U23 Worlds!

Hello from Prague! (It’s Paige.)

We just wrapped up U23 Worlds in Almaty, Kazakhstan this week, and I am now headed to Nove Mesto, Czech Republic for some more racing!

Worlds was an amazing experience. Who can ever say they’ve been to Kazakhstan, let alone ski raced there? None of us had any idea what to expect, and I think we were all surprised.

the view of the stadium in Almaty

Kazakhstan (for those who don’t know) is the largest landlocked country in the world. Its mixture of ethnicities created by borders with China, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia creates a population that is amazingly welcoming of other cultures. The city and country are ecstatic to be hosting Worlds this year, and World University Games next year, and when asked if they want their country to host the Olympics in 2022, they respond with a very enthusiastic “YES!” The people are incredibly nice, and the newly constructed cross country ski venue had some spectacular views of the Himalayas and the city of Almaty itself. We all had to adjust to not being able to read any of the signs anywhere and not being able to understand ANY of the language, but each team was assigned a Kazakh volunteer to act as ambassador for the week, and ours was amazing in helping us navigate the city and answer our crazy questions about Kazakh culture.

The race courses were technically challenging while offering spectators amazing coverage of the races. The classic sprint course ran out of the stadium and then headed into a downhill with 4 switchback turns, only to flip around at the bottom and come climbing uphill for the last half of a k. The distance courses held the same switchback format only heading uphills with a ripping down hill to come into the stadium. It was a great opportunity to learn how to corner on both classic and skate skis.

most of the sprint course

Although the races didn’t go as well as I had hoped, the week offered some eye-opening learning experiences about racing, training, and traveling on the other side of the world. It’s a very different ball game over here, which I know by now people are used to hearing, but you don’t really understand it until you’re thrown in a race with other countries. The skiing is aggressive, risky, and dramatic, which makes it exciting but also really really difficult. Skiers here “send it” from the gate and start hammering without letting up. When it works, it can result in some amazing ski races. But when it doesn’t, it can result in some epic fails. I’m excited to try to learn to race like that, throwing everything I have into the race from the get-go and hoping I can hang on!

the haze you see is smog

The city of Almaty is working really hard to become an environmentally green city by 2050, and they have amazing gardens and parks and trees within the city which make it look spectacular in the summer. But because it’s a large city and has been powered by coal for so long, there was a cloud of pollution that would roll in to the city each day and reduce visibility and breathability. Nordic skiers are so used to fresh air and clean snow that I think this was a big shock to everyone. But just like any ski race, you adapt to the conditions. So with the help of breathability masks and creatively timed training, we slowly adjusted to the difference in air quality. It was a mental challenge as much as a physical one, but by the time the races hit we were so focused on skiing fast that we stopped focusing on it!

Another lesson learned was adjusting to such drastic time differences. Almaty is 13 hours ahead of Sun Valley, Idaho and our travel there took around 30 hours. Then we had a couple of days to try to stay awake through the day and try to sleep at night. I was super wishing I brought along some Lizzie’s Fresh Coffee because all of the coffee in Kazakhstan is freeze-dried!!

The U.S. had one of it’s most spectacular years at World Juniors/U23 Worlds this year, and it was an amazing experience to be a part of the team and representing the country. Thank you to the National Nordic Foundation for all of its amazing support. Without it this trip wouldn’t be possible, and it plays a fundamental part in the development of fast American skiers.

Psyched to represent the USA!!

From here it’s on to Nove Mesto (Czech Republic) for some racing, then Campra (Switzerland) and then I’ll meet up with Mary, Miles, and Colin in Rogla for some OPA Cups! I can’t wait to see everyone!!

More updates soon!

Paige

Travel, Race, Travel, Race, Repeat: World Cup Edition

Part I

It has been a busy couple weeks since the US National Championships in Houghton, Michigan concluded on January 10th. After ten days of cold, humid, windy, and snowy Houghton, the scheduled departure was a welcome occurrence. However, it was a very well run and organized US Nationals, with great trails and great competition. I look forward to races there again, albeit I wouldn’t be opposed to a little more mild weather….

Immediately after the final race in Houghton I hitched a ride with Brent Knight, a midwest Salomon rep, down to Minneapolis as I had a flight to catch the next day. He set me up at his house for the night, took me somewhere to run in the morning, and drove me to the airport for my flight in the evening. Big thanks to him for helping me out. I was flying to Europe to race two weekends on the cross country World Cup. My fast racing in the beginning of the year put me in first place on the domestic circuit, which gave me start rights in two weekends of World Cup racing in Otepaa, Estonia and Rybinsk, Russia.

I was flying Minneapolis-Chicago-Copenhagen-Tallinn. Tallinn is the capital of Estonia, which is a Baltic state directly across the Gulf of Finland from Helsinki. You could be forgiven for not knowing where Estonia is, as the first time I went there I had to check it out on a map. Estonia has done well outside the Soviet Union- it is part of the EU and uses the Euro for currency. The country is sometimes known as E-stonia due to its leveraging of internet technology for its government and business services.

I arrived in Tallinn in the evening, but my ski bag did not. I filed a claim and was told it would come on the next flight and be shipped to me the following morning. A friend of mine (Aivar Rehmaa) who skis World Cup for Estonia and lives in Otepaa happened to be arriving at Tallinn airport the same time as me so I was able to get a ride with him for the three hour drive to Otepaa. A couple years ago I spent the month of July training with Aivar in Otepaa so it was good to see him again. I arrived two days before the US Ski Team as I wanted as many days as possible to adjust to the time change before I raced. It was really nice that I was arriving in a place where I knew someone who could give me a ride from the airport and give me a place to stay for a couple days.

The first morning I called the airline to see about my ski bag…. Not only did they inform me that it did not come in, but they couldn’t even locate where it was. They couldn’t even confirm I had checked a ski bag. Great news! So Aivar was not only my ride, place to stay, and translator, he was also my ski rep, providing me with skis to train on for the first few days I was in Otepaa. Three days later, and right before my first race, my ski bag arrived. It was a close one! I had decided to race just the Team Sprint in Otepaa, since the nature of the race is more like a distance race than a sprint and Erik Bjornsen needed a partner.

With my skis finally arrived and some days for adjusting, I was ready for the team sprint. I had only done one team sprint ever up to this point, that having happened more than six years ago in a US Supertour event. Fortunately some of the other guys gave me a few things to consider and laid out how the race was likely to play out, so I felt confident heading into the race. Erik and I didn’t set a result based goal, we just went into the race with a plan to ski smooth, smart, and be in position in the pack when moves were made. We accomplished our goals and skied a great race, just missing advancing to the final round.

Here is the Ski Stadium in Otepaa during the classic sprint the first day. The waxing was tricky! No spectators allowed in the stadium, lest they block a tv shot!

We ended up 11^th on the day and were satisfied. It was a good confidence boost to mix it up on the course with seasoned World Cup veterans and come out with a respectable finish. The team sprint is a really fun event, I will take any chance I get to do another one.

After the team sprint there was two days of rest in Otepaa before the long travel day to Rybinsk. Unfortunately I got sick right after the team sprint and spent my two training days in my hotel room in isolation.

Part II

The travel day to Rybinsk started easy enough: A 6am departure on a three hours bus ride to Tallinn, followed by an hour flight into Moscow. At this point I was blowing off all the talk from people who told me the travel to Rybinsk was really long and hard. This seemed like an easy travel day as we only had 175 miles between us and Rybinsk- that’s a two and a half hour drive, at most. Easy day right? My positive thoughts of a two and a half hour drive were quickly dashed when I got on the bus and we started driving….. 1) The bus driver couldn’t find it in his foot to push the gas any harder than about 45 miles per hour at any given time. And 2) The “roads” were terrible. When people hear this in the US in the winter they think terrible means snowy/icy/slippery. When I say the roads were terrible in Russia I mean they were cracked, potholed, frost heaved, narrow, and dark. And these were the main “roads”, not some backwoods shortcut. Six and a half hours of bouncing and bumping through pitch dark and desolate Russian countryside, we arrived in Rybinsk at our hotel. It was a very long day and I now wholeheartedly endorse the “Rybinsk is a long and hard travel day from anywhere” idea.

A “road”

We were staying at the race venue in the sport hotel. The finish line was 200 meters from where I slept. It was fun to be right there as a World Cup cross country race in rural Russia turns out a lot of fans! There was ice skating and live music, food, drinks, some dancing, and of course the races. The local people that came out for the races were really excited to watch and see the athletes. A lowly unknown American like me was accosted multiple times for autographs and pictures. I can’t imagine how the well known Russian skiers who were on the podium that weekend could even walk through the crowd to the wax/start/athlete area. These people were into it! Unfortunately after being sick earlier in the week my races were not what I was looking for. I prepared as best I could but did not race great. That’s racing. However, I did give the races a good effort and manage to accomplish some small personal goals that will help me in the next races.

Looking back at the stadium, .5km into the distance courses.

Ice sculpture of a bear in the stadium

Looking at the entrance to the stadium

Looking into the Stadium

I am now in Trondheim, Norway until February 13^th. After Rybinsk I travelled here for some good training and preparation for my next races- which I found out last Monday would be more World Cups and World Championships! Last Monday I was officially named to the World Championships team for the USA! I will be racing in one more World Cup in Oestersund, Sweden on February 15^th, then to Falun, Sweden for the World Ski Championships! This will be my first World Champs and I am really excited about it.

Nationals!

After Rossland, B.C., we all parted ways for the Holidays. After spending about a week at our respective homes, we all met up in Houghton, MI for the 2015 National Championships. Overall, it was a good week for the Gold Team athletes.

Here are some highlights:

-Paige Schember qualified for U23 World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan!

-Miles finished 6th in the Skate Sprint

-Matt and Mary were in the top 10 on multiple occasions

-Miles and Mary qualified for the OPA Cup trip

Lowlights:

-Ben suffered from some injuries during the week as well as dealt with some vertigo. He is on the mend now!

-Makayla came down with a long illness that kept her from competing in the first half of Nationals.

Results:

Skate 10k/15k Results

Classic Sprint Results

Classic 20k/30k Results

Skate Sprint Results

Check out these blogs to get a better insight to our time in Houghton, MI…it was definitely a memorable week!

Mary’s Blog

Paige’s Blog

Start of the Season!

After leaving a not so Frozen Thunder, the Gold Team has been busy! A simple 16 hour drive led us back from Canmore, AB to Ketchum for some recovery and final preparations for West Yellowstone. Sun Valley had decent snow so we were able to get in some quality skiing.

Everyone arrived healthy and happy in West Yellowstone, except Ben Lustgarten who was not feeling well and spent the first few days in the hotel room recovering from vertigo. Fortunately, there was good snow in town so no Plateau ski time was needed. A few days of good race prep led the Gold Team to the first races of the season, a skate sprint and a 10/15km individual start skate race.

Frozen Thunder!

The Sun Valley XC Gold Team, along with the two Sun Valley post graduate skiers, made the long trip up to Canmore, Alberta for some on snow skiing! The drive was a casual 14 hours long so we all got to watch the sun rise and then set, and then some more driving. We can all agree that the several highlights of the trip was listening to the recording of a radio host prank calling some very angry and frustrated lady multiple times about a wrestling TV subscription, watching a few men in suits and bowler hats buy over 30 bottles of alcohol at the border in Sweet Grass, Montana, or the delicious dinner we had at Chili’s in Calgary. We picked up Mary and Miles, those of the group lucky enough to fly and not drive all day, from the airport in Calgary and then made it to the World Mark hotel by about 12:30 am.

The 2014-15 Gold Team! Top: Ben Lustgarten, Matthew Gelso, Colin Rogders (coach), Miles Havlick, Tim Baucom (wax tech/coach) Bottom: Paige Schember, Mary Rose, Makayla Cappel

The first day brought with it a super high stoke factor, naturally, because it was our first time on snow in many months! I also was surprised to see the huge mountains right outside the entrance of the World Mark hotel. I guess I knew that we were in Canmore and I have been here once before, but it just shocked me to see such gorgeous, snow-covered peaks surrounding me. The two hour easy skate ski just flew by on the man-made 2.2km of skiing we had at the Canmore Nordic Center. It was fun to see members of the US Ski Team, SMST2 team, along with many other Canadian cross country skiers and biathletes. All of us seemed to have a perfectly good time milling around in circles for a few hours on some frozen water, pretty easy to please a cross country skier in October:)
In addition to our morning workouts we all got together to do an afternoon training session, usually on snow. The first few days consisted of easy distance skis, both skate and classic, with some solid technique work by doing some no pole and one pole skiing. Yesterday we started to ramp up the intensity a bit with some hard and fun skate speeds! I got to try and keep up with Miles and Matt and it was awesome to see Braden and Sam crush the speeds as well! Everyone seemed to enjoy going fast, a good preview for this coming winter when Sun Valley will be crushing the race circuits!!
We all did some light bounding and explosive spenst training yesterday afternoon followed by a strength session in the gym. It got abit crowded when the local younger nordic club came in and kind of took over the gym, but good to see everyone trying to get fit and strong and in shape for skiing!

Tomorrow we will be doing our first threshold workout on snow of this year! I’m pretty excited to see how I feel doing intensity on snow and getting into a good rhythm and poking my head into the pain cave, maybe taking a few steps in as well. It should begood, I’m stoked for it:)

We have had some gorgeous mornings that I can’t stop taking pictures of. And I am sure that tomorrow should be just another beautiful day here in Canmore, Alberta!!
-Sun Valley XC Gold Team

With views like this, waking up early every morning and skiing in the dark is a pretty easy task.

Welcome to the XC Gold Team Blog!

Who We Are:

The XC Gold Team is a professional cross-country ski racing team based in Sun Valley, Idaho as part of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. We are a group of elite-level athletes striving to reach our goals of national and international success. In conjunction with the development of our professional ski racing careers, we work hard to promote and grow the sport of cross-country skiing through community engagement, outreach, and development.

Through this blog you can engage with and become part of the XC Gold Team community.  We want to share our experiences and stories in order to give you a glimpse of what it means to be an elite cross-country skier on the XC Gold Team and to fuel your own passion for this awesome sport.

Happy Reading!

– XC Gold Team