By Gavin Kentch
GOVERNMENT PEAK RECREATION AREA, Palmer, Alaska — Day two of the Race to the Outhouse weekend at this small but stunning venue nestled at the feet of the Talkeetna Mountains brought more of the same: more snow, more driving to the start in a pre-dawn blizzard, more degrees below zero (Celsius), more kilometers, and more climbing. When 7.5 kilometers of interval-start classic racing concluded shortly before noon on Sunday, Rosie Brennan was once again the fastest woman, this time by a substantial margin. Zanden McMullen led the way for the men, as the men’s podium saw a slight reshuffling from Saturday’s skate race.
Here is an excerpt from the homologation certificate for the 7.5km course at Government Peak:
I was going to say that it skis easier than the 5km course at the same venue, but this one has 36.3 meters of climbing per kilometer, as against 38.2 for the shorter course, so it’s all relative. (For perspective, the courses used for the distance races at the last several national championships have 29.3 and 34.7 meters of climbing per kilometer for Houghton and Soho, respectively. Yes, I know that climbing is not everything (and also that Soldier Hollow is at altitude), but I feel like it has some heuristic value for making comparisons across venues. If you’d like a take that is both more holistic and comes from someone far more qualified to offer it, Sadie Bjornsen Maubet once called these “the most legit ski trails I have ever skied on in the US!,” so there’s that.)
The most traditionally difficult part of the 7.5km course is clearly the first third, as athletes climb near continuously from the starting line up to the high point at the 2.5-kilometer mark. After some rolling descents — I would personally characterize them as “drop into an exhausted tuck and think about my life choices” downhills; a better athlete would probably go with “working” downhills — much of the course from 4km to the finish is strideable, in sharp contrast to the opening slopes. The second half of the course in turn becomes difficult more because of the need to keep moving well over the facially easier portions than because of monster uphills.
“You would think the hills at the start are the hardest part,” said Beth Granstrom, a senior on the University of Alaska Anchorage ski team originally from Revelstoke, B.C., who was racing here for the first time this weekend. “But it’s definitely the downhill at the end because you have to work it, and it’s so much work to keep that speed up and keep moving your legs and your whole body.”
What do you tell yourself to push over the second half of the course, I asked. Because I ski great until then [sic], and then I just, like, hemorrhage time, I added, self-centeredly if not inaccurately.
“I just need to keep moving,” said Granstrom. “Just never passively move my legs; always actually be moving them with purpose. That’s what I tell myself.”
Granstrom added, “This is such a great course and such a great community that came out and raced today.”
The women’s podium for Sunday’s race saw Rosie Brennan (USST/APU) in first, with a time of 22:39.6. Granstrom, of UAA, in second (+2:21) and Anabel Needham, of APU, in third (+2:50) were some distance back. Rosie Brennan is a good skier.
There were also some good skiers in the men’s race. Zanden McMullen took the win on Sunday, crossing the line in 20:24.9. Luke Jager was second, 7.4 seconds back, and Hunter Wonders third, 16.8 seconds back. Gus Schumacher was slightly off the podium in fourth, 21.1 seconds back. (Everyone discussed in this paragraph is an Anchorage kid who skis for APU and the U.S. Ski Team.) This marked a slight reshuffling from Saturday’s skate race, which had seen Schumacher–Jager–McMullen–Wonders, in that order, across the top four spots.
[Read more on Saturday’s race: Race to the Outhouse: The Most Stacked Community Race on the Continent]
The top non-APU skier on Saturday was Aidan Hay of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, or UAF, in eighth. The top non-APU skier on Sunday was UAF freshman phenom Cole Flowers, in seventh.
McMullen sounded similar notes to Granstrom when asked about the course.
“This is definitely a course where you kind of have to learn how to race it,” he mused. “Because I definitely, in the past, have gotten bogged down in the second half for sure. And I think you just have to keep thinking about hitting the transitions, because that’s where you’re getting all the speed. There’s only a couple grinding sections through the second half, or consistent working sections, I should say. And so hitting the transitions is really where you get a lot of your speed and you can carry it really well.”
McMullen added that he was pleased that he “felt like [he] was able to push through the whole race. Normally, early season, I kind of get a little bogged down when you’re not sharp. I’m pretty happy that I was able to keep pushing the whole time.”
He characterized the second half of the course as having “a lot of active moving parts,” which was not exactly my experience of the closing kilometers yesterday, but that is why McMullen won the race and I was 63rd. Out of 67. Lol.
Next up for McMullen are some very long travel days; he will be on planes and busses to, eventually, Muonio, Finland, starting tomorrow, before opening his World Cup season in Ruka a week from Friday.
“This race is huge,” said McMullen, when asked about the role of this race weekend in his season as a whole. “Being able to actually put a bib on and have competitive races to really mentally prep us for Ruka is great.”
McMullen added, “Everywhere else in the world, or at least in Scandinavia, they all get to race before Ruka, a true FIS race. We typically don’t get the chance to do that, so being able to do that this year, I feel like it will hopefully prep us really well for Ruka. So if I have a good race in Ruka, I will attribute it to this.”
Finally, for those of you keeping score at home, McMullen said that the Government Peak distance course “has its moments,” and is “definitely a World Cup–level course,” but that Ruka is unquestionably harder.
Government Peak “is hard in its own unique way,” McMullen reasoned, “but Ruka is just Mount Everest up every hill.”
“This is an insane venue” said Luke Jager, following his second silver-medal finish of the weekend. “You could host a World Cup on these trails and no one would really bat an eye about it in terms of their difficulty, how they ski. With any ski course, you know, it’s hard if you’re working hard on it, but this one you don’t even have to be going hard for it to be hard.”
Jager focused strongly on process goals rather than technical prowess when asked what he liked about how he had skied on the day.
“I’ve been working on just being really kind of process-oriented and focused on myself and doing what feels best for me while I’m out there,” Jager mused, “and pacing accordingly. So I was just happy to have felt like I extracted a pretty high percentage of what I could have today.”
Jager will remain at home in Anchorage for training for nearly three more weeks; he starts this season on the SuperTour, and will fly south on December 7 for the Period 1 races held at the Birkie trailhead.
Jager, who turns 25 in January, has spent the past few race seasons in a kind of athletic liminal space, one of this country’s top domestic skiers but not always a top-30 finisher on the World Cup.
(I characterized Jager in this interview as a “bubble” athlete given this status. “‘Bubble skier’ is kind of maybe even more generous than I deserve sometimes on the World Cup,” riposted the delightfully unfiltered Jager. “I mean, I usually suck on the World Cup.”)
I have stated multiple times on this website that I deeply respect this dynamic, that it seems particularly taxing to me to walk into a World Cup start area knowing that you may well get your butt kicked, or to line up for your tenth sprint start of the year when you did not qualify in the first nine. So I asked Jager about this. Here’s his answer, in full, because I feel like it has value for, honestly, just about anyone in this sport.
(Keep in mind, as you read this, that Luke Jager is a multi-time U.S. national champion, a 2022 Olympian, a three-time World Juniors relay medalist, and a man with several dozen World Cup starts to his name. His best individual World Cup result is 18th; he has World Cup top-30 finishes in both skate and classic sprints to his name.)
“It definitely used to be harder for me because I was really kind of grasping on to — trying to be something more than just focusing on being the best I can be,” Jager said. “And I think it was maybe especially a little hard when a lot of my peers started really excelling. And not because I wasn’t super stoked for them, because I was, and I’m lucky that we have a culture where you can genuinely just be so fired up and not feel any negative feelings when that happens. But I was definitely just like, Yeah, I feel like maybe I’m not really cut out for this, and all that.”
“And it was kind of nice, honestly, having some races go so bad last year over there that I was just like, Okay, this is sweet. I get to kind of like — have you heard of the Gordian Knot? I was like, Let’s just cut that thing, dude, and just stop pretending and just focus on doing what I can.”
Was that liberating? I asked.
“Yeah, totally. I was like, Dude, why am I trying to be anything other than me and doing the best I can do.
“I mean, a lot of my teammates that I look up to the most who are my peers also are so good because they just do stuff their own way. And I feel like I was kind of focused on trying to do stuff their way, and really, like, trying to crack the code of their success by really looking into what they were doing.
“But now I’m just like, Oh, that’s not really that fun because it’s not focused on the right stuff, and you’re just so hard on yourself when you’re like that, you know. And it’s like, I don’t want to be bummed; I want to be having a good time and keeping pretty mellow out there. It’s nice to finish and just be like, Oh, I did the best I could and I’m happy with that. And I think that’s making things for sure better for me.”
Local racing continues in Anchorage with the WinterStart race on Saturday. I suspect that this will be a single-lap 10km at Kincaid, but don’t quote me on that part; frankly the course may not even be set yet.
Unofficial results (FIS and USSS licenses combined): Saturday (5km skate) | Sunday (7.5km classic)
Official results (FIS racers only): all races
You’re reading this on Nordic Insights, one man’s labor of love dedicated to publicizing American nordic skiing. Last season’s GoFundMe is literally the only reason why I turned a profit in year one of Nordic Insights, and in turn the only reason why there is a year two of Nordic Insights for you to be reading now: I was okay with working for very little money to get this love letter to American cross-country skiing off the ground, but I didn’t want to lose money for the privilege of doing so. If you would like to support what remains a brutally shoestring operation, last season’s GoFundMe may be found here. Thank you for your consideration, and, especially, for reading.
