A race day through the eyes of a coach.

Crested Butte Colorado. The season opener for Rocky Mtn Nordic Junior Nat Qualifiers. A race day through the eyes of a coach.

Saturday morning, 6:30am I stumbled my way down to the lobby of the Old Town Inn in Crested Butte, Colorado. Finally, race morning. The moment I’ve been waiting 9 months for has arrived. I convince myself it’s ok to eat a cheese danish and drink lots of coffee. I’m going to need all the energy I can get over the next 8 hrs.

6:57am: The team is out the door for our morning run. I think to myself “Everyone else must be excited about racing as they are all early! Very cool!” as I rush out the door to catch up. Well, “very cool” sure was the right thought. I was shocked at the -12 temp as I started to jog down the street. Yep. It sure is winter!

7:30am: Driving to the Nordic center, even though it’s only about a half mile from the hotel proves to be a hefty challenge. The car is so cold it’s hard to start. Good thing Maggie is a good co-pilot, the frost on the window is almost too thick to see through. Ahhh. Seat heaters. So nice.

7:32am: Arrive at the CB Nordic center. Shoot! We’re not the first team there. Vail has already arrived and is waxing skis. Epic fail.

7:45am: All the benches are set up, skis unpacked, irons plugged in. Jeanne is picking up the bibs and Maggie is waxing her skis with start green. Time to go test what we put down for wax yesterday. The course is squeaky cold and almost Alaska slow. This morning it’s not so much about testing what wax is fast, rather testing what wax isn’t horribly slow. Answer: LF4.

8:15am: Coffee break. Currently the fastest wax we have is already down on all the older kids skis.

8:20am: Re-warmed by the coffee; Brent, Maggie, and I start to brush and check over all the older kids skis. A few of the older boys start to wander into the waxing area.

9:45am: The boys (and some girls) are all busy doing speeds to warm up. All the skis have been brushed and are ready to race. Brent and Maggie are heading out to the course to give splits, Jeanne’s on her way to the start/finish stadium, and I’m hanging by the wax bench to check over the younger kids skis as they arrive.

10:00am: Race time! I hear over the radio that the first skier is on course, officially starting the RMN JNQ season. Awesome!

10:01am-12:30pm: The day fly’s by. I get tons of splits over the radio from Brent and Maggie. DNSC athletes are skiing strong and all the fields seem to be tight. Racers are heading up to their start as others are coming down from the finish. Just as soon as it all started, the races are over.

1pm: Pack up the waxing area and head back to the hotel for lunch. We get the wax tables set up at the hotel so the athletes can put down the wax layers for Sunday’s classic race. What a day! I love my job.

Hello Durango Nordic!

Greetings from Geilo, Norway. I have been busy settling in to the cultural changes and the living. Here are some pictures of the experience thus far. Everybody loves pictures!


Geilo, Norway. One of the Alpine areas at about 15:00, when the sun is setting and the sky turns fiery red when you're lucky.

Male 19/20 Sprint Quarter-Final Sprint race in Sjusjøen, Norway.

Female 19/20 Sprint Quarter-Final Sprint race in Sjusjøen, Norway.

Me doing reconnaissance skiing the day before the 10km Classic race in Sjusjøen, Norway. Great sunset.


Sjusjøen, Norway.


Geilo, Norway.


A tunnel I ski/pass under on my way into town and training.


A fog hangs over the lake in Geilo, Norway. There is a perfect 12km loop around it for distance.


Things are going smoothly. It is great to be around people that are so driven by skiing and how it is just a part of who they are. I've been skiing at least 2-3 times a day. There is a 5km lit loop, so skiing after dinner is great. Plus, there is a lake loop, that is 12km, and takes about an hour or less to ski easy around that is perfect for distance training, it just never gets old. Ski tracks surround the town, so not only is it a great way to train, but a great way to get around. The level of competition is extremely high. Norway goes hard, always. The training is rigorous, but worth it. The food is great, and Hamburgers are a big hit here. There is a bowling lane here so I've been perfecting my technique. Obama's visit here was a huge deal to the people in Oslo and in Norway. Sometimes I feel like I am in America because everyone listens to our mainstream music and watches American movies.

I hope everyone's training is going well. I have a lot of core/medicine ball exercises to show the team, it will make you so fast! Good luck this weekend in Crested Butte!

Skål,
Rogan Brown

8 Days in West Yellowstone:

The majority of the J2+ skiers and I just finished am 8 day training camp in West Yellowstone, MT. Here’s a brief recap of how it all went down.

Whoever thought it would be a great idea to stick 12 junior Nordic skiers plus a coach in a condo that is meant to sleep 8 would be a good idea? Well, it was. Sure, our space might have been a bit cramped, especially around lunch and dinner time when 8 Crested Butte athletes would show up to scrounge for food, but it all worked out well enough. The main goal of our 8 days spent in West Yellowstone was time on skis, and of that we got plenty. Over 20hrs of training, plus up to 3 races and still no one wanted to go to bed early by the end of the week. I’m not sure where all the energy came from, but heck, it was contagious!

From the coaching aspect, our team more than accomplished their goals.

Ski Related Goal:

1. Lots of volume training

2. Technique work, especially in classic

3. Intervals to get used to absolutely flying over snow

4. And racing. That’s what we do.

General Goals

1. DNSC Team bonding

2. Learning all the words to “Big Green Tractor”

3. Official forming of South West Colorado Nordic Alliance

The skiing goals were easy. “We are here to ski, that’s what we are going to do” was a quote often heard within our cabin. The level of commitment to the “plan” often amazes me. Of course it didn’t hurt that we had totally amazing ski conditions for the whole week of our trip. Every practice we were able to walk right out the door of our condo, put on our skis and ski down the middle of the road for about 5 minutes to the main trail head of the Rendezvous Trail System. From that trail head we had over 30km of groomed and classic tracked ski trails at our disposal. It’s great to have that type of terrain to choose from when doing a 3 hour distance ski.

Outside of all the distance training, we were also able to mix in some racing. The SuperTour series was in town so West Yellowstone was host to a Classic Sprint Qualifier, 10/15k Skate, and 5/10k Classic. These races were a great opportunity for athletes on our team to go head to head with some of the best skiers in the country, both juniors and seniors. The US Ski team was in attendance, as were many professional and college ski teams. There were also many junior teams from within our region there for training and racing. Early season races are always good because it reminds us all (yes, coaches too) what it’s all about. Over the summer we forget how to wax skis and ski fast, so this series was a great “wake up call” for all of us. Race #1, classic sprint: after waxing late into the night, I woke up early to head to the race venue to test kick wax. After getting everything all set up, it finally dawned on me why I was feeling that I was forgetting something. Yep, left all my test skis back at the wax room. Very smooth. From the racers point of view, everything was great! Alicia, Hannah, Gino, Sepp, and Haakon all raced their first 10km, and all of our healthy/non-injured athletes were able to race at least one. Success.

I’m not saying it was all smooth sailing. We had a clothes fire (no, you should not dry ski clothes over a lamp), couch fires (heat guns are hot, even after you turn them off), and an overflowing dishwasher (dish soap and dishwasher detergent are two different things). Lucky for us, with all the parents cooking food and bringing it over at dinner time, there were no kitchen fires.

More to come….