Kyle Bratrud: Thanksgiving Break and Upcoming Races

Something seemingly normal for the UP, yet rather unusual for me happened last week. We had enough snow to ski well on rock skis! When I first came to Northern, I just assumed we would always have snow by now, but this was actually my first year on decent snow over Thanksgiving since I came here.

That being said, we put in a hard week. Lots of volume and two solid intervals sessions. The week started with a quality bounding session at Mt. Marquette. I am very blessed to have strong teammates that want to beat me as bad as I want to beat them. That combo makes for real solid training that benefits us all. We then got as much on snow time as we could. We skied the majority of it in Marquette, but a couple times went down to Valley Spur in Munising to classic in tracks. My week was capped off with our first on snow interval session on Saturday. It was supposed to be 8 by six minutes L3, however, I missed that memo and ended up doing 8 by eight minutes. I felt great though and don’t feel that I made a mistake since my focus is distance racing anyways!

With all the training and travel I felt like I accomplished absolutely nothing school wise. Although that didn’t bother me then, it is biting me in the butt now. On the positive side we are supposed to get hit with a pretty big storm tonight so that will be a great way to shoot us into finals! All that considered, I am very much enjoying a little more procrastination on my research paper by writing this.

With a successful Thanksgiving Break training camp complete, I have switched my focus to the first few races. This weekend is supposed to be two 10k races here, but with the snow not ideal for race skis, we may head over to Houghton for one or both races. I am perfectly fine with that as I love the Tech trails and feel I ski well there. These races for me are much more about skiing technically well then my numerical result. My body is tired after a hard Thanksgiving and that is how it should be. I want my legs to be fresh for US Nationals which is about a month away so these “dress rehearsal” races don’t mean much to me beyond getting a race effort in. I am very excited to get on my new skis and see how then run!

Before I wrap up, I must give a shout out to everyone who raced in Yellowstone! The snow looked amazing and I would be lying if I didn’t admit I was a bit jealous! Also, in case you live under a rock, Noah Hoffman skied the fastest time in the world in the pursuit race in Kuusamo. The US women have been skiing well for a few years now, but it is especially cool to see a guy high up in the ranks! A 0 point FIS race, what a day! I found this amazing website via Hoffman’s blog if you like watching World Cup races. It has all of last year’s races and posts this year’s races really quickly after they take place! Check it out: http://crosscountryski.us/

Check in next week for my race recap!

About the author... NCAA All American Kyle Bratrud is entering his third season as an NMU Wildcat under Sten Fjeldheim. Spurred on by his World Junior participation last season, he is pursuing his dreams of making it on to the US Ski Team with everything he’s got. As a college athlete, Kyle will be sharing his thoughts, training, and racing experiences as he travels and competes around the college circuit and hopefully beyond.