HOUGHTON – Sunday was a good day for Northern Michigan University ski racers past and present in the first race of the U.S. Cross Country Nationals at the Michigan Tech Trails.

In the individual-start freestyle event, NMU alumna Caitlin Gregg came out on top in the women’s 10-kilometer race, while current NMU racer Kyle Bratrud came out victorious in the men’s 15K.

Gregg, based in Minneapolis and representing the Loppet Nordic Racing team, competed for Wildcats in the early 2000s, so she knew what to expect from the terrain.

No amount of experience could prepare the skiers for the brutality of the weather they endured Sunday, which included subzero wind chills and blowing lake-effect snow that just happened to be going directly against each racer struggling through the uphill finishing straight.

And since this was a race against the clock with each skier going out in timed intervals, there was no pack in which to hide out.

“I had cold hands, I had cold eyeballs, it was definitely not perfect conditions skiing, but if you’ve prepared well for that, the weather doesn’t even matter,” Gregg said.

Gregg said her experiences particularly with the American Birkebeiner race in northern Wisconsin, another event she said is notorious for bad weather, prepped her.

Many racers wore protective strips on their faces to cover as much exposed skin as possible. As conditions were expected to get even worse today, organizers decided on Sunday to postpone today’s classic sprints to Tuesday.

Gregg completed her first 5K lap faster than any other racer, in 14 minutes, 37 seconds, and didn’t lose much speed on the second trip, finishing in a winning time of 30:31.5, more than 10 seconds ahead of the field, with Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center teammates Chelsea Holmes and Rosie Brennan about 12 and 13 seconds off the pace, respectively.

Gregg is still recovering from a bout with shingles this fall and said the 10K “really zapped my high-end energy.”

“I felt great for about 7K. Every week it’s feeling better and better and better,” she said.

Michigan Tech skier Alice Flanders had an excellent performance, taking 20th overall barely two minutes behind Gregg, which was fourth among competitors listed as affiliated with a collegiate team.

The Huskies’ Deedra Irwin was in 36th.

In the morning men’s race, Bratrud, from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, dominated en route to the national title, winning by nearly a minute in 42:01.

“Kyle Bratrud was in a league of his own today,” NMU head nordic skiing coach Sten Fjeldheim said in a news release. “To win by 50 seconds in a 15K race is big. He separated himself from the rest of the 200-skier field early in the race and just kept increasing his lead.”

Bratrud, who finished sixth in last year’s NCAA Championships, was 50 seconds ahead of Kris Freeman from the Freebird team and about 53 seconds ahead of Patrick Caldwell of Dartmouth.

Fredrik Schwencke, another NMU skier, landed in fifth in 43:13.

Tech’s best skier was Thomas Bye, who finished 32nd, but had the third-best time among junior (under-20) racers.