Hello, Anders here!

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Today I'm gonna do a recap and talk about the JBTR roller ski and running race. Summer races like the JBTR are a really good opportunity for us Nordic athletes to practice our pre-race routines and experiment with different strategies.  

My pre-race routine begins a couple of days out from a race.  Focusing on getting a good night's sleep is very important starting several nights out.  

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Fueling is another key step to setting yourself up for success on race day.  The night before races and performance workouts I prefer to have pasta with sauce and chicken or ground beef.  I find that meal to be easy to eat and fuels me up well.  In the morning I like to have cereal with a bit of added protein so that it will stick with me for as long as possible.  I recently got some new Science in Sport gels and drink mix to try in my warmup and in the races.  I chose to have a carbohydrate gel and a caffeine gel about 30 minutes before the start of the sprint.  I also have a carbohydrate drink mix to sip on occasionally during my warmup.  I find that learning how to time when you should fuel before a race is really important to play around with because everyone has different needs.  For the rollerski sprint, I really wanted to focus on my warmup and qualifier.  I have learned in my experience racing that I need a long and intensity filled warmup to be performing at my best for the qualifier.  This time, my warmup included a gradual build into L3 followed by several complete laps of the course in L4 and finished with some speeds.  I was very pleased with how this warmup and fueling combo worked for me and I felt like I gained some valuable experience.

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Thanks for reading!

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Derz

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