Nordic Nation

In this episode, we speak with Kris Freeman. For those unfamiliar with Freeman, he skied in four Olympics from 2002 to 2014, placed fourth on two occasions at the World Championships in the 15 k classic, and stayed at the sharp end of American distance skiing until retiring in 2018. After leaving the ski realm, Freeman -- now 40-years old -- switched his focus to long distance triathlon and has now completed IronMan Lake Placid twice, first in 2019 and second this summer, where he qualified for the Kona World Championships. 

All the while, Freeman has managed Type 1 diabetes, which he has explained is inseparable from his training, racing, and day to day life. Now an advocate and role model for athletes with Type 1 diabetes, Freeman has fastidiously documented his own methods of balancing synthetic insulin and glucose in alignment with his training and racing throughout his career and is an expert in the area of blood sugar management in sport. 

In this conversation, Freeman explains the evolution of his own use of continuous glucose monitoring, the vital importance that blood sugar management has for him compared to a non-diabetic athlete, and his thoughts on the launch of Supersapiens, which is propelling continuous glucose monitoring into the athletic space. Freeman references this recent article on Gus Schumacher and his experience as a member of the Supersapiens pilot group of athletes.

For more with Freeman, you can listen to this 2017 episode of Nordic Nation, or through FasterSkier’s deep archives. Thanks for listening. 

In early July, the American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation announced the launch of the Team Birkie professional racing team. The elite post-graduate training group would pull from the three primary midwestern clubs, the Loppet Foundation, Central Cross Country Skiing (or CXC), and the American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation. While the midwest has a strong culture of cross country skiing with a breadth of strong youth and masters racing teams, it has been nearly a decade since the area has had a consistent robust training group that could support athletes at the elite level. In their words, this program fills this gap to allow “the next Jessie Diggins [to] stay home to train, inspire future generations, and win Olympic medals.”

Team Birkie will be based from the Trailhead at Wirth Park in Minneapolis, headquarters of The Loppet Foundation, and led by Head Coach Caitlin Gregg, who has spent her own career training in the area alongside her husband and fellow professional ski racer Brian Gregg. The duo -- known as Team Gregg -- forged their own path to the upper echelon of the domestic and international cross country race scene, gaining experience in writing their own training and supporting their careers along the way. [Find Team Gregg on a 2017 episode of Nordic Nation here.]

For those unfamiliar with Caitlin, her resume spans more than a decade of elite level ski racing; Caitlin earned her first World Cup starts in Vancouver in 2009 and was slated to start at the Minneapolis World Cup and Canmore World Cup finals in March 2020 before they were cancelled because of the impending pandemic. Those recent starts would have been just over a year after the birth of her daughter, Heidi, who is now two and a half years old and can regularly be found tagging along for her parents training. 

She is a 2015 World Championship Bronze Medalist, a 2010 Olympian, and a 5 time winner of the American Birkie. Caitlin was also a member of five World Championship teams and won eight National Championship titles, with several more podium finishes. Gregg is also no stranger to disappointment; there have also been near misses for team selection, as was the case for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi and when the 2016 US Ski team nominations rolled out.

While she does not yet consider herself retired as an athlete, this transition to leading the charge and growing Team Birkie does mark a shift in the focus of her overall ski career, as we discuss in this conversation. Caitlin also speaks to the evolution of the concept behind Team Birkie and the structure of the training group for the upcoming season. She is now one of only two female coaches at her level in the US -- alongside Pepa Miloucheva of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project -- and the only mother. Caitlin discusses the support this requires, and how her career as a whole has provided ample insights that allow her to be a role model for her athletes. 

You can find Caitlin on Instagram @Caitlincgregg (with two G’s) and follow along with Team Birkie at @teambirkie. Thanks for listening.

As far as teams go on the cross-country World Cup, Great Britain arrives at the show with perhaps the smallest team roster and staff. Somehow, they often roar when considering the results. We know British Nordic from the sharp end skiing of Andrew Musgrave, and sprinters Andrew Young and James Clugnet.
 

Like all teams on the circuit, the human capital behind the Lycra-clad skiers make the travel, training, and race grind happen. In this episode of Nordic Nation we speak with the two coaches leading the British team - Hans Kristian Stadheim and Jostein Vinjerui. The two coaches are Norwegian and are based in Norway full-time. Which makes things easy considering the three thoroughbreds of the British team - Musgrave, Young, and Clugnet - live in Norway as well.

The organizational model premised on elite athletes living abroad, in this case Norway, outside their home country might not be for every team. In the case of Britain, so far, it appears to have worked. The athletes and coaches are able to capitalize on their personal and professional relationships to tap into Norway’s cross-country ski know-how and arguably overreach when it comes to the expectations of a non-traditional ski nation like Britain.

We should note that Vinjerui and Stadheim, as well as their skiers, host a podcast that’s a fun and informative listen. You can find their podcast, Inside Cross-Country Skiing, wherever you get your podcasts. 

Thanks for listening and we hope your spring is going well.

If you have the good fortune to spend time in the Gunnison Valley of Colorado, perhaps on Crested Butte Nordic’s extensive trail system, exploring the Elk Mountain backcountry on mountain bike or skis, or taking laps on Mount Crested Butte, you may cross paths with a friendly red-haired resident who is likely moving faster and breathing easier than you are. Known locally as an aerobic machine, 25-year-old Cam Smith embraces all mountain sports as training to support his burgeoning development as an elite ski mountaineering (SkiMo) racer. 

Originally focused on running, Smith moved from Illinois to study exercise science at Western Colorado University in Gunnison. Embracing everything the school’s mountain sports program had to offer, Smith began trail running, mountain biking, cross country skiing with the USCSA program, and was convinced by his older sister, who was also attending Western, to be her teammate for the 40 mile Grand Traverse ski race from Crested Butte to Aspen. 

Flash forward through a few years of dedicated skill development and steady progress: Smith was a member of the 2019-20 US Ski Mountaineering Association National Team and won two events at the 2020 National Championships, the uphill only vertical race in just under 20 minutes and the longer individual race which lasted 3 hours 48 minutes. (Because of the pandemic and a lack of qualifying events, a national team was not selected this season.)

Smith was selected to compete in the World Championships in 2017 and 2019, racing in additional World Cup races in the 2018-2020 seasons. His best international finishes to date include an 8th place finish in the team race at the 2019 World Championships in Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland with partner John Gaston, and a 7th place World Cup team finish racing with Rory Kelly. Individually, he’s taken 18th in the vertical race at the 2019 World Championships, and 20th in a 2020 World Cup vertical race in Jennerstier, Germany. 

Alongside his 20-plus hour training weeks (often with astounding amounts of vertical gain), Smith plays a variety of roles within the Crested Butte community, including coaching the masters' performance groups and youth programs at CB Nordic, assisting adaptive athletes on the mountain through the Crested Butte Adaptive Sports Center, and teaching strength and conditioning classes at a local gym. 

In response to the pandemic, Smith shifted his focus to the well-established local racing opportunities. Instead of chasing a World Cup top-15, he made a goal of setting a new course record on what he calls “The Elk Mountain Classics”: the Gothic Mountain Tour in Crested Butte, the Power of Four in Aspen, and the Grand Traverse. Smith also hopped into two of the CB Nordic town series interval start skate races, winning each. 

At the time of our call, Smith had checked two of the three course record boxes: dropping the Gothic Mountain Tour record by over ten minutes to 3:37:06, and the Power of Four record by thirteen to 4:15:21 with World Championship partner John Gaston. As cross-country skiers well know, conditions on the day impact the possibility of chasing these records, but the results are nonetheless a testament to fitness and strength. Smith was lucky enough to have the two factors align symbiotically on the day.

Given his humble and easygoing nature, he probably wouldn’t tell you about any of this unless you knew to ask.

Smith also looked outside athletic development for his season goals. Dedicating his training and race performance at the Grand Traverse to Living Journeys, a local nonprofit that holistically supports individuals with cancer and their families during treatment, Smith set out to raise $15,000. This goal has already been exceeded; however, if you’d like to support his cause, you can donate here. 

It also turns out Smith and his partner for the Grand Traverse, Tom Goth, set a new course record in 6:06:24. 

In this conversation, Smith shares more about his development from mountain-sport-newbie to national champion. We also discuss how he still includes nordic skiing to support his SkiMo training, and how a versatile approach to yearly training paired with some sport-specific blocks could serve masters athletes focused on premier races like the Birkie.

Thanks for listening. 

This podcast is part of a series on female athlete specific physiology and sports nutrition. With the help of experts and novel research in this area, this series unpacks how the menstrual cycle might influence training adaptations and provides female athletes and coaches with the information to help optimize fueling and training schedules accordingly.

Based in Boulder, Colorado, Maddie Alm is the face of Fueling Forward, a sports nutrition business helping athletes of all levels improve their nutrition in and out of training to help optimize their training adaptations and health. In addition to being a registered dietician with a masters degree in nutritional sciences, Alm is a professional track athlete specializing in the 5k. Alm is a member of the Team Boss running team. She is currently working toward the goal of competing in the Olympic track trials. 

After joining the renowned team at Colorado University Boulder as a walk-on, Alm was introduced to a nutritionist who helped her improve the quality of her diet and add in additional fuel between workouts to help her get more out of her training. By fueling herself properly, Alm developed into an All American, sparking her own interest in sports nutrition and her desire to help others optimize their own athletic performance through proper fueling.

To Alm, this means developing and sharing an “all foods fit” philosophy which makes eating a high quality diet that matches your training load simple and sustainable. Collaborating with other experts in the area, Alm has also recently taken on a side project in the area of female athlete physiology and nutrition. 

In this episode, Alm breaks down how hormonal fluctuations during each phase of the menstrual cycle impact nutritional demands and offers specific suggestions on how athletes might tweak their diet accordingly to ensure their body gets the fuel and hydration it needs. She also discusses how athletes who are negatively affected by PMS symptoms might experiment with their nutrition to reduce the severity of these effects, thereby lessening the extent to which they take away from training or performance. 

For more from Alm, you can follow her business account on Instagram @fuelingforward or her athletic profile @madsalm12. The specifics of her sports nutrition services and her “Simple Start: 28 Days to Fueling Better” program can be found on her website: https://www.fuelingforward.com/. 

A lack of on-snow opportunities. Although a major first-world problem, that's been on the mind of some this offseason. Here and there, we've published stories about a strict dryland diet for elite skiers this season. Meaning, no on-snow training. Mostly, that strict diet has applied to North Americans who normally access snow in late spring and summer at a variety of venues.

The Haig Glacier and its Beckie Scott High Altitude Training Center have been a Canadian go-to for years. The same can be said for APU's Thomas Training Center on Alaska's Eagle Glacier. In Europe, where glacier infrastructure is more common, access to higher altitude snow in summer has been part of the elite cross-country skier training plan for decades. Austria's Dachstein Glacier and it's groomed nordic trails are a world-class benchmark for those seeking summer snow.

Which brings us to 83-year-old Marty Hall. For those who a new to ski racing, Hall was both a U.S. and Canadian head cross-country ski coach and groundbreaker. He was and still is keen on expanding his knowledge. That was the case in the mid-'70s when Hall began taking U.S. skiers to the Dachstein as part of his plan to expose athletes to European training methods.

In this episode, we speak with Hall to learn about the first trips to the Dachstein and how it all came about. It's part history lesson, part walk down memory lane.

Thanks for listening and stay safe out there.

Something a bit different on the podcast today. In the spirit of high mountains and the autumn season which is often the time many seek any iteration of mountain film. During normal times, we flock to touring mountain film festivals to celebrate. You know, solid storytelling and vibrant images to help us dream a bit bigger. 

Some of you may have already watched LHOTSE, a film featuring ski mountaineers Hialree Nelson and Jim Morrison as they complete the first descent down the steep and scratchy Lhotse Couloir in the Nepal Himalaya. It’s a film that featured at the upcoming Banff Virtual Mountain Film Festival. Let’s just say the film has it all: A compelling tale to tell, lovely mountain backdrops, the thinnest of air, and two athletes in Nelson and Morrison living in the moment.

With all this in mind, I followed my curiosity. I wanted to know more about who captured the footage and crafted the film. That led me to filmmakers Dutch Simpson and Nick Kalisz. Both are spirited creatives who also happen to be mountain savvy. We spoke to Simpson and Kalisz to learn about their experiences on the project and how they captured a now storied ski descent. We should note, the scale of the climbing and ski expedition, which went down in September 2018, was by all measures minimalist. The typical climbing season on Everest, which is close to the summit of Lhotse, is in April and May. By September, these mountains are ghost towns by comparison. If you are looking for more information on the ski descent, National Geographic provides. 

Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoyed this small diversion from talk associated with the skinny skis. 

A few weeks back, we featured an excerpt from a new book titled Nordic Warrior? A Midlife Crisis in Biathlon. Written by Ithaca, New York, based biathlete, Craig Wiggers, the book explores his love affair with biathlon which began midlife.

Wiggers' path to biathlon is as circuitous as they come. Raised in the deep south, Wiggers attended school at Auburn University and spent a full career hopscotching around the globe as a U.S. Marine. He was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a safe bet to assume sliding on snow was a new and eventually welcome prospect when Wiggers and his family settled in Ithaca for a position at Cornell University.

What is refreshing about Wiggers is his joy in finding a new passion and being welcomed into the biathlon community as a newbie. There's no pretense about having learned to ski at a young age or having Olympic aspirations. His is a down to earth tale - he simply wants to improve.

You can find his book on Amazon for less than a dollar. All proceeds are donated to U.S. Biathlon.

U.S. Biathlon Team and Craftsbury Green Racing Project biathlete Kelsey Dickinson conducted this interview. 

In this episode, we hear from a familiar voice - someone, in fact, we’ve heard from recently on the podcast, former elite cross-country skier Noah Hoffman. Post-race career, Hoffman has been deeply involved in the anti-doping movement as an educator, lobbyist, and content creator. This conversation is from Hoffman's content creation side. A few months back the US Anti Doping Agency (USADA) posted a six-plus minute video interview between Hoffman and Dr. Edwin Moses - a famed track and field athlete, anti-doping reformer, and voice for equity in sport.

This episode features the full unreleased 30 plus minute interview - one where Moses discusses how best to empower athletes and build racial equity. This is an opportunity to hear one of the most fearless voices in sports. Along with his activism, Moses is a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the 400 m hurdles. Those are a few of his storied athletic accolades. He's an icon.

Off the track, Moses speaks for the rights of athletes. His is among a rarefied list of athletes who have chosen to challenge the power brokers in Olympic sport. He served on and chaired WADA's Education Committee. He held true to his values while serving WADA as an outspoken critic seeking institutional reforms from within. He was a key figure in developing drug testing protocols, and he served on the IOC's Athlete Commission, Medical Commission, and Ethics Commission. Today, Moses holds an Emeritus Chair with USADA where he continues his fight.

Below are two Op-eds by Moses:

WADA's Credibility Rides on Its Russia Decision

Challenge to WADA

Last fall, FasterSkier spoke with former Williams Ski Team member Jordan Fields after his impressive effort on the Presidential Traverse in the White Mountains of Northern New Hampshire. This classic point-to-point route leads travelers over eight summits in roughly 18 miles, including Mt Washington, which clocks in at 6,288 ft as the highest elevation peak in the Northeast. Over the years, many have raced the clock against the storied challenge of traversing the range as fast as possible, and the fastest known time (FKT) has slowly been whittled down from roughly five hours in 2010 into uncharted territory. 

Stopping his watch at the bottom of Crawford Path 3 hours and 42 minutes after leaving the northern trailhead in Appalachia last September, Fields smashed the previous record by an astounding 22 minutes. 

“One of the silver linings of COVID was that it maybe left me with a little too much flexibility,” Fields laughed as he discussed the steady stream of impressive days he spent in the mountains this summer.

Despite also being fully plugged into a graduate program in Geology at Dartmouth College studying the impact of climate change on the ecology of rivers, he set a new FKT each month beginning in June on the Kinsman Ridge Traverse near Franconia, NH, followed by Mt. Katahdin in northern Maine in July. From there, Fields turned his focus to two other iconic White Mountains routes: the 29 mile Pemigewasset (Pemi) Loop and the 45 mile Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) Hut Traverse.

Like the Presi Traverse, the Pemi Loop has been a test piece for hardy New England mountain runners, boasting 9,100’ of climbing with ample scrambling up and down the rocky granite peaks above tree line. (Jessie Diggins ran this as her “Big Stupid” birthday adventure in early September.)

 
As Fields explains in the interview, his Pemi Loop FKT on August 1st was a bit impromptu. The day started as a scouting mission with a friend, but when he realized at the top of the first major climb 8 miles in that they were on record pace, he decided to leave his friend behind, go for it, and see what happened. Woefully unprepared for a race effort, Fields went on to experience the most epic of bonks. He had packed food that was appropriate for a casual jaunt, but wouldn’t sit while chasing a record. Because the route stays high along the ridge line there is only one reliable opportunity to fill water, and it was a 90 degree day, Fields found himself wishing he had packed more than two 500 mL soft flasks. Nevertheless, he made it back to the trailhead in 5 hours and 27 minutes for a new record. Though he feels he can significantly drop the time, he opted not to return to the Pemi Loop this fall and began piecing together the Hut Traverse. 

For those who have spent a season working as AMC “Hut Croo”, or even perhaps stayed at one of the huts, this pilgrimage likely gives you goosebumps. With records dating back to the 1930’s, connecting the eight huts beginning at Carter and finishing at Lonesome Lake has long been a right of passage for Croo and trail stewards in the rich lore of the White Mountains. 

And get this: the route encompasses the Presidential Traverse, though you get to skip a couple of the peaks, and roughly a third of the Pemi Loop, racking up over 16,000 ft of climbing and ending on a steep climb out of Franconia Notch. 

Chasing former Greenleaf Croo member Jeff Colt’s 2018 record, Fields dropped the time to 10 hours 24 minutes. With the FKT on the Presi Traverse and the Pemi Loop, this also finished out the “Triple Crown” of the Whites, and Fields became the first person to hold all three records simultaneously.  

During the interview, Fields discussed the role community played throughout his attempts, particularly with the hut traverse. Though he missed out on the baked goods and encouragement normally offered at the huts because of a combination of COVID and seasonal closures, he had the irreplaceable support of family and friends, and beta from the previous record holder.

Fields explained that he contacted Colt for advice, sheepishly apologizing that he was trying to best his time. Colt was happy to pass on the torch, saying, “That’s what it’s all about: a shared history of experience in the mountains.” 

This phrase stuck with Fields as he put his head down and powered his way through the Whites, encompassing why he enjoys such arduous pastimes. 

In this conversation, Fields shares a deeper look into his FKT attempts and discusses his perspective on the likely COVID-induced  increase in use seen in the White Mountains (and many other mountain regions) this summer. He also talks about his goals for the seasons ahead. Thanks for listening.