The end of my time in Norway is almost here. Only a few hours separate me from taking the plunge back into the U.S. of A.  I’m looking forward to catching up on events back home, but it’s challenging to leave this “skier’s paradise.” For this reason, now is a great time to look back on what I’ve learned, experienced, and been part of while here in Norway. Also ask the question:  What makes the Norwegians so fast? The plan is to do a series of posts comparing different aspects of skiing/biathlon here in Norway to that in the US.

Before looking closer at what topics to write about, I recently returned from a trip in western Norway that “helt fantastisk” (completely fantastic). The trip was kind of a spur of the moment seeing as my friend Arild and I simply loaded up the car with skis, food, and a camera and set out to explore the high mountains and deep fjords of western Norway. Check out the photos at the end of the post!

The 17th of May, otherwise known as syttende mai (May seventeenth) in Norway, is a national holiday celebrating the adoption of the constitution in 1814. Every year on this day Norwegians fill the streets with traditional dress and parades, all the while enjoying endless amounts of ice-cream and hot dogs. For me, the 17th of May was one of the best days of my time here and brought out several unique cultural aspects of Norway.

For many skiers this time of year the months of April and May are a time to travel, relax (a little bit), and enjoy time in the sun.  Recently, my exploration has included a trip to Prague (Praha in Norwegian), Russefeiring (I’ll explain later), and a triathlon called Villmannen (“The Wild Man”).

To start out, the city of Prague gave me a taste of the big city life in Europe and the best part was not dealing with the hours of travel and jet-lag—Prague is only a two-hour flight from Oslo.  So, for the first time in a while, I felt like an actual tourist.  The closest thing of comparison from back home might be a trip from Minnesota to Florida in spring—obviously with more of a historic European feel.  What I’m trying to say is that everything was green!  All the flowers were in bloom and temperatures were in the 70s during the day.  The trip gave me a chance to see Prague castle, walk across Charles Bridge, and gawk at the architecture of the ctiy.  In addition, and more importantly, was the opportunity to taste some true Czech pilsner and Budweiser… mmm

In the past few weeks I’ve enjoyed some long ski trips in the mountains surrounding Lillehammer and my sunburned face is proof of it! You can find some pictures of these ski trip in my photo album. In other words the skiing isn’t quite finished yet in the Lillehammer region of Norway, but longer and longer drives are needed to find snow. Officially, the Norwegian season isn’t over until the end of April, but for some teams (including the US biathlon team) “the season is in motion again.”

Perfect crust skiing conditions

The end of the season draws near here in Norway, but before we can pack it in there is still one more big race series to be had. Remembering back to the start of the season during the second week of November, I can confidently say that this has been the longest and most competitive season ever! Tomorrow starts the Norwegian Biathlon Championships here in Lillehammer, and the only question left to ask is, “are you ready?”

The last biathlon races I had were up in Folldal—the same small town where I began my adventures here in Norway—at the final Norwegian Cup/Vital Cup. The races had some low points and some high ones, but overall I’m fairly satisfied with my performance. The weekend started out with a 10km sprint race on Friday in which I managed to hit all ten targets—perfect shooting! This marks the first time this year with perfect shooting and the third time in my life. Unfortunately, my skiing speed was fairly poor and I had some equipment difficulties on the range, which cost about a minute. So I still ended up four minutes back from Stian Eckhoff, a famous Norwegian who has won a World Cup.

The 12.5km Pursuit race the next day didn’t go all that much better. My skiing remained sluggish and the shooting wasn’t where it should have been. Anyway, I missed a total of 5 targets and had a time on the day 3 min back from Stian.

Zeroing before the race

Over a week has passed since I crossed the finish line in the 72nd Birkebeinerrennet, so I’ve had a bit of time to reflect on the race and recover enough to have the desire to come back next year to have another go. This was my first ever Birkebeiner race and what better way to start than to do the real thing in Norway carrying a 3.5kg backpack symbolizing the young king Haakon!

Race day started out quite early—3:45am. This wake-up time was required in order to catch the 4:30am bus from Lillehammer to Rena. I tried to get some sleep on the two-hour bus ride, but I was already a bit excited making sleep next to impossible. Once at the starting area, I tested my wax and made sure I had enough water and energy gels to get me through the day.

I was seeded into the elite wave from my finish in the Madshus Ski Marathon earlier this year. Because of my elite placement, I donned the only appropriate ski suit for such an occasion… the Purple Cow! I was proud to be the only distinguishable (Topher!!) Purple Cow in the field of roughly 14,000. However, I did get some funny looks from some Norwegians—especially the young ones. Needless to say, my family commented that it was easy to pick me out from the crowd of approaching skiers.

Me passing through Sjusjøen (photos by Janna Johnson)

Watching the World Championships this year along with the Norwegians provided me with a new perspective on the sport of skiing—and in saying ‘skiing’ I’m including all the different disciplines: downhill, cross-country, jumping, and Nordic combined. All in all, the Norwegian media did a great job showing all the winter sports without stressing any single event or discipline to the extent of overshadowing another. Put together, the championships felt like it had a greater competitive spirit, which in my opinion carried some similarity to the Olympic games.

This past weekend was full of sporting events to watch and to compete in here in Lillehammer. It all started on Saturday morning with the opening races of the Biathlon World Championships in Pyeongchang, Korea, which turned out to be a historic day for the Norwegians (their four starters placed 1-4).  Later that day I went outdoors for a sunny extra-blue classic ski to watch the World Rally Championships take place on the roads in and around Lillehammer.  On Sunday, I completed my first ski marathon, which was the longest race of my life thus far. So yeah, it was a great weekend. Below is a picture of my teammates and I at the start of the race.

The training camp in Beitostølen with Team Statkraft was a snowy adventure. The snow continued to fall almost ninety percent of the time from when we arrived until the time we left a week later—jumping into a pile of snow literally left me buried up to my chest. For me, the training camp started out with some much needed rest, due to coming off a two-week race period. The rest allowed me to focus more on shooting. All in all, the camp turned out great, allowing me to find a balance and settle back into the rhythm of training again. I had some good shooting performances and, despite being tired, I found the energy to put in some quality interval sessions.