Henson ready to compete at Junior Nationals

For the first time since 2011, the Glacier Nordic Ski Team is sending a racer to the Junior National Championships.

Jacob Henson, a U16 skier, qualified to compete in the Truckee, California starting March 9.

A sophomore at Whitefish High School, Henson said the Junior Nationals has been the priority for the last few years.

“It’s been a goal of mine for like three years. Last year I came really close, I was an alternate,” he said. “That was my first year in U16 and my first year with the ability to qualify.”

The last qualifiers from the team were Connor Gray, Stella Holt and Jack Steele in 2011, and in between the team became too small and broke apart for a few years.

For Henson, skiing has always been a passion, though racing came about later.

“I’ve been skiing my whole life, but I didn’t really start racing until seventh grade. Initially I needed a sport for the winter, but then I went to a race and I really liked it,” he said.

In Nordic skiing, racers compete in both classic and skate style, varying sprint races of distances of 1.3 kilometers with longer days of 5 kilometer races.

To qualify for Junior Nationals, Henson raced in six qualifying races.

Most recently, he finished in fourth and fifth places on the Intermountain Division standings following races in Midway, Utah on Feb. 14-15. The Intermountain division comprises Montana, Idaho, Utah and western Wyoming.

He also puts in work year round, switching to roller skis in the summer months. Right now a week of training looks like three days of endurance strength training and an hour or two of skiing every day.

He says it’s a strategic sport, and racing takes a lot of thought and pre-planning.

“Nordic skiing is super calculated. Unlike other sports, you rest a lot on the downhills,” he said. “So you have to really go hard on the uphills. You have to know how ready you are for the uphills and go the day before and look at the course.”

He’s competitive, but Henson says the fun part is also meeting and connecting with everyone he gets to race against.

“I really like the people,” he said. “The people are really nice.”