Annie's Glacier Week in Alaska

Annie McColgan checking in from Alaska! Recently, the biggest switch up in my life is has been my move to the team Alaska Pacific University. Thus far the team has been incredibly welcoming, and I am thrilled to be training with such an elite and high level group of people. I’ve trained up in Anchorage in the summer before, but this time I’m thrilled to be here year round with a great crew.

My intro to APU was a week on Eagle Glacier at the Thomas Training Center. I remember hearing a lot about the glacier when I was a junior from all my Alaskan friends. Particularly how beautiful but also physically challenging the week was. Recently, the facility received a massive makeover after a large Earthquake in 2018 shifted the old facility off of its foundation. This new facility was built piece by piece over the past seven years. Our group was the first fully operational camp of the new facility. Thinking about every piece of the facility getting helicoptered up from Girdwood is pretty surreal. It makes you pretty grateful for your five minute drive to the grocery store or Home Depot. Here, the massive Costco run gets helicoptered up days in advance. Best make sure you don’t forget the milk.

I got to take my first ever helicopter ride from Girdwood up to the glacier. My teammates let me ride in the front seat on the way up which was pretty scenic and awesome. A week before, we had sent our skis and clothes up in our bags which were dropped via a cargo bag up at the glacier. When we arrived our coaches and skis were waiting for us with a 5k of freshly groomed snow.

Growing up in Bend Oregon, I always knew that I was pretty fortunate and spoiled with how long our snow season typically is (except for this year). It's not been uncommon for me to ski into June particularly in the high country around Broken Top. However, this experience was pretty new and exciting even for a spoiled Bend brat like me. Immediately, I was pretty astounded at the natural beauty and how high up we had just traveled in our seven minute helicopter ride. We were so close to Girdwood; however, we were up in the alpine country sitting in a beautiful facility. The training center is outfitted with an industrial kitchen, tons of beds, a drying room for our smelly boots and gloves, and beautiful windows to admire the scenery.

The first few days we skied in some pretty soft snow. However, I was just so excited to be skiing that I couldn't really be bothered by any of the conditions. The weather up on the glacier changes pretty rapidly. At one moment, it can be beautiful and sunny without a cloud in the sky, and then half an hour later you are skiing in the thickest fog ever. Sometimes it was so thick you could only see one snow stake in front of you. The benefit to the low visibility at times, was that you didn't see how far you had to go on the climb. The terrain of the glacier track was groomed by our coach to include a variety of downhills corners and uphills all the way around the glacier.

Our routine every day was pretty dialed. We'd wake up around 7:00 for breakfast, watch some World Cup video to talk about technique intentions and the workout for the day. We’d be out the door skiing by 8:30, ski for anywhere from an hour and a half to two and a half hours before heading back to lunch. We'd have a quiet afternoon, some of us napping, some of us playing rounds of solitaire, reading, and some of us logging into our remote jobs on the one bar of LTE (yours truly).

We then have our afternoon snack, watch some more World Cup video before heading out for our second session of the day anywhere between an hour to two hours. We’d then have a big dinner around the large table, play cards or codenames, and head to bed.

This routine for any nordic skiing athlete is no doubt incredibly familiar. However, one thing that ended up surprising me was the fact that this was actually the most amount of skiing I had ever done in a week. Typically, my biggest training hours on snow have happened during Thanksgiving camp. However, Thanksgiving comes at a time when you are also prepping for the first period of racing. This means that it can be hard to put in big hours of on snow training because you are trying to be fresh for the racing season. Growing up in Bend, I would get on snow once a day in June which was a great advantage going into the summer. However, on the glacier, the ease at which you can ski two times a day allowed to put some serious time and work on the snow.

No doubt as the week went on I got pretty tired. It can be hard to spend that much time in your wet ski boots on terrain that is challenging at elevation. I was initially a little hesitant to come up to the Glacier since I had moved up to Anchorage only a week prior. However, I really believe that going up this June set a great tone for my training for the rest of the year. I also got to spend some quality time around my new teammates and coaches, as well as put some incredibly productive time into my technique.

On the last day, we ended up getting stuck on the glacier for the night since a storm rolled in making it impossible for the helicopters to come get us. However, that made for a pretty iconic stormy afternoon ski, in we skied directly behind the piston bully as it groomed the windblown snow for us.

I left the glacier feeling incredibly motivated and stoked for the years ahead. The space definitely has the feeling that many athletes before me have come to train, set high goals and achievedthem. Sometimes it can be hard to motivate at the beginning of the year because the training year can feel so big and so long that at first getting going can feel a bit overwhelming. Even when you are super motivated with big goals, getting into the swing of things can take a bit of time. I feel like that routine was established hard and strong on the up on Eagle for me. I left feeling motivated about the things I want to change in my technique and fired up about the racing ahead. Most importantly, training with a great group of women and men has made me excited for what we can do together as a team not just as individuals.

While I certainly will be missing Vermont this year, I feel incredibly lucky to be a part of the program up here. I also feel incredibly lucky that cross country skiing at this level has now taken me up to places such as this. It feels a bit surreal when you are skiing up in a cloud on a glacier, working towards your goals alongside your teammates, in the middle of class one hurricane winds. Even when the conditions are windy, low visibility and wet, there is no doubt: We are pretty lucky people indeed!