Jon Brown has impeccable timing. The 47-year-old grew up nordic skiing and running cross-country in New Yorkbutpicked up mountain biking after college. He was soon racing in24-hour mountain-biking endurance eventsduringtheir heyday in the nineties. As the allureof those raceswaned, Brown began adventure racing, enjoyingthepopularity ofmultisport sufferfests for a decade. Twelve years ago, he switched again, this time to focuson skimo (ski mountaineering), which seees competitors headingup and down snowy peaks.
“I like the spandex sports,” Brown jokes. “I got lucky with the timing. When I started racing skimo, it was such a small niche in the U.S., so nobody had great gear. I had access to some lightweight equipment, because of my adventure-racing sponsors from Europe, so I had some success early on.”
All these years later, Brown is still on top:he’sbeennamedto the team for the last six years in a row and competedat the sport’s world championship three times. But now the competition is more fierce than when he started.
“I feel like the racing side of skimo is still growing, but the fitness side is where it’s really blowing up, thanks to the availability of good equipment and the trend of resorts allowing you to skin up their mountains,” Brown says. “On any given day before the pandemic, you could go up to Crested Butte Mountain Resort [in Colorado] and there would be 20 to 100 people skinning up in the morning.”
Brown previously skied for the nordic team at Western Colorado University, in Gunnison, so he was a natural fit for skimo. But going uphill is only half of the race. Skimo athletes climb a mountain on skins and tackle steep boot-pack sections, but at some point, they have to point their tips down the slopes and ski to the finish. Brown didn’t learn to alpine ski until he was in his thirties.
“I was terrible at going downhill when I started,” Brown says. It took being convinced byan adventure-racing friend to enter his first skimo race. “I’m still not a very good alpine skier. Downhill is my weakness. I’m a chicken.”
Skimo races have different formats, but Brown mostly competes inteam races, which include several thousand feet of vertical and incorporate every aspect of climbing and downhill, including some technical sections where racers need crampons. Partners must finish within tenseconds of each other and are often connected by ropes on the climbs. Brownalso likes multi-hour races, like the, , and the, where athletesclimband descendfor the better part of a day. It’s a sport that combines strength, speed, endurance, and technical skill, and it’slargely dominated by young athletes, especially in Europe, the epicenter ofthe sport.
“I went to worldslast year in Switzerland. Over thereit’s a scene, with all the teams hanging out in the hotel, and they’re all 18 to 26 years old,” Brown says. “Everyone thought I was a coach or a parent.”
Even here in the States,Brown is competing against athletes a decade or more his junior. The star of the men’s national team, , isn’t even old enough to rent a car. “It’s awesome when I see a 24-year-old kick my butt,” Brown says.“That guy is bringing the U.S. to the next level.” Brown might not have the sheer speed of a younger athleteanymore, but he says experience and wisdom make up for it, especially on longer, more technical routes, where transitions are frequent and decisions have to be made about which lines to take.
The global pandemiccut the skimo race season short and has stunted Brown’s typical on-snow training plans, withresorts and trailheads closed. He would typically rely on other passions—running and biking—to keep him in shape for the competitive season, but it’s been a particularly snowy winter in Colorado, which means most of his go-totrails are still weeks from being accessible. Sothis winter and spring, Brown has fallen in love withZwift, the indoor-riding platform.
“I thought it sounded silly when I first got one, but I’ve ridden my bike more than I’ve skied this year,” he says. “I’ve been Zwifting my life away. It’s a really efficient workout, and it’s fun, because you’re riding with other people. It’s not as isolating as sitting on rollers and suffering like I used to do.”
When the trails thaw and Brown feels like it’s safe to start adventuring again, he’lllikely abandon the trainer for his typical off-season mountain-bike and trail-running workouts,eventually movingto the track for speed work. He uses his 400-metertime (once around the track)togaugehow fit he is heading into the skimo season in November; typically, he wants to run a series of eight lapsin under 75 seconds each, withrest in between. “If I can do that, I know I’m ready,” Brown says, adding that maybe all his Zwifting will pay off this summer. “It’s such a difficult workout, I’m curious to get outside and see how fit I am. Maybe I’ll come out of this winter stronger than ever.”
Brown was recently offered the chance to participatein the adventure-race revival in Fiji last fallbut decided against it. “When I first got asked to compete, I was excited. But the more I thought about it, the lack of sleep and just pushing through the jungle, I realized that it just sounded terrible,” hesays. For now, Brown is comfortable right where he is.“I still love skimo and racing, but it’s not a singular focus anymore. I love getting out, and I love seeing the sport grow. But for me, it’s more about having fun these days.”