Cross-country skier Adam Martin of Wausau competed in the World Championship. What’s next? – Wausau Daily Herald

SEEFELD, Austria – He stood at the starting line for the biggest race of his career so far, one thing on his mind: Stay with the lead pack as long as you can.

Wausau native Adam Martin was in 33rd position, mingled among the top cross-country skiers in the world. It was March 3, and the 50-kilometer (31 miles) World Championship freestyle cross-country ski race at Seefeld, Austria, was about to begin. Adam and the other skiers were shifting their bodies, shaking their limbs to keep loose. It was warm, about 60 degrees.

“I’m often a little surprised how normal it feels in the moments leading up to a really important race,” he said later in an email interview. “I train year round, often thinking about a few events in the winter. But when the time right before a big one comes, it’s surprising how familiar it all feels.”

At age 24, Adam was the youngest American male skier competing at the World Championships. But he is no stranger to high-stakes, pressure-cooker races. He has prepared for these kinds of moments since he was in middle school.

The World Championship is the most prestigious competition for a cross-country skier outside of the Olympics, and competing there was a significant step in his career. 

Adam sets nuanced and refined goals pegged on personal improvement and reaching the limits of his potential, and competing at the highest levels is key to reach that peak. If he achieves those goals, he could be standing on a similar starting line at the 2020 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China.

“I certainly would love to go to the Olympics,” he said. But he can’t bring himself to set that as concrete objective as a definition of his success. He knows his sport can be fickle and too much is out of his control. 

None of that was on Adam’s mind at the World Championship 50K starting line. His thoughts were on one track: Keep with the lead group. Keep with the lead group. Keep with the lead group.

‘It was intrinsic. He always pushed himself.’

Both of Adam’s parents, Paul Martin, a math professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in Wausau, and Laura Martin, who was a physical therapist and stay-at-home mom, are avid athletes who embrace an active outdoor lifestyle. 

“We’re into the distance and endurance activities,” Laura said. Laura was a runner, Paul more of a cyclist. They both love cross-country skiing.

Their children — Adam has an older sister, Sarah — were included in the adventures almost from the time they were born. Paul remembers carrying them in a backpack carrier when they were too small to ski themselves.

By the time each kid was 4 or 5, they were skiing on their own, and by age 8, “they were skiing pretty nice,” Paul said.

When the children reached middle school, both went into a free program offered through the Wausau Nordic Ski Club called Night Gliders. Night Gliders gives kids weekly lessons and preps them for a lifetime of skiing. And competition, if they choose. Adam was a fifth-grader when he entered his first race at Nine Mile County Recreation Forest.

“I was incredibly nervous,” Adam said. He skied hard, and he didn’t win in a field that was crowded with older and more experienced skiers.

But when the race was over, he knew cross-country skiing would be it for him.

“I was psyched. It was a really, really fun experience, and it pulled me in,” he said. “I would even go as far as to say it was an euphoric experience.”

Laura remembers that race.

“He was hooked on ski racing,” she said. “It became a passion. And when Adam’s passionate about something, it pervades everything in his life.”

Paul and Laura never pushed Adam.

“It was intrinsic. He always pushed himself harder than we would ever push him,” Paul said.

It didn’t take long before Adam’s work began to pay off. He qualified for national level and international level races before he was able to get a driver’s license. He was 17 when he competed in his first international race, in Estonia.

‘Putting it in perspective.’

The 50K was Adam’s second World Championship race. The first was the skiathlon, a 30K (18.6 mile) competition that requires competitors to ski half the race in classic style, half in skating style.

That race was held on Feb. 23, eight days before the 50K. Norwegian Sjur Roethe won the skiathlon with a time of 1:10:21.8. Adam finished in 54th place, nearly eight minutes behind Roethe, and he was disappointed with the result.

“I’m still putting it in perspective,” Adam said a few days later in a Skype interview from Seefeld. “There are so many variables in ski racing, and you have to dial in really good.”

In another conversation weeks later, Adam was still disappointed with that race, but had come to a place of acceptance. “I am just honored and appreciate having that experience and that opportunity,” he said. “And now I’m motivated to dig a little deeper.”

When Adam was in middle and high school, he often dominated races, and skied many of them by himself well in front of the pack. Those races didn’t satisfy him, either, Laura said, because they didn’t help him to improve.

“He was always looking for ways to get better, and he always liked it much better when another competitor could push him,” she said.

That’s why, after graduating from Wausau East High School in 2013, Adam enrolled in Northern Michigan University in Marquette, which boasts one of the top Nordic ski programs in the country.

Adam thrived there. He was a four-time All-American and raced to third place in the 15K classic at the U.S. Nationals in 2016. Skiing was his top priority at NMU, Adam said, but he also earned a 4.0 GPA while graduating in 2017 with two degrees, math and computer science. He won the 2017 NCAA Elite 90 Award, bestowed to athletes who compete at the top of their sports while also achieving the highest academic standards.

Adam likely will go to graduate school and pursue a career in computer science when he ends his relentless pursuit of skiing potential. When will that be? When skiing loses its sense of fulfillment for him, he said, “like if I can’t enjoy racing itself, or I stop enjoying the process.”

There’s tension between the pull of the sport and the attraction of delving into the field of computer science.

“Sometimes I think a more traditional career is appealing to me. There’s a more direct relationship in effort and fulfillment. I think in most careers you are being evaluated on production,” he said. “The worst part of being (a) professional athlete are the moments of doubt, when I have a bad race.” 

‘It was crazy.’

The first half of the 50K went exactly as Adam had hoped. 

The start was hectic, Adam said, but the field soon fell into a rhythm as it wound through the hills of Austria. 

“There’s sort of an accordion effect,” Adam said. The leaders will slow as they are going uphill and the pack will bunch up. Then it stretches out as leaders plunge down inclines as their chasers still climb up the slope.

The skiers changed their skis about midway through the race, common practice for longer races. After the switch, the leaders methodically skied away from Adam.

“I got dislodged, and started losing time on the downhills,” he said. Again, his skis felt a bit sticky, but this time the race had a whole different feeling for Adam. The equipment didn’t feel like it was that big of a factor in this race, and he had proven to himself that he could hang with the best in world.

He soon was racing on his own, the leaders ahead of him, slower skiers behind. He could see a couple of other skiers who got dropped by the lead pack, and he pushed to catch them, but he also relaxed.

“I felt some acceptance at having been dropped. I mean, it was not ideal, but I started enjoying the experience,” Adam said. “We did a lap every 18 minutes or so, and we’d go through a packed stadium. We could see ourselves on the big TV screens that people were watching in the venue. … It was crazy.”

Martin finished the 50K course with a time of 1:58:01, just over eight minutes behind winner Hans Christer Holund of Norway.

‘There’s fulfillment in pursuing something with abandon.’

The 2018-19 cross-country ski season is over.

Adam is readying for some time off and a trip to Wausau to visit his parents and do some maple syruping with Paul and other family members.

It’s been a good season, he said. He posted a second-place finish in the U.S. Nationals for the 15K classic race, and had eight World Cup starts, in addition to qualifying and racing at the World Championship.

After his Wausau trip, he’ll be doing off-season workouts with his team, the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, located in Craftsbury, Vermont. He joined that team before graduating from NMU, after his college ski season was over. Craftsbury pays for housing, coaching, travel and food. Adam works and coaches at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center, which is a resort that offers training opportunities for cyclists, runners, rowers and cross-country skiers. “It’s sort of like a summer camp for all ages,” Adam said, only with themes of running, cycling or rowing.

He also earns income from sponsorships. 

Adam is looking forward to the off-season training. “I genuinely enjoy training in the summer. For me, it’s sort of like a puzzle,” he said.

Last summer Adam did a lot of volume training, long, relatively easier efforts that helped him build endurance. This summer he plans to train fewer hours, but ramp up the intensity of what he does.

“I felt like I lacked a little bit of top-end speed this year, in terms of really being able to exert myself,” Adam said.

It’s still, for Adam, all about the passion, a way of honoring the 14-year-old who fell in love with the sport in the first place.

“There’s fulfillment,” Adam said, “in pursuing something with abandon.”

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