Jakob Ellingson: Canmore

Hey, my name is Jakob Ellingson. I was a homeschool student who skied with the Hopkins High School Nordic Team. This is my fourth year skiing at all, so I’m pretty new to the Nordic scene. I started in the summer of 2010 on rollerskis with Piotr Bednarski. I spent a lot of time with him and his summer program before meeting the coaches at HHS.  I continued to train with Piotr and the HS over the next 3 years. Piotr spent a lot of time on me, and really fast tracked me with good technique and solid training plans.

That first year on snow was a little weird, as I had only played soccer before, so endurance sports in general were a new thing. Piotr and the HS coaches pushed me into a lot of races that really helped build experience, even if the results weren’t that great the first few years. The results started to pick up during my second season racing. I wound up 7th at the Minnesota State Meet, along with a few top 10 results in my age group in some JNQ’s.

The biggest thing that happened that year was a camp that Piotr sent me to in Grand Rapids. I met Vlad Cervenka and discovered biathlon - pretty much fell in love with it too. The third year was the real turning point. I had some better JNQ results, barely edged my friend Tom Bye to win the Minnesota State Meet, and qualified for World Juniors on the US Junior National Biathlon Team. By far my best result of that year was in Austria when I finished 21st in one of the Junior World Championship races.

This summer was my busiest yet in terms of training. I spent a lot of time all over the US with some other top juniors like Anna Kubek and Sean Doherty. Vlad took me to camps in Vermont, New York, Colorado, and Utah. The biggest ones being Colorado and Utah, where we spent three weeks each training at altitude. I decided to take a PG year and pursue this biathlon dream, put school off for a little while so I can figure out what’s going to happen next. The immediate plan was a trip to Canmore, Alberta in November.

After almost a month in Canmore, Alberta, I don’t know if I want to go home tomorrow. We have gotten some great training in, and the first three warm up races are out of the way. There were a lot of fast people here to train with over the last few weeks, American and Canadian, including Jake Dahlberg and Raleigh Gossling, both Minnesota natives. I’ve been hanging out with Anna Kubek for most of the month and she had good results in the three races.

The weather varied a lot; we had a few warm days, along with some frigid cold days. This morning the thermometer on the trail said it was -6 F. Regardless of whether we were skiing in short sleeves or bundled with our breath freezing to our faces, the snowmaking crew at Canmore Nordic Centre was almost always busy pumping out fresh snow. Not that we really needed it, there were a few nice natural snowfalls even before we got here.

I really enjoyed the trails here, especially around the biathlon range.  They are very hilly and exciting - similar to Mt. Itasca back in Minnesota, except there are actually mountains here. The race courses were pretty challenging, and honestly kicked my butt in the first race we had here. Overall skiing has been picking up quite a bit since that first race. My shooting has consistently not quite been good enough right now, but it’s early in the season and I’m sure I’ll get it dialed in soon.

I’m really psyched to go home and get some more intensity in before the big races this year. Junior Worlds is going to be in Maine this year, and I have a shot at going to the European Championships and Swedish Nationals. Before those big races, there are some others to think about: Minnesota Cup biathlon races this weekend and next, and then IBU cup trials are going to be at Mt. Itasca in a few weeks. After that, Junior Trials in Maine, where I’ll need to do well in order to be a part of the big races I mentioned.

A month at altitude is probably long enough though, and for the next few weeks Minnesota is where the action is going to be. Anna and I are packed up and headed out tomorrow, we just heard that there’s plenty of snow to look forward to back home. The race is on in the morning, after I drop Anna off at the airport and then cruise down into Montana for the “short drive” home.

Ellingson out!

About the author... Jakob Ellingson, who has been training with Loppet Nordic Racing and the US Junior National Biathlon Team, is entering his first PG year. His trip to Biathlon World Juniors last year fueled him to put in even more time training and chase after another shot at World Juniors, and the World Cup Circuit in the future. Following him on Facebook and Twitter.