Fasterskier.com did a profile on 17-year-old Glenn Randall on December 10th. Glenn lives in Collbran, Colorado. He is the only (serious) racer in the area and made last year’s Junior World Championship team as a 16-year old.
A week ago he participated in three of the Super Tour races at Soldier Hollow, Utah. Only a handful of junior racers showed up and Glenn came out as the top junior in all three races. He placed 28th in the 10 K Classic, 28th in the 10 K Skate and 15th in the 15 + 15 K Pursuit.
The snow level at the top was a solid 5 feet of mostly soft new powder. A lot more snow was expected and you can most likely ski at the Mesa until May this year. Glenn had told me to bring powder baskets which I didn’t have, but dearly wished that I had immediately when we started – modern XC race baskets don’t work in 5 feet of snow where 2 feet of it fell the last 24 hours and the grooming is done the same morning with snowmobiles!
The temperature at the bottom of the valley was 30 Fahrenheit but up here at the top it was a chilling 10 F. I had already waxed my skis with “Blue Extra” before I left and normally that works even in this temperature but this snow was very dry and my skis were slow. So there I was; “skiing with Glenn” with baskets that sunk in, a kick wax that felt like sandpaper and a slight “not used to this altitude head-ache” trying to follow a gung-ho and fast skiing -seven days from his first race at Nationals Glenn.
He disappeared, waited for me and disappeared again – doing 10 or 20 speed burst on the rolling 4 k loop (in thick forest) that we skied in. A total of 6-7 kilometer was set this morning following the storm. Up to 25-30 kilometer is buffed out when you get a break between the snow-storms. We were classic skiing – efficient skating would have been (very) difficult on that day.
A week ago I was 1 minute and 29 seconds behind Glenn when I jumped in (last minute decision) and did the classic part of the 15 + 15 k Pursuit at Soldier Hollow. I knew better that trying to follow him here at his element – high altitude and soft powder.
Glenn’s training is clearly not “a typical junior program approach”. It consists of lots of hard cross country running races in the fall, no equal or better training partners to follow, an opposite of modern training theories “live high train low” approach; he lives low and trains high (like most Western college teams).
His training has however elements of all training methods like speed, intervals, distance and strength. Glenn is also very fit and (mentally) ready to race any distance. I know very little about Glenn’s competitors so I’m not going to predict how he will do in Rumford. I know one thing however – watch out if it’s tough conditions like lots of new, soft, dry or wet snow – that’s Glenn’s daily training element – he would love just that.
