking trails. We cooked a fabulous Thanksgiving meal, got in some productive on-snow training hours, and greatly enjoyed the fun atmosphere for which Birkie events are well-known.
Thankful for a beautiful place like Adler Lodge to have our Thanksgiving dinner
Brian and Coach Leo prepping the turkey
Quick turnarounds between trips are becoming routine… we were back at home for two days after the Turkey Birkie and then got the call that the race course in Duluth was up and running and ready to be skied in! We loaded up the cars (and quickly taught Christian how to tow our 20-foot wax trailer) and were on the road again headed north.
Duluth marked the beginning of the 2021-2022 SuperTour season, a series of races featuring the country’s pro teams and top racers from coast to coast. Both Duluth and Cable races were also combined with CXC Cups (the Midwest’s qualifier race series for Junior Nationals) and CCSA events, so the venues were buzzing with the region’s fastest juniors and college teams. The Grand Avenue Nordic Center hosted a skate sprint on Saturday and then an individual start skate 6.3k for the women and 10k for the men on Sunday. For the 1.3k sprint, we skied two laps of a 650m course, and then on Sunday we skied 3 or 5 laps of a 2.1k loop. Both courses were extremely challenging with Sunday’s made even more difficult due to 4 inches of fresh snow! We had many awesome team achievements that weekend, and it felt so good to be back in the race atmosphere with family and friends lining the course to cheer us on. Great races are made better when shared with you all.
Christian dropping the hammer in the sprint (Photo: Woods Creek Productions)
Brian with a strong start in the 10k (Photo: Woods Creek Productions)
Zak and coaches after a great win in Duluth!
Duluth Results
Saturday Skate Sprint:
12th Ingrid Thyr 3:32.26 (Semifinals)
22nd Julie Ensrud 3:34.32 (Quarterfinals)
30th Jordan Schuster 3:41.49 (Quarterfinals)
17th Zak Ketterson 2:48.86 (Quarterfinals)
36th Christian Gostout 2:56.49
44th Andrew Millan 2:59.71
51st Brian Gregg 3:03.10
56th Tony Mathie 3:04.09
112th Matt Clarke 3:26.98
Link to all results: https://my.raceresult.com/187725/results#0_FF713F
Sunday Skate 6.3/10k Individual Start:
17th Julie Ensrud 20:47.80
27th Ingrid Thyr 21:30.00
29th Jordan Schuster 22:03.60
1st Zak Ketterson 26:33.40
25th Christian Gostout 28:08.40
34th Brian Gregg 28:40.90
51st Andrew Millan 30:26.10
114th Matt Clarke 35:03.80
Links to results: (Women) https://my.raceresult.com/187732/results#2_50D290
(Men) https://my.raceresult.com/187732/results#1_7AAEAD
After spending Sunday night resting up in Duluth and waiting out the snowstorm, we went straight back to Cable to get ready for SuperTour weekend #2, the Gitchi Gami Games. A triple-header that proved to be as exhausting as expected, we raced a 15k skate mass start on Friday (6x2.5k course), a classic sprint on Saturday, and a 10/15k classic individual start on Sunday (3x3.3k and 4x3.5k). Friday was especially exciting as many of us had not done a mass start race in 2 years. With COVID protocols keeping racers at least 6 feet apart last season, we didn’t get to experience the tactical, pack racing that makes mass start races so fun and potentially treacherous. Thankfully, most of the team survived any major pile-ups or equipment breakage. It also proved to be another super successful weekend for Team Birkie—several members of the team had their best finishes yet and all racers and coaches walked away from the weekend looking forward to showcasing more of our gains at Senior Nationals. I’d be remiss without giving a big shoutout to Zak as well, who ended Period I as the men’s SuperTour leader, earning World Cup starts at the Tour de Ski from December 28th – January 4th in Switzerland, Germany, and Italy (more on this later)!
Zak taking the victory in the classic sprint (Photo: Jackie Schneider)
Ingrid and Jordan in the skate 15k; the best part of mass starts is working together with your teammates (Photo: Jackie Schneider)
Cable Gitchi Gami Games Results
Friday 15k Skate Mass Start:
20th Julie Ensrud 44:45.44
23rd Ingrid Thyr 45:40.10
26th Jordan Schuster 45:49.79
3rd Zak Ketterson 35:03.75
24th Christian Gostout 37:11.79
54th Andrew Millan 40:38.37
62nd Tony Mathie 42:25.93
64th Chris Queitzsch 45:16.34
Saturday Classic Sprint:
15th Julie Ensrud 3:55.19 (Quarterfinals)
21st Ingrid Thyr 4:01.99 (Quarterfinals)
36th Jordan Schuster 4:17.46
1st Zak Ketterson 3:05.01 (Final)
32nd Christian Gostout 3:21.23
87th Matt Clarke 3:54.71
Sunday Classic 10/15k Individual Start:
17th Julie Ensrud 33:12.32
20th Ingrid Thyr 33:59.24
26th Jordan Schuster 35:06.85
2nd Zak Ketterson 37:23.31
26th Christian Gostout 40:09.44
59th Andrew Millan 43:21.16
79th Tony Mathie 45:49.74
101st Matt Clarke 48:49.84
110th Chris Queitzsch 49:50.20
Link to all results: https://live.pttiming.com/?mid=4769
The team is now on the road again, acclimating to altitude in Park City in preparation for U.S. Senior Nationals at Solider Hollow (Midway, UT) from January 2nd-7th. We want to say a huge thank you to all our sponsors and those who’ve so generously hosted us for our races so far… thank you Audrey and Brad, Christina and John, and the Schweizers for opening your homes and kitchens to some tired, hungry skiers! We seriously couldn’t do it without you.
-Jordan Schuster
