Anne Miller has breakout Nordic season

Every night prior to a race, Glacier Nordic Ski Team coach Ben Morley had each team member write their goals for the ski season on a blank index card. The skiers were to focus on the written words and use that vision as motivation to accomplish whatever it was they were after. For some, it was to post a certain time or to improve on a technique.

But when team member Anne Miller pulled out her index card, she wrote the same three words on it every time — "Presque Isle, Maine" — the site of this year's Junior Olympics for Nordic skiing.

Last year, Miller, 18, came up just short of earning a spot on the Intermountain Nordic team, which represents skiers at the national event from Montana, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming.

"I was the first alternate last year," Miller explained, saying she had to stay home while teammates Stella Holt and Jack Steele made the trip to Truckee, Calif., without her.

"My ultimate goal was to make the team this year," she said. "Last year, coming so close and not making it was tough. It gave me a lot of motivation to get on the team."

Now, thanks to a second-place finish in February at the final qualifying race in Bogus Basin, Idaho, she can come up with something else to write on her index card. Miller has earned her ticket to Maine.

She will join Holt and Steele on this year's edition of the Intermountain team as they travel across the country this week to compete for a national title.

"It was definitely a breakthrough year," Miller said about her season. "At the first qualifier, I didn't expect to do as well as I did. It was a surprise to me."

She admits she came out of nowhere as a contender for a national title — last season she was a regular top-20 finisher in the Intermountain region, but never reached the podium. By the time the second qualifier this year at Soldier Hollow, Utah, was over, she had all but wrapped up a spot on the Intermountain team. Her 10th-place finish in the sprints garnered her enough points that she just needed a steady, not perfect, race in the final qualifier at Bogus Basin to make the squad.

But she was more than steady. In fact, she took second-place overall in the 10-kilometer free, beating out some of the top racers in the country, including Katie Gill who is an elite Scandinavian Cup competitor.

"It was fun to ski with that caliber and see that I'm able to stick with them," Miller said. "It's a confidence boost to be able to say that I've skied with these girls. Who knows? Maybe I could do it again at nationals."

Miller attributes her success this season to an intense training regime in the off-season.

Last fall, she ran on the Lady Bulldog cross-country team, and even though she doesn't really like to run, she says it was a great way to prepare for the ski season.

"The cross-country season got me in shape," Miller said. "Being able to be in that good of shape coming into the season is great."

She also hiked and climbed in Glacier National Park with her sister Clare, who is a former Glacier Nordic team member.

Morley said that when Miller showed up for the team's first practices, it was obvious she had trained hard in the off-season.

"This summer she got into really good shape and that carried over," Morley said. "It takes year-round training. You can't just show up, put on skis and think you're going to make the national team. It takes a lot of determination and you have to want to do it."

While she worked hard in the summer and fall, it might have been the brutal on-snow workouts organized by Morley that got her in the best condition.

"The intervals were killer at first," Miller said. "I wasn't used to that at all. Ben has a different mentality. He'll be right behind us and pushing us almost as a competitor."

But the tough practices, the off-season training and the long road trips to different races venues are worth it to Miller. It's all fun to her.

"I like everything about skiing," she said. "There isn't anything I don't like. Our team is awesome. We're all a pretty good group of friends. It carries over off the team, too, and that's kind of fun."

Morley said Miller has a great attitude at races and that she has a way of lifting everyone up with her spirit.

A senior at Whitefish High School, Miller hopes to continue skiing competitively at the collegiate level. She has her eye on a few East Coast schools and one in the Midwest where she thinks she could be a "walk on" for the ski team. She plans to major in education or sports medicine.

Outside of the Nordic world, Miller sings with the high school choir, loves to downhill ski and dabbles in mountaineering in Glacier Park — she has summited of Bearhat Mountain and Mt. Oberlin, among others.

"I'm just a normal Montana kid, I guess," she said.

At the national event, Miller will race in the classic sprints, a 10-kilometer skate, a 5-kilometer classic and a relay. The races are slated for March 5-14. To follow the team's results, visit online at www.juniorolympics2010.org.