FasterSkier

Author: Erik Bjornsen

  • Final Fairbanks update

    I just got back from our camp in Fairbanks. I spent 8 days up there and skied close to 500 kilometers in that period. This was a great chance for me to get on snow early in the season. Not a lot of ski venues had all of their trails open for the last week of October, but Birch Hill did.

    Friday through Sunday, myself and the other APU athletes helped host a kids camp. We did lots of drills with the kids, like no pole skiing and one pole skiing. We would work on the kids technique for the first hour of each workout then the kids spent the rest of the workout following us around the trails. A big part of being a successful skier is just getting out there and doing kilometers and kilometers of skiing. The camp was organized by a non profit group called Challenge Life. It was a lot of fun to be apart of the camp and get a chance to teach some of the younger generation. There were a lot of kids out on the trails that are just starting the sport and were so passionate about having fun and learning.

    Here is a video of my friend and teammate, Reese Hanneman and I. He put the clips together, I did some of the filming.  It’s from one of the downhills on the race course. We spent a lot of time working this one corner. I have a pretty good feeling Reese and I will have one of the fastest times on this section of the course in three weeks.

  • Fairbanks Update #2

    28 days until my first race……
    I’m pretty excited!!!
    Defiantly winter up here in Fairbanks.

    Skiing is amazing considering there is less then 4 inches of snow.

    My buddy Lasse Molgaad Neilsen, 8 time Denmark national champion.
    I’m really happy with my new training group at APU, but miss training with my good friends at UAA.
     2 hours in the morning, 2 hours in the afternoon….
    Check back for more updates, I’m here in Fairbanks for another week.

  • Fairbanks

    Myself and a couple of friends/ex-teammates decided to drive up to Fairbanks for the weekend and enjoy some of the early snow. Today was our first day here and we are very impressed with the conditions. Just got back from a 2 and a half hour classic ski. Check out the pictures;

    Leaving town…
    Very scenic drive.. On a clean day you can see Mt. McKinley 

    Pitt stop
    Breakfast… its kind of dark here in AK
    We are staying at a friends place at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Free housing is always nice!
     This is Birch Hill Recreational Area. They had 30 kilometers of groomed trails. We skied 2 and half hours and didn’t ski any of the same trails. 

     Left to right…Lukas Ebner (UAA), Erik Soderstrom (UAF), and Lasse Molgaard-Nielson (UAA)..

  • 10/14/2011

    Training yesterday, i’m the guy on the left in the orange shirt.

    Photo credit:Reese Hanneman

    20 times all-out 15 seconds.
    Take one minute rest between fast period.

    Do once a week for entire summer.
    get faster…..

    Possibly going up to Fairbanks, Alaska next weekend. Going to get some skiing in. Here is a picture a friend sent me yesterday of what it looked like. Should be ready to go in a week and a half.

    Photo credit: Heather Edic

  • Last day in the Park City

    Well…. It’s been a sweet camp down here in Park City, Utah. There has been lots of snow flying witch always gets us skiers pretty pumped. I woke up to this view a couple of days ago. Pretty unexpected!

    Me enjoying the fresh powder on a run.

    I leave tomorrow morning back to Anchorage. It will be nice to get a day off of training tomorrow, I’m feeling pretty beat. This morning I chased Kris Freeman and Noah Hoffman up Wolf Creek pass for three hours. A good way to end a camp, laying everything I had left out there. Yesterday we had a time trial(practice race) at the Soldier Hollow, the 2002 Olympic venue. Luckily there wasn’t snow there, I think it is a thousand or so feet lower then Deer Valley, where we are staying now. I had a pretty good race. Felt nice to go out there and not have to watch the heart rate, just go as hard as I can. Here is a picture from the race.

    Top five results-

    1)Noah.Hoffman
    2)Kris Freeman
    3)Erik Bjornsen
    4)Matt Liebsch
    5)Tad Elliott

  • Training Challenge

    Here is a video of myself and a couple other US Ski Team athletes. We are doing a “training challenge week” where we post a video from out workout everyday for one week. The idea is to get more kids in the US out the door and training hard.

  • Park City

    The last couple of days I’ve been in Park City, Utah. The US Ski Team is hosting a two week camp starting the 1st of October. A couple of us met up a little early to get some testing done. The first day I was here we were suppose to just get use to moving at 7,000 ft. So, Kris Freeman and I went on a rollerski in the morning and a run in the afternoon. Here are some pictures and videos from the camp so far.
     A view from the run. This is Deer Valley, hard to see but Park City is on left side of picture.
    Top of Deer Valley
     Park City is a pretty sweet place. This is a chair lift that starts from the middle of town.

  • Kincaid Time Trial

    The APU team and a couple of guys from UAA raced a time trial this morning. It was a classic race around 10 kilometers. Here is a picture from last years race.

    This year the trails weren’t quite as nice. The trails were covered with leaves, wet in some places. I guess that means winter is coming sooner this year, right? Sweet. There was a group of about 5 guys that stayed in the front pack. I ended up being able to pole away in the last kilometer for the win. Marc Iverson was second and Reese Hanamen was third.