Nov. 29—The last year has been as tough and tumultuous as any Rosie Brennan has experienced in her dozen seasons on the World Cup cross country skiing circuit.
Brennan, an APU skier who grew up in Park City, Utah, has been hampered by a mystery condition that is equal parts physically debilitating and mentally draining.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBut Brennan has forged forward, in an attempt to recharge her career and compete this winter in a third Olympic Games for Team USA.
It was nearly a year ago when Brennan started having what she described as "unexplained, strange symptoms that had a significantly negative impact on my performance."
Her symptoms included unusual soreness and inflammation and an inability to recover after races and training as she had throughout her career.
The episode has Brennan, who turns 37 on Dec. 2, taking stock of her career, and more importantly her overall well-being.
"Before this all kind of happened, I still felt like I was improving and on a trajectory that I believed in," she said in a recent interview. "So that was motivating to me. And also, I would really like to end on my own terms and not because my body quits on me, which, we don't always get that luxury."
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIn the lead-up to the season in fall 2024, there was no indication of problems and Brennan tested well in both dry land and treadmill workouts.
Erik Flora, who has coached Brennan at APU since her first year in 2011, said that she is among the most consistent athletes he's ever worked with.
"Rosie, you know she's one of the athletes that, you make a plan, she does the work and she does the work to a T," Flora said. "So it's been really easy for the most part to help her get her goals."
The struggles started while she was in Europe for the 2024-25 World Cup. After underperforming by her standards in the early portion of the season, Brennan made the decision to return to Anchorage.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIn a Jan. 19 Instagram post, Brennan detailed the uncertain nature of the issue, writing, "I'm crushed and scared and don't know what the future holds."
Brennan had experienced similar issues during her career. In 2018, she competed with mono through a portion of the 2018 Olympic season, only finding out the diagnosis afterward.
After spending some time away early in 2025, she returned to Europe with the hopes of getting back in the swing at the World Championships in Trondheim, Norway, from late February into early March.
But by late March after an attempt at the Holmenkollen World Cup stop in Norway, Brennan put a halt to her season.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement'We just had to kind of learn a new Rosie'
Back in Anchorage in the spring after consulting with Flora, Brennan took April and May off.
"We decided that, you know, let's take a break, take a total reset," Flora said. "That's what we did in 2018 and rebuilt training after that. And the next season went really well in 2019."
But Brennan and Flora soon found that restarting her previous training routine wasn't going to work.
"We started to identify some of the symptoms and the effects of training," he said. "That was a significant turning point."
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementMeanwhile, Brennan was seeing a number of medical specialists trying to figure out the exact cause of her issues.
So far, the best guess from doctors in that Brennan is suffering from post-viral complications, but she said it has taken many trips to various professionals before finally starting to make headway with her current medical team.
"It was very challenging to find kind of the medical support I needed," she said. "The U.S. does not really train doctors in high performance in this context, like, sports medicine is basically just orthopedics."
Brennan and Flora implemented the new training plan over the summer during camps at Eagle Glacier near Girdwood, where APU has a facility.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement[APU's rebuilt glacier training center is again propelling cross-country skiers toward an Olympic season]
"We decided to make the training fit into those camps and then we just had to kind of learn a new Rosie," Flora said.
Using Brennan's training logs, the duo pinpointed the reactions she was having and started to find subtle patterns. Brennan described it as a lot of trial and error to see how her body reacted to various training.
Weight lifting, which causes inflammation, was out. So were the standard high-intensity speed intervals that most skiers do. Those were replaced by shorter versions Brennan calls "micro-intervals." She said those were done at race pace, but never for more than a minute at a time.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"We kind of figured out all the trainings that would impact the body negatively, and we got rid of those and started figuring what would work with her," Flora said. "I don't know how many years of coaching and working with her, we essentially came up with a new way of training."
Brennan said she had good stretches throughout the early summer as she focused her training. Then in August, she had a major regression, leaving her uncertain of the 2025-26 season.
"We kind of really had to go back to the drawing board and get a little bit more creative, because it wasn't enough to just reduce the load of what I was doing," Brennan said.
But September was an incredibly productive month, setting Brennan up to return to the World Cup. Thought the entire ordeal, Flora said he doesn't remember Brennan mentioning retirement once.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"Some athletes, when they get to this place, they walk away," Flora said. "She's kind of dug her heels in and said, 'My goal is to go to the Olympics.' "
The first stop in the World Cup is this weekend in Ruka, Finland, where Brennan has so far notched a 24th-place finish in a 10K classic interval start race and placed 15th in a sprint race.
Brennan admits that the issues may not have had a major effect on her if she weren't a professional athlete. But if she wasn't competing, an active lifestyle was so vital to her that she felt she needed to figure out the root cause.
Even if she quit skiing, she'd want to spend the next day running in the mountains, she said.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"Those things are just so important to my life and to my well-being," she said. "So that was kind of what ultimately ended up giving me the motivation to try to keep figuring stuff out because I just felt like I couldn't even live the life I wanted to."
Flora said Brennan's perseverance has been impressive over the last year as she's continued to seek out every possible solution to get back. He said one of Brennan's best assets throughout her career has been her work ethic. And now that she's not able to outwork the competition, she's found new ways to stay at a high level.
"She's inspiring," Flora aid. "You see that her story is inspiring to those that follow her. And it's that honest, hardworking, hard-driving athlete that just puts everything into it and you know, continues to come back and compete."
After a solid autumn where she met some training goals, Brennan departed for Europe in November with a positive outlook.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"It's definitely like, going to be an experiment with racing as well and like, how much racing I can handle, and kind of how it works, recovering from the races and all that," she said. "So it's definitely like, a bit of a work in progress."
Perhaps the biggest goal for the near term is returning to the Olympics, where she represented the U.S. in 2018 and 2022.
The qualification period for skiers goes until mid-January. Ideally for Brennan, she can post good finishes early and then try to have a separate training segment leading up to the Olympics.
Flora expects Brennan to continue to compete with the same tenacity that has become her trademark.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"I think this story of success and then hardship, and then, you know, she's finding a way through this to still chase her dreams and the goals at this year's Olympics," he said. "As her coach, that's what I see — what sets her apart. This Olympic goal is out there in front, and she's going to do everything she can and look under every rock to be able to get her dream."
While the physical grind and the constant search to pinpoint the root causes of her health issues has been a major undertaking, the emotional toll has been significant as well. But Brennan said the hard work and anguish is worth it.
"The mental part is honestly much harder than the physical" part, Brennan said. "Obviously, you know, I'm not dying or anything. So it's not the end of the world. But it is my life, and it's what I love to do — it's just the most important thing for me."
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