Category: XCFeeds

A collection of live feeds from cross-country ski blogs around the web.

D-pole test (8/31)

We are pretty lucky for many reasons.

At school, we weathered the storm without much damage while the valley towns were devastated. This weekend we plan to take the school out to help with neighboring communities.

On the training side, we are lucky to have a group of very talented alums who train with us on a regular basis. Today we had Andy Newell and Skyler Davis (both USST), Sophie C, Isabel C. and Heather Mooney (all World Jr Team members) and Austinx2 join us. Andy, Skyler and Sophie have all podiumed at US Sr Nationals, Izzy and Heather have won at Jr Nationals, etc… pretty heady stuff 🙂

Today we skied our d-pole test and had lots of PR’s. Obviously all roller skis are different speeds, but most of ours are pretty close and when kids set PR’s with the same skis, then we are moving in the right direction.

Andy and Sophie showed our current kids that we have some work to do, but….we’re not panicking because, as I mentioned, almost everyone set PR’s.

Check out the pictures, then see the times below :).

Anika is all smiles. Apparently she is already getting used to the higher humidity.

Paddy, Skyler and Sophie.

Post d-pole test everyone did a bit of single pole work and then we practiced finishes.

Here are two groups rounding the last corner into an uphill finish.

Heather, Sophie and Gino.

tess leads the charge with Mollie and Mackenzie in hot pursuit.

Matt talks turkey.

Anika, Izzy and Brooke.

2 waves of skiers attack the final hill.

Charlie, Austin, Nick and Calvin.

Skyler, Hamish, Tyler, Paddy and Austin Cobb.

D-pole Test times:

Andy 3:24

Paddy 4:04

Hamish 4:08

Nick 4:09

Tyler 4:09

A Cobb 4:11

JAC 4:15

Charlie 4:29

Calvin 4:36

Corky 4:37

Gino 4:38

Mac 4:42

Sophie 4:26

Izzy C 4:51

Brooke 4:57

Issy P 5:07

Anika 5:07

Mollie 5:48

Tess 6:04

Kate 6:05

Mackenzie 7:05

August 31, 2011
World Cup Field Strength Follow-Up
As promised from last time, a quick look at some similar data broken down by race length. I’ve filtered out the occasional “strange” race length, to focus on just the standard 5, 10, 15, 30 and 50 kilometer distances. The metric is the same: the median number of skiers within a fixed percent of the winner. However, we should be very aware in this case that the median is really nearly the raw data itself. How many 30k mass start races are there per season, anyway? It would be weird to have more than four, and you could only have two.

Here’s the graph for only the interval start races (click for full version):

Notice that some interval start race lengths either didn’t occur in a particular season, or were phased out altogether. So the lines may behave strangely, or simply end. Also note that I omitted the smaller percent back values, as they are less useful for interval start races.

The apparent sudden increase in competitiveness of the women’s interval start 30k races, before they were ended completely, is entirely due to a single (and only) race in 2007-2008. So really, those numbers had been holding steady for quite some time. The men’s data displays its own volatility for the same reasons (single races of a particular length in a given season) but the numbers are all generally higher than for the women.

If you figure the men were seeing ~15 people within 3% of the winner, while the women have been seeing ~5 people within 3% of the winner, that’s a pretty major difference in practical terms. Again, think of it as a game of musical chairs. When the music stops for the men, there can be as many as three times as many skiers vying for a place to sit!

As I laid out in my previous post, I think this difference is mostly a numbers game (ha!). Namely, while 3-4 decades seems like a long time for women’s skiing to have developed, it really isn’t, at least compared to the cultural and practical infrastructure built up around men’s athletics over previous centuries. So if you don’t like this state of affairs, send some money to Fast And Female, be patient, and check back in 20 years or so. I’ll guarantee you things will be better.

Finally, here’s the same graph but for mass start (and pursuit) races:

It’s a little hard to read much into the apparent similarities here. For instance, many of these distances occur only very rarely. So we should ignore the men’s 15k line and the women’s 10k line. Note that the difference at the 30k distance is still quite large, though.

Related posts:
August 31, 2011
Summer Grand Prix

It has been a while since my last update on the site. Things have been very busy the last couple weeks since my return from our camp in France. I have worked many days to make some money, but at the same time had some pretty heavy training to do as well. In that time since France, our team had Large hill Nationals in Park City, Utah. The level was pretty nice for USA skiers. I was happy with my results as I wasn’t jumping especially well in the time before nationals. I finished 9th and was happy to see my brother finish on the podium for a special jumping event.

Most of our team except for a few are in Europe now for Summer Grand Prix. This is one of the main focuses for myself for the summer. Grand Prix for those who don’t know is a Summer world cup. Many of the top skiers show up to see how their level of skiing is and what progress they have made.

Oberwiesenthal, GER

Our first competitions were in Oberwiesenthal, GER. Last year we had the same competitions but with much harder conditions. This year we had better weather but pretty tough wind. The first day was a standard NC competition. One jump and a 10k Race. I was happy with my result as I finished a respectable 20th place, 6th fastest time.

The second competition was a new format that the FIS wanted to test. It is a called a penalty race. The hill is broken up in to 3meter sections with each section being a certain amount of penalty laps. The point being the longer you jump the less amount of penalty laps you had to do. Unfortunately I didn’t have the best of jumps, causing me to do 5 extra laps which take about 20-25 seconds a lap. I still skied fast, but lost a lot of time in the penalty laps, only allowing me to finish 36th. Billy Demong on the other hand had a much better day finishing 3rd for our first podium of the year.

Liberec, CZE

Now we are in Liberec, CZE. Tomorrow (8/31/11) we will have a standard one jump/10k race for a Grand prix event. I fell like I have been jumping better and better, so I will look for better results tomorrow.

Stay tuned for updates.

Taylor

August 30, 2011
Summer Grand Prix

It has been a while since my last update on the site. Things have been very busy the last couple weeks since my return from our camp in France. I have worked many days to make some money, but at the same time had some pretty heavy training to do as well. In that time since France, our team had Large hill Nationals in Park City, Utah. The level was pretty nice for USA skiers. I was happy with my results as I wasn’t jumping especially well in the time before nationals. I finished 9th and was happy to see my brother finish on the podium for a special jumping event.

Most of our team except for a few are in Europe now for Summer Grand Prix. This is one of the main focuses for myself for the summer. Grand Prix for those who don’t know is a Summer world cup. Many of the top skiers show up to see how their level of skiing is and what progress they have made.

Oberwiesenthal, GER

Our first competitions were in Oberwiesenthal, GER. Last year we had the same competitions but with much harder conditions. This year we had better weather but pretty tough wind. The first day was a standard NC competition. One jump and a 10k Race. I was happy with my result as I finished a respectable 20th place, 6th fastest time.

The second competition was a new format that the FIS wanted to test. It is a called a penalty race. The hill is broken up in to 3meter sections with each section being a certain amount of penalty laps. The point being the longer you jump the less amount of penalty laps you had to do. Unfortunately I didn’t have the best of jumps, causing me to do 5 extra laps which take about 20-25 seconds a lap. I still skied fast, but lost a lot of time in the penalty laps, only allowing me to finish 36th. Billy Demong on the other hand had a much better day finishing 3rd for our first podium of the year.

Liberec, CZE

Now we are in Liberec, CZE. Tomorrow (8/31/11) we will have a standard one jump/10k race for a Grand prix event. I fell like I have been jumping better and better, so I will look for better results tomorrow.

Stay tuned for updates.

Taylor

August 30, 2011
Summer Grand Prix

It has been a while since my last update on the site. Things have been very busy the last couple weeks since my return from our camp in France. I have worked many days to make some money, but at the same time had some pretty heavy training to do as well. In that time since France, our team had Large hill Nationals in Park City, Utah. The level was pretty nice for USA skiers. I was happy with my results as I wasn’t jumping especially well in the time before nationals. I finished 9th and was happy to see my brother finish on the podium for a special jumping event.

Most of our team except for a few are in Europe now for Summer Grand Prix. This is one of the main focuses for myself for the summer. Grand Prix for those who don’t know is a Summer world cup. Many of the top skiers show up to see how their level of skiing is and what progress they have made.

Oberwiesenthal, GER

Our first competitions were in Oberwiesenthal, GER. Last year we had the same competitions but with much harder conditions. This year we had better weather but pretty tough wind. The first day was a standard NC competition. One jump and a 10k Race. I was happy with my result as I finished a respectable 20th place, 6th fastest time.

The second competition was a new format that the FIS wanted to test. It is a called a penalty race. The hill is broken up in to 3meter sections with each section being a certain amount of penalty laps. The point being the longer you jump the less amount of penalty laps you had to do. Unfortunately I didn’t have the best of jumps, causing me to do 5 extra laps which take about 20-25 seconds a lap. I still skied fast, but lost a lot of time in the penalty laps, only allowing me to finish 36th. Billy Demong on the other hand had a much better day finishing 3rd for our first podium of the year.

Liberec, CZE

Now we are in Liberec, CZE. Tomorrow (8/31/11) we will have a standard one jump/10k race for a Grand prix event. I fell like I have been jumping better and better, so I will look for better results tomorrow.

Stay tuned for updates.

Taylor

August 30, 2011
Summer Grand Prix

It has been a while since my last update on the site. Things have been very busy the last couple weeks since my return from our camp in France. I have worked many days to make some money, but at the same time had some pretty heavy training to do as well. In that time since France, our team had Large hill Nationals in Park City, Utah. The level was pretty nice for USA skiers. I was happy with my results as I wasn’t jumping especially well in the time before nationals. I finished 9th and was happy to see my brother finish on the podium for a special jumping event.

Most of our team except for a few are in Europe now for Summer Grand Prix. This is one of the main focuses for myself for the summer. Grand Prix for those who don’t know is a Summer world cup. Many of the top skiers show up to see how their level of skiing is and what progress they have made.

Oberwiesenthal, GER

Our first competitions were in Oberwiesenthal, GER. Last year we had the same competitions but with much harder conditions. This year we had better weather but pretty tough wind. The first day was a standard NC competition. One jump and a 10k Race. I was happy with my result as I finished a respectable 20th place, 6th fastest time.

The second competition was a new format that the FIS wanted to test. It is a called a penalty race. The hill is broken up in to 3meter sections with each section being a certain amount of penalty laps. The point being the longer you jump the less amount of penalty laps you had to do. Unfortunately I didn’t have the best of jumps, causing me to do 5 extra laps which take about 20-25 seconds a lap. I still skied fast, but lost a lot of time in the penalty laps, only allowing me to finish 36th. Billy Demong on the other hand had a much better day finishing 3rd for our first podium of the year.

Liberec, CZE

Now we are in Liberec, CZE. Tomorrow (8/31/11) we will have a standard one jump/10k race for a Grand prix event. I fell like I have been jumping better and better, so I will look for better results tomorrow.

Stay tuned for updates.

Taylor

August 30, 2011
Obama Saves US Economy with Sports Corps

Our President is supposed to announce in the next few days about a new job program to save the US and World Economy.

You’ve now heard about his new push to bring America to the top in all sports not just Football and Baseball. Obama wants the US to be competitive in all sports including Team Handball and Badminton. Realizing that there are decreased new job options for High School and College graduates he is going to create a US national elite force of athletes and at the same time create new jobs and save the economy. While the details of the plan shall be forthcoming. It is believed that at least top 100 athletes in each Olympic Sport will be able to fully employed by the Sports Corps.

August 29, 2011
Obama Saves US Economy with Sports Corps

Our President is supposed to announce in the next few days about a new job program to save the US and World Economy.

You’ve now heard about his new push to bring America to the top in all sports not just Football and Baseball. Obama wants the US to be competitive in all sports including Team Handball and Badminton. Realizing that there are decreased new job options for High School and College graduates he is going to create a US national elite force of athletes and at the same time create new jobs and save the economy. While the details of the plan shall be forthcoming. It is believed that at least top 100 athletes in each Olympic Sport will be able to fully employed by the Sports Corps.

August 29, 2011
Obama Saves US Economy with Sports Corps

Our President is supposed to announce in the next few days about a new job program to save the US and World Economy.

You’ve now heard about his new push to bring America to the top in all sports not just Football and Baseball. Obama wants the US to be competitive in all sports including Team Handball and Badminton. Realizing that there are decreased new job options for High School and College graduates he is going to create a US national elite force of athletes and at the same time create new jobs and save the economy. While the details of the plan shall be forthcoming. It is believed that at least top 100 athletes in each Olympic Sport will be able to fully employed by the Sports Corps.

August 29, 2011
Obama Saves US Economy with Sports Corps

Our President is supposed to announce in the next few days about a new job program to save the US and World Economy.

You’ve now heard about his new push to bring America to the top in all sports not just Football and Baseball. Obama wants the US to be competitive in all sports including Team Handball and Badminton. Realizing that there are decreased new job options for High School and College graduates he is going to create a US national elite force of athletes and at the same time create new jobs and save the economy. While the details of the plan shall be forthcoming. It is believed that at least top 100 athletes in each Olympic Sport will be able to fully employed by the Sports Corps.

August 29, 2011
Obama Saves US Economy with Sports Corps

Our President is supposed to announce in the next few days about a new job program to save the US and World Economy.

You’ve now heard about his new push to bring America to the top in all sports not just Football and Baseball. Obama wants the US to be competitive in all sports including Team Handball and Badminton. Realizing that there are decreased new job options for High School and College graduates he is going to create a US national elite force of athletes and at the same time create new jobs and save the economy. While the details of the plan shall be forthcoming. It is believed that at least top 100 athletes in each Olympic Sport will be able to fully employed by the Sports Corps.

August 29, 2011
Obama Saves US Economy with Sports Corps

Our President is supposed to announce in the next few days about a new job program to save the US and World Economy.

You’ve now heard about his new push to bring America to the top in all sports not just Football and Baseball. Obama wants the US to be competitive in all sports including Team Handball and Badminton. Realizing that there are decreased new job options for High School and College graduates he is going to create a US national elite force of athletes and at the same time create new jobs and save the economy. While the details of the plan shall be forthcoming. It is believed that at least top 100 athletes in each Olympic Sport will be able to fully employed by the Sports Corps.

August 29, 2011
Ski Walking in the Sun

The first day of classes was postponed until Tuesday, following a day of wind and rain from the hurricane that left many roads washed out nearby. As the hurricane blew out, gorgeous clear blue skies followed today and we hit the trails for some L3 ski walking intervals up Stratton this morning. We had a small crew today with many day students at home, but the on campus crew, plus several alums (Andy, Sophie, Izzy & Austin), pounded out some long intervals all the way to the top of the alpine area. The rest of the school was out for a hike up the mountain on their day off, so we caught many of them on our way up and down. Above, the boys start off on their second interval.

Paddy (hiding Austin) gets forward.

Hamish, Gino & Calvin.

Corky follows Sophie.

Izzy leads Kate & Anika.

Anika is new to our team this year from McCall, ID.

Boys start off on their final interval of the morning.

Roommates Hamish (Weston, MA) & Gino (Durango, CO) follow Calvin (Litchfield, CT). Hamish and Gino are juniors at SMS and Calvin joins us as a senior.

Corky from Minneapolis, MN is a PG this year – one of four PGs on our team.

The girls work together on the last interval.

Kate (in tye-die) from Lyme, NH is a one of five new juniors on our team. Not pictured is Mollie from Hanover, NH who did a similar workout on her bicycle this morning!

The whole crew at the top!

Heading back down for lunch!

August 29, 2011
Are Women’s WC Fields Really ‘Weaker’?
I received an email recently asking about field strength for the men’s and women’s WC fields, particularly as it applies to mass start races. Lately we’ve seen the men’s field engage in a fair bit of pack skiing, whereas the women’s field strings out more quickly.

First, I want to dispatch with a common bit of lazy rhetoric in this area. Saying that the women’s field is ‘weak’ is not the same as saying the women are weak. I’m not sure what other people mean, but what I mean by a ‘weak field’ is simply that there are fewer skiers able to finish close to the leader. To say that there are fewer women able to (nearly) match the performance of Marit Bjørgen than there are men who can (nearly) match the performance of Petter Northug is not to say that the women are somehow less talented than the men. To the extent that this happens, I consider it primarily a legacy of gender inequalities in sports and society in general. We’ve made a lot of progress in bringing more women into this sport, but professional women’s skiing still must be several decades younger than men’s professional skiing.

With that caveat out of the way, let’s look at some data. My preferred metric for this sort of thing is to look at the number of skiers within a fixed percent of the leader. It’s sort of a ‘musical chairs’ analogy: the more skiers you have fighting for a fixed number of chairs, the more ‘competitive’ the field. Let’s begin with interval start races (click for full version):

The lines track the median number of skiers within that percent of the leader by season for men and women in interval start races only. The top two panels (0.25% and 0.5%) can be ignored for now; those percent back’s are too small to be meaningful with interval start races. They will be more relevant when we look at mass start races, which are inherently less spread out.

Over the last decade, this in quite unambiguous. There have tended to be more (sometimes considerably more!) men within a fixed percent of the winner. The men’s field appears to have seen a gradual increase over time, although there has been plenty of variation from year to year. The women’s field appears to have been more steady, with the overall number of skiers within a fixed percent of the winner remaining relatively unchanged over time. On a shorter time scale, the women appear to have seen a decrease in the number of skiers with 1.5% – 3% of the winner over the past 4 seasons or so.

How does this compare to mass (and pursuit) start races? (click for full version)

Note that the 0.25% and 0.5% panels actually have some useful data in the case of mass start races. The difference here between the men and women is even more stark. Of course, it should be noted that the number of mass/pursuit races on the schedule each season is fairly small, even nowadays. Before the last decade, they were either experimental just non-existant. Despite the small sample size, the difference between the men’s and women’s fields is noticeable.

The trends for the men are a bit different when compared to the interval start races. We saw a general growth in the number of skiers within a fixed percent back of the leader early in the 00′s, but things seem to have steadied since then. Notice that the women’s field sees a slight decline in the past 4 season similar to what we saw with the interval start races.

Well, what could have happened over the past 4 season? I’ll tell you what: Marit Bjørgen and Justyna Kowalczyk:

Bjørgen gets all the press for crushing people, but if you removed Bjørgen from the picture, Kowalczyk would likely be nearly as dominant (at least in distance events). Only Therese Johaug seems to have figured out how to compete with these ladies just last season, and then only occasionally. I hoped that Charlotte Kalla would be more consistently competitive as well (and she may yet be; she’s pretty young) but right now we’re still waiting.

So I think that it’s fairly unambiguously true that the men’s WC field is more competitive in the following sense: if each field were a game of musical chairs, with skiers competing for 30 chairs (WC points), there are simply more men playing the game than women. That makes for a tighter game of musical chairs.

It’s not that we’re not producing gnarly, hard-core, badass female ski racers. We just don’t seem to be producing quite as many of them as we are with the men.

A further way to slice this data would be to look at breakdowns by race length, which I’ll consider in a future post…

Related posts:
August 29, 2011
Time for Time Trials

Hello from Germany!

Things have finally cooled off a bit here in Germany, and though I’m not going to complain about sunny days after the winter we had here, the cool down was MUCH appreciated! Last week was a pretty big one for us, with two time trials. The first was a normal biathlon time trial with the Italian team, Slovenians, Estonians and us (as well as Andrea Henkel). It was a hot day, but things went well for me. Given that the Italians were all on fast rollerskis and I was still 4th, I was happy. Shooting felt solid and the skiing was much better than Jericho a couple weeks ago. It was nice to do a time trial with the pressure of an international field, too: we were able to see where things might stack up this winter. Our coaches were pleased and I think we’re all looking forward to fine tuning things in the next couple months before the snow flies!

Annelies shows off our ice bath post-time trial.

On Saturday, we did the epic Rossfeld uphill skate time trial. It was just our team, but that did not diminish the feat. Rossfeld is a fairly steep but skiable uphill (it averages an 8.5% grade) that takes about an hour to complete. The women’s start point makes the course 10km, while the men start a bit lower for a 12km total. It’s definitely an exercise in mental toughness – having to stay focused for that long, plus pacing correctly so you don’t bonk before the end. Despite being a foggy, rainy day, it was a solid time trial. No one was complaining about the weather, because if it had stayed hot we would have all been more than miserable. I was very happy with my effort, and extremely glad to have the workout behind me!

Me, at the start of the Rossfeld TT. (photo: Jonne Kahkonnen)

Our women’s group is now complete, with yesterday’s arrival of Laura Spector (thanks, Irene, for letting her out!). Today we head off to Oberhof where we’ll be able to ski in the ski tunnel the next few days. On the way, we’ll stop in Salzburg for some shooting tests. Only one more week left in the camp, and only a couple more day left in August. The summer is ending and things are feeling on-track for a good winter. Here’s to a great fall of training!

Beautiful Salzburg! (photo: Zachary Hall)

August 29, 2011
Time for Time Trials

Hello from Germany!

Things have finally cooled off a bit here in Germany, and though I’m not going to complain about sunny days after the winter we had here, the cool down was MUCH appreciated! Last week was a pretty big one for us, with two time trials. The first was a normal biathlon time trial with the Italian team, Slovenians, Estonians and us (as well as Andrea Henkel). It was a hot day, but things went well for me. Given that the Italians were all on fast rollerskis and I was still 4th, I was happy. Shooting felt solid and the skiing was much better than Jericho a couple weeks ago. It was nice to do a time trial with the pressure of an international field, too: we were able to see where things might stack up this winter. Our coaches were pleased and I think we’re all looking forward to fine tuning things in the next couple months before the snow flies!

Annelies shows off our ice bath post-time trial.

On Saturday, we did the epic Rossfeld uphill skate time trial. It was just our team, but that did not diminish the feat. Rossfeld is a fairly steep but skiable uphill (it averages an 8.5% grade) that takes about an hour to complete. The women’s start point makes the course 10km, while the men start a bit lower for a 12km total. It’s definitely an exercise in mental toughness – having to stay focused for that long, plus pacing correctly so you don’t bonk before the end. Despite being a foggy, rainy day, it was a solid time trial. No one was complaining about the weather, because if it had stayed hot we would have all been more than miserable. I was very happy with my effort, and extremely glad to have the workout behind me!

Me, at the start of the Rossfeld TT. (photo: Jonne Kahkonnen)

Our women’s group is now complete, with yesterday’s arrival of Laura Spector (thanks, Irene, for letting her out!). Today we head off to Oberhof where we’ll be able to ski in the ski tunnel the next few days. On the way, we’ll stop in Salzburg for some shooting tests. Only one more week left in the camp, and only a couple more day left in August. The summer is ending and things are feeling on-track for a good winter. Here’s to a great fall of training!

Beautiful Salzburg! (photo: Zachary Hall)

August 29, 2011
Time for Time Trials

Hello from Germany!

Things have finally cooled off a bit here in Germany, and though I’m not going to complain about sunny days after the winter we had here, the cool down was MUCH appreciated! Last week was a pretty big one for us, with two time trials. The first was a normal biathlon time trial with the Italian team, Slovenians, Estonians and us (as well as Andrea Henkel). It was a hot day, but things went well for me. Given that the Italians were all on fast rollerskis and I was still 4th, I was happy. Shooting felt solid and the skiing was much better than Jericho a couple weeks ago. It was nice to do a time trial with the pressure of an international field, too: we were able to see where things might stack up this winter. Our coaches were pleased and I think we’re all looking forward to fine tuning things in the next couple months before the snow flies!

Annelies shows off our ice bath post-time trial.

On Saturday, we did the epic Rossfeld uphill skate time trial. It was just our team, but that did not diminish the feat. Rossfeld is a fairly steep but skiable uphill (it averages an 8.5% grade) that takes about an hour to complete. The women’s start point makes the course 10km, while the men start a bit lower for a 12km total. It’s definitely an exercise in mental toughness – having to stay focused for that long, plus pacing correctly so you don’t bonk before the end. Despite being a foggy, rainy day, it was a solid time trial. No one was complaining about the weather, because if it had stayed hot we would have all been more than miserable. I was very happy with my effort, and extremely glad to have the workout behind me!

Me, at the start of the Rossfeld TT. (photo: Jonne Kahkonnen)

Our women’s group is now complete, with yesterday’s arrival of Laura Spector (thanks, Irene, for letting her out!). Today we head off to Oberhof where we’ll be able to ski in the ski tunnel the next few days. On the way, we’ll stop in Salzburg for some shooting tests. Only one more week left in the camp, and only a couple more day left in August. The summer is ending and things are feeling on-track for a good winter. Here’s to a great fall of training!

Beautiful Salzburg! (photo: Zachary Hall)

August 29, 2011
Time for Time Trials

Hello from Germany!

Things have finally cooled off a bit here in Germany, and though I’m not going to complain about sunny days after the winter we had here, the cool down was MUCH appreciated! Last week was a pretty big one for us, with two time trials. The first was a normal biathlon time trial with the Italian team, Slovenians, Estonians and us (as well as Andrea Henkel). It was a hot day, but things went well for me. Given that the Italians were all on fast rollerskis and I was still 4th, I was happy. Shooting felt solid and the skiing was much better than Jericho a couple weeks ago. It was nice to do a time trial with the pressure of an international field, too: we were able to see where things might stack up this winter. Our coaches were pleased and I think we’re all looking forward to fine tuning things in the next couple months before the snow flies!

Annelies shows off our ice bath post-time trial.

On Saturday, we did the epic Rossfeld uphill skate time trial. It was just our team, but that did not diminish the feat. Rossfeld is a fairly steep but skiable uphill (it averages an 8.5% grade) that takes about an hour to complete. The women’s start point makes the course 10km, while the men start a bit lower for a 12km total. It’s definitely an exercise in mental toughness – having to stay focused for that long, plus pacing correctly so you don’t bonk before the end. Despite being a foggy, rainy day, it was a solid time trial. No one was complaining about the weather, because if it had stayed hot we would have all been more than miserable. I was very happy with my effort, and extremely glad to have the workout behind me!

Me, at the start of the Rossfeld TT. (photo: Jonne Kahkonnen)

Our women’s group is now complete, with yesterday’s arrival of Laura Spector (thanks, Irene, for letting her out!). Today we head off to Oberhof where we’ll be able to ski in the ski tunnel the next few days. On the way, we’ll stop in Salzburg for some shooting tests. Only one more week left in the camp, and only a couple more day left in August. The summer is ending and things are feeling on-track for a good winter. Here’s to a great fall of training!

Beautiful Salzburg! (photo: Zachary Hall)

August 29, 2011
Time for Time Trials

Hello from Germany!

Things have finally cooled off a bit here in Germany, and though I’m not going to complain about sunny days after the winter we had here, the cool down was MUCH appreciated! Last week was a pretty big one for us, with two time trials. The first was a normal biathlon time trial with the Italian team, Slovenians, Estonians and us (as well as Andrea Henkel). It was a hot day, but things went well for me. Given that the Italians were all on fast rollerskis and I was still 4th, I was happy. Shooting felt solid and the skiing was much better than Jericho a couple weeks ago. It was nice to do a time trial with the pressure of an international field, too: we were able to see where things might stack up this winter. Our coaches were pleased and I think we’re all looking forward to fine tuning things in the next couple months before the snow flies!

Annelies shows off our ice bath post-time trial.

On Saturday, we did the epic Rossfeld uphill skate time trial. It was just our team, but that did not diminish the feat. Rossfeld is a fairly steep but skiable uphill (it averages an 8.5% grade) that takes about an hour to complete. The women’s start point makes the course 10km, while the men start a bit lower for a 12km total. It’s definitely an exercise in mental toughness – having to stay focused for that long, plus pacing correctly so you don’t bonk before the end. Despite being a foggy, rainy day, it was a solid time trial. No one was complaining about the weather, because if it had stayed hot we would have all been more than miserable. I was very happy with my effort, and extremely glad to have the workout behind me!

Me, at the start of the Rossfeld TT. (photo: Jonne Kahkonnen)

Our women’s group is now complete, with yesterday’s arrival of Laura Spector (thanks, Irene, for letting her out!). Today we head off to Oberhof where we’ll be able to ski in the ski tunnel the next few days. On the way, we’ll stop in Salzburg for some shooting tests. Only one more week left in the camp, and only a couple more day left in August. The summer is ending and things are feeling on-track for a good winter. Here’s to a great fall of training!

Beautiful Salzburg! (photo: Zachary Hall)

August 29, 2011
Time for Time Trials

Hello from Germany!

Things have finally cooled off a bit here in Germany, and though I’m not going to complain about sunny days after the winter we had here, the cool down was MUCH appreciated! Last week was a pretty big one for us, with two time trials. The first was a normal biathlon time trial with the Italian team, Slovenians, Estonians and us (as well as Andrea Henkel). It was a hot day, but things went well for me. Given that the Italians were all on fast rollerskis and I was still 4th, I was happy. Shooting felt solid and the skiing was much better than Jericho a couple weeks ago. It was nice to do a time trial with the pressure of an international field, too: we were able to see where things might stack up this winter. Our coaches were pleased and I think we’re all looking forward to fine tuning things in the next couple months before the snow flies!

Annelies shows off our ice bath post-time trial.

On Saturday, we did the epic Rossfeld uphill skate time trial. It was just our team, but that did not diminish the feat. Rossfeld is a fairly steep but skiable uphill (it averages an 8.5% grade) that takes about an hour to complete. The women’s start point makes the course 10km, while the men start a bit lower for a 12km total. It’s definitely an exercise in mental toughness – having to stay focused for that long, plus pacing correctly so you don’t bonk before the end. Despite being a foggy, rainy day, it was a solid time trial. No one was complaining about the weather, because if it had stayed hot we would have all been more than miserable. I was very happy with my effort, and extremely glad to have the workout behind me!

Me, at the start of the Rossfeld TT. (photo: Jonne Kahkonnen)

Our women’s group is now complete, with yesterday’s arrival of Laura Spector (thanks, Irene, for letting her out!). Today we head off to Oberhof where we’ll be able to ski in the ski tunnel the next few days. On the way, we’ll stop in Salzburg for some shooting tests. Only one more week left in the camp, and only a couple more day left in August. The summer is ending and things are feeling on-track for a good winter. Here’s to a great fall of training!

Beautiful Salzburg! (photo: Zachary Hall)

August 29, 2011