Juleski

This past weekend fulfilled basically all of the dreams of my 17 year old nordic skier self. I have been looking forward to the training trip with OSI Langrenn (the university nordic ski team that I've been training with for the past several months) for a while now, and it finally happened!
On Friday afternoon we drove from campus to Sjusjøen, which is a town close to Lillehammer that is internationally famous as a cross country skiing destination (the location of the Birkebeiner!), and then to our cabins in Nordseter. Coincidentally, Lillehammer was hosting a world cup mini tour while we were there (which we were to busy skiing to go watch) which included a Jessie Diggins victory in the 5k

skate race!
When we arrived at our cabins around 4:00, the sun had already set, but we decided to get our headlamps on and go out for a ski before dinner. One might expect that a night ski on the day you arrive at a training camp would be a quick 6 or so mile jaunt to shake out your legs after a few hours sitting in a car. What actually happened was an almost 14 mile loop. Completely beautiful, but I was definitely ready for dinner when we got back.
We all shared some delicious pasta for dinner and enjoyed some lovely conversation before going over the plans for the next day and heading to bed.
The next morning, we woke up at 7:00 for breakfast and waxing for the first ski of the day. We started out with about an hour of classic technique work before going out in smaller groups for a long easy ski. The area was even more beautiful in the daylight and the trails were

incredible. The tracks were firm and rolled gently through the hills. The group I went out with for the long ski included a fellow Minnesotan who now skis for Colby and two other guys from France and England who hadn't cross country skied before coming to Norway and picked it up impressively fast.
We returned to our cabin for a few hours of collapsing on couches, eating and watching the world cup on television before Robb (Brittish guy), Andrew (Minnesotan) and I headed out around 2:30 on a super chill pre-interval session ski that included some technique filming and little adventures in off-trailing. We then met up with the rest of the group at 4:00 for the afternoon interval session. We skied about 5k out to a hill for 8 x 4 minute intervals. The coach said we could do anywhere between 6 and 8 intervals, and initially Hugo (French guy) and I were aiming for 6, figuring we could get 6 done in the time that the faster skiers got through 8. After our sixth, Hugo convinced me that we should really do 7, and after the seventh, we figured we should just do an eighth. The last couple were hard after a day filled with so much skiing, but totally worth it. When we got to the top at the end of the last one I fell moving out of the tracks, which a friendly Norwegian guy from our group said was a sign that I had been working hard. Hugo, Robb and I took the ski back slowly, partially because Robb had completely hit the wall during the intervals and

seemed a little delirious, but mostly because we were all tired.
The time for dinner got moved up to 7 (from 8) since everyone was very hungry. The chili we ate was so so delicious and we had a fun conversation where one of the Norwegian guys (who happens to be a very impressive cyclist from everything I understand) claimed that if cycling was a new sport, Norway would ban it for its brutality (Boxing here was banned until last year) and we discussed the beautiful places in Norway and the way that nature is valued so much here partly because it is extremely popular, specifically, despite how valuable the land of Nordmarka would be to develop, it will never happen because so many people in Oslo value it so much. We then had ice cream for dessert (pistachio!) before having a quiz. The questions of the quiz were for the most part trivia related to Norway. I learned things ranging from the number of Norwegians that eat Grandiosa pizza on Christmas Eve (200,000... though I am a bit skeptical about how those stats were collected) and the amount of boller that have been sold at a roadside stop called "Bolleland" this year (about 1.5 million) to the fact that Stina Nilsson (a Swedish skier) and Emil Iversen (a Norwegian skier) are "just friends".
The next morning, after a breakfast where I got to witness a Swiss

woman's first peanut butter and jelly ("It's fine") we packed everything up before heading to the ski stadium in Sjusjøen for some more technique work and a crazy relay (1st lap: Double pole, 2nd: no poles, 3rd: 1 pole 1 ski, 4th: backwards) during which I almost skied backwards into a trail groomer. We then set out for a long ski to wrap up the trip. We set out with a large group towards the hotel "Pellestova" which was a loop of about 23 miles. For the most part, it was completely beautiful, but it was also pretty difficult. All of us went in to it pretty tired, but I also happened to be the slowest member of the group (to be fair to myself, I was also one of 2 women and also did not grow up in Norway). This meant that I didn't feel like I could completely let up on the pace, and that I rarely got to actually take a break, since whenever the group stopped for snacks and water, they would be getting ready to start moving again by the time I caught up, which was a little frustrating and lead to me being pretty hungry at some points (which is a feeling that is good to be reminded of, I think I did this exact thing to my campers a few times this summer when I felt like we needed to be making forward progress. As much as it is not that fun for me as an adult who is in decent shape, it must be worse for a 13 year old on their first canoe/ backpacking trip). By the time we reached Pellestova I felt kind of

dead on my feet. We spent a few minutes sitting on couches eating cinnamon buns before setting out for the final 9 miles. It is amazing how short 9 miles sounds when you have already skied about 65 in the past 48 hours! It is also amazing how much of a difference a break, a cinnamon roll, and the knowledge that you are heading towards instead of away from home can make in your mental state. This final stretch was filled with rolling hills (mostly down) and another gorgeous sunset. When we got back to the parking lot, we were all so tired and took a picture collapsed in the snow before starting the drive back to Oslo. I was so happy that I was not driving since I spent the drive half asleep.
Robb, who really just learned how to ski said all he really wants in life right now is to ski all the time, and after a weekend skiing the beautiful trails around Lillehammer, I have to agree. I was so so tired and so so happy. Aside from the incredible feeling of skiing on good snow, and the joy of being surrounded by wonderful, kind, vivacious skier folk, the glory of eating dinner at the end of a 31 mile day cannot be understated.
I am so grateful for all of the things that have happened in my life to make this weekend possible, especially my experience skiing in high

school. Without those 4 years of dedicated coaching in technique, and the initialization of myself as an endurance athlete that happened as a result of an amazing community, I can't imagine that I would have joined the trip, or really enjoyed it, or have been able to keep up at all. In some ways, this weekend was a gift to myself. The joy of days filled with wandering around an incredibly beautiful place was a product of work that I have put in. In many other ways, it was a gift from all of the people throughout my life that invested time, energy, talent and kindness in teaching me the skills it takes to ski well as well as helping me find the joy in endurance sports and the confidence that it takes to throw myself into a ski training camp with a bunch of very athletic Norwegian people. Right now, I am the kind of joyful exhausted that can be felt in every muscle in my body. The kind that only comes with miles of self-powered motion. I am so thankful for it.