R eturning from Gangwon, South Korea, with several top 20 rankings in the 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games and winning Gold in Utah last month, competitive Nordic ski athlete and Bend teen, Neve Gerard, crushes cross-country racing.
In Gangwon, Gerard took home sixth place in the Women’s 7.5-kilometer Classic, 17th in the Freestyle Sprint, and clocked the third-fastest leg of the day in the Mixed 4x5K Relay competing with Team USA, finishing in fifth.
Being an athlete was always Gerard’s goal; she just didn’t know which sport. Nordic skiing started as something she did with her friends casually, until COVID when she jumped into full-time training. By Gerard’s sophomore year, she’d won second place at Junior Nationals.
Balancing life as a Bend Senior High School senior with ski training six days a week, year-round, is no simple feat. Gerard navigates her rigorous training schedule by staying goal-oriented, with support from her coaches, Nordic Director Reitler Hodgert and Head Coach Lydia Youkey at Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation.
“I train a lot and also very thoughtfully. I always have a goal for a training session, but it also comes down to hours. I do a lot of hours, more than my peers,” Gerard states.
Nordic skiing is more intense than most people expect. Rollerski training falls. Hitting trees. Broken bindings and poles. It’s more than a seemingly slow snow sport. In fact, Nordic skiers can reach downhill speeds up to 40 mph.
Racing anywhere from three minutes to two hours, with ascents and downhills, Nordic athletes need a strong endurance and strength training regimen.
During the competitive ski season, November through March, Gerard’s training blocks between weekend and international races range anywhere from 12 to 20 hours per week, spending two mornings at MBSEF’s well-equipped indoor gym lifting weights, completing intensity sets and growing spatial awareness on the trampoline, followed by race-pace snow intervals or distance skiing. On alternate days, it’s 30-minute runs, easy distance skiing and Friday’s pre-race intensity sets. Her favorite recovery tool for combating lactic-acid buildup: jogging.
Gerard touts MBSEF’s lifelong training approach for keeping her balanced, avoiding burnout and overtraining.
“I have the best coaches ever. I have no idea where I would be without them. They definitely keep me in line in a very sustainable way,” she said. “I think I would be very overtrained right now if it wasn’t for my coaches. Nordic skiers don’t peak until their 30s…I have 20 years left.”
With her only two weeks off every year and otherwise lighter training days, Gerard enjoys April’s family ski days before summer training heats up.
Skiers are born in the summer, and that season bears the brunt of training hours: up to 25 every week of outdoor rollerskiing, running, mountain biking and gym workouts, building an endurance base in preparation for fall training, the most intense annual training time leading into race season. Due to the intensity, fall training hours drop to 15 to 20 per week of interval sets, rollerskiing, and twice-weekly gym workouts. By the end of October, Gerard and her 20 fellow MBSEF competition teammates are eager for winter.
“When I’m racing, I’m not thinking about many things. I’m just thinking about how to get to the finish line the fastest.” But even seasoned athletes get pre-race jitters. “I used to have a lot of race anxiety and I think the more you do it, the easier it gets.” Gerard’s secret? “The biggest thing that’s helped me is realizing that it’s literally just a ski race.”
Weekend races at Mt. Bachelor through Bend High and MBSEF, annual National Qualifiers and Championships, and international competitions keep Gerard busy through winter. Alongside races in Oregon, Utah, Michigan and Alaska, she’s raced in Canada, Finland and South Korea. Both held in early March, Gerard is deciding between joining MBSEF athletes at what would be her last Junior Nationals in New York, or racing the OPA Cup in France with Team USA.
Support from MBSEF, her parents and gear sponsors, Fischer (skis) and Swix (poles), help Gerard stay ski ready.
She’s inspired by fellow female athletes like Annie McColgan (UVM), her amazing coach, Lydia Youkey, and Jessie Diggins and Rosie Brennan, leading women’s cross-country skiing on the world stage.
As a young competitive athlete, Gerard reflects that, “It teaches you a lot about yourself and how to create balance, and it teaches you a lot about how to manage things that come up. I feel like a lot of kids on our team are good at managing race nerves, but that can be translated into other parts of life.”
Joining University of Utah’s Nordic Ski Team this fall, Gerard looks forward to being pushed by some of the best ski athletes in the country and earning a degree to balance her sports career.
This article appears in Source Weekly February 29, 2024.
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Beautiful article and well deserved publicity.