Julie’s US Nationals Recap
Hello! Julie checking in from Sun Valley, Idaho.
Today (Thursday, Jan. 13th) marks my fourth straight week living out of a bag. It has been great and I have finally learned that I don’t need to bring much when there´s a washing machine available. Less is more!
You are probably not that interested in my washing machine situation, so onto the actual topic of the day: the preparation and racing at US Nationals 2022.
A few days after the Midwest Super Tour races in December (which Jordan wrote about here), Ingrid, Christian, Andrew and I flew out to Salt Lake City to prepare for some of the biggest races of the year: US Nationals. Our little family got to stay for a week with an extremely nice couple in Park City where we had a lot of time to relax, train, enjoy some beautiful scenery, and acclimate to altitude. Thank you so much to Steve and Susan; true heroes!
Susan is a real role model and when I get even older than I am now I will strive towards being an incredible chef and engaging people around me in fun activities like she does! We got to decorate the Christmas tree, decorate cookies, play a lot of fun board games, make personal pizzas and so much more!
Pretty decent cookie-decorating by Team Birkie.
In addition to the great company, the skiing in Park City was a straight out of a dream! Sunny and 23F (-5 Celsius) everyday! I am not used to that. It was a huge bonus to get a little tan going as well as absorbing some high-quality D-vitamin.
Below are some pictures from our days in Park City:
Ingrid smiling along with the sun!
Andrew and Ingrid leading the way at Round Valley.
Me taking a selfie while Andrew, Christian, Steve, and Ingrid focus on good technique.
After about a week in Park City, we left for Heber which is closer to the race venue and at a slightly lower altitude. Tony joined us at this time, making it a group of five the perfect number for card games! Christian introduced us all to some very stressful, fun games, and I was lucky enough to be the most-winning player of “Nertz”, which I am very proud of. My fifteen years of experience playing solitaire with myself finally paid off!
We kept training, relaxing, and made a lot of good food in Heber while preparing for the races.
Tony, Christian, Andrew and Ingrid enjoying some fresh cinnamon rolls and coffee after intervals Christmas morning. A very charming group of people here.
The two weeks leading up to the races were not purely for vacation and enjoyment purposes, but rather to prepare for the races we had coming up. My last time racing at altitude was at US Nationals in 2017 at Soldier Hollow, so I was very excited and slightly nervous to see how (and if) I would handle the altitude and the courses. During our pre-camp, I could feel that each passing day made me feel more fresh, motivated, and confident that the body adapted and learned how to recover vs the first few days after arriving. It also helped mentally to feel like I knew the course after being able to ski there almost every day for about two weeks.
The training plan leading up to the races looked very similar to the rest of the year, but with less volume and some slightly harder intervals. It can be weird to train less, but also very nice when you are trying to build energy and shape for important races. I believe that the weeks in Park City and Heber were the perfect combination of Holiday enjoyment and training for our big races!
A few days after Christmas, Jordan, Renae Anderson and Morgan Richter moved into our Heber house rental and the boys moved out to another apartment. It was now only a few days away from the first race of the championships and we could clearly tell based on the bananas being sold out at the local grocery store two days in a row and the amount of people at the venue! It was time for the final preparation and dialing the small details in. We tested skis, did our laundry and got a lot of sleep and rest.
Renae preparing some skis for testing. The small details matter.
At the same time as we were making our final preparations for what was about to happen in Utah, Zak was in Europe competing in the Tour de Ski, one of the coolest (my personal opinion) world cups of the year! These were his first ever world cups, and we were so proud and excited waking up early to watch and cheer! He wrote about his experiences on his own blog here.
The US National championships this year were held at Soldier Hollow Nordic venue which hosted the Olympics in 2002. The venue is at an altitude of around 5500 ft, or about 1700m above sea level. The venue is in a beautiful area with mountains surrounding the whole stadium!
Scenic Soldier Hollow on a sunny day!
The first race was January 2nd with a skate sprint on the plan. The course measured about 1.56km and had three hills with some turns and a technical downhill included. It was a really cool course which required you to focus and be determined to take the turns and make up time where it would be important. You had to work all the way until the finish, and I can only speak for myself, but man, it was rough. I could have paced it slightly better leaving my legs with a little bit more energy for the finishing stretch! Next time! ☺
The sprint day was cold, so our lungs got to do some work as well. If you would have been in our house in the afternoon you would have heard and experienced the phenomenon of “race cough!” It was a good day with the techs working super hard to give us some great skis and we all tried our absolute best to move on!
Getting some coffee for techs and coaches before going back to our house to relax. It’s important to keep them energized and awake.
On January 3rd, we had a day off to test skis and prepare for the skate mass start. On a day in between two races it can be challenging to know what to do or not to do, so I consulted with coach and historically incredible skier, Caitlin Gregg about what would be smart. Her advice was just to ski easy, test skis and not be out there for too long!
January 4th was the skate mass start and men started first, at 9am local time. The men had a 30km on the plan, doing 8 laps of the 3.75km course which had a lot of climbing and technical features included. There were some incredible performances out there and our men looked strong and fit, leaving it all on the course and making the women nervous watching from the couch!
The women did a 20km; 6 laps of the 3.5km course. Our race was little later in the day but the team had a good day! My highlight of the day was taking feeds on almost every lap – the best tasting one was the coffee/coke mix on lap 5! So extremely good.
Results from the Skate Sprint can be found here:
Results from the Skate Distance can be found here:
Some pictures from the Skate Distance race (Jackie Schneider):
Coming from the Midwest, we were prepared for anything, and our techs worked so hard the whole week to make best skis possible! For the two classic races, the conditions were different than on the skate days, and with classic skiing you also need kick, so the wax techs had some very long days in the wax trailer (5:30am – 9pm)… We are so thankful for all the work they are doing, and they should all be getting MVP awards every weekend! Shoutout to my dad who came from Norway with my Christmas gifts and to help wax too!
Back to the race recap: January 6th Classic Distance races (Men 15km, Women 10km) individual start. As I mentioned earlier, the conditions were challenging, but so was getting dressed. It was a mix of snow/freezing rain and I was not sure what to wear. It ended up being great, but I think everyone was a bit stressed there for a while.
The last day of the week was not a part of the championship series but was a SuperTour/RMISA college race. It was a classic sprint, and the course was the same as on the Skate Sprint with some decent striding hills and double pole into the finish! I think everyone was starting to feel all the racing, but the energy at Soldier Hollow that day might have suggested otherwise! The sun was heating us up and making everyone happy and it was a great day to spend outside!
Classic Distance Results here:
Classic Sprint Results here:
We had a great time in Utah with some great racing and hard competitions! The new year has just begun, and we are so excited for more racing!
Ingrid and Jordan hoping that I am a safe enough driver to get them from point A to point B, this time Heber to Sun Valley!
For the rest of this week, some of us (Ingrid, Jordan, Zak and I) will be in sunny Sun Valley competing at the SuperTours here with an individual start skate distance race on Saturday (January 15th, Men: 10km, Women: 5km), followed by a mass start classic race on Sunday (January 16th, Men 15km, Women 10km). After that we will be back in Minnesota for a few days/weeks depending on what races each of us will do.
Personally, I am very excited to get some good training in at Wirth (rumor is that the conditions are incredible) and prepare for the next SuperTour races which will be in Lake Placid, NY and Craftsbury, VT in the beginning of February!
Thank you so much for reading and I am looking forward to meeting you on the trails! HAPPY NEW YEAR and happy skiing!
