FasterSkier

Category: XCFeeds

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

  • Fall Weather

    It was a chilly morning in Putney. The Caldwell’s pond was steaming.

    This morning I had a good, confidence boosting classic technique session. We worked on a new relaxation double pole cue and some high speed climbing.

    Between sessions, I went to The Grammar School to talk with and show some pictures to Gunnar Caldwell’s (Zach’s son’s) class. Last year I visited his class several times. I have gotten to know the kids and enjoy seeing them.

    This afternoon we finished up with skate technique for this trip. It didn’t go quite as well as classic but I have some good cues to work on for the next six weeks.

    After training, Zach and I drove to Boston.

    I am spending the night here with a good friend Brayton Osgood. I have an early flight to Salt Lake City tomorrow.

     

     

  • Is Petter Northug Serious?

    That’s an easy one: probably not. I’m referring, of course, to his recent pronouncements about the upcoming season, in which he claims that he will win 7 World Cups, the Tour de Ski overall title, as well as 3 golds at World Championships.

    Obviously, given Northug’s history I’m not inclined to take this too seriously. He likes to make waves from time to time, which is why we love him so. But just for fun, let’s delve a bit into just how impressive a season that would be. As always, all the following comparisons will be for all seasons back to 1992 or so.

    In that time, a skier has won at least 7 individual World Cup (sprint or distance) races a total of 15 times. Five times by Bjørgen, twice by each of Kowalczyk, Kuitunen and Skari Martinsen, and once each by Di Centa, Vaelbe, Majdic and…..Petter Northug. (In case you’re wondering, this metric is a little unfair to Bjoern Daehlie, who was in his prime at a time when there were somewhat fewer WC races on the schedule, and for much of that time was basically splitting the victories with Smirnov.)

    So there’s at least some precedent for Northug’s 7 WC wins claim. Note that he’s the only male skier on that list!

    But the real kicker is actually the three WSC golds. In the modern era (i.e. since 1992), who has won at least three golds at a single major championships (Olympics or WSCs)? That has happened a total of five times, by Bjørgen (of course), but then the list gets a little, shall we say, dubious. They rest are: Myllylae in 1999, Vaelbe in 1997, and then both Lazutina and Smirnov in the somewhat infamous 1995 World Championships.

    That suggests, of course, that the only person to do both, win 7 individual WC events as well as 3 golds at a major championships in a single season is Bjørgen. (She did not race in the Tour de Ski that year.) And frankly, that season is shaping up to be a bit of an outlier even for her.

    So there you have it. If Northug comes through on his promise, I will be the first to doff my cap…but I wouldn’t bet on it.

    Related posts:

    1. <Did Petter Northug Have a Slight Edge On Marcus Hellner?
    2. <Head-To-Head: Petter Northug vs. Marcus Hellner
    3. <Back Burners: Northug, Hjelmeset & Saarinen


  • Sun

    The rain went away and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky today.

    (I’m not wearing a helmet because I came straight from New Zealand and this was an unexpected trip for me. I am not being a good roll model.) This morning I had a productive skate technique session. We tested my skiing at a high output. My heart rate hit 176bpm, which is really close to my max of 182.

    This afternoon we did classic technique with a focus on steep climbing and different striding techniques. The session went pretty well and my energy stayed OK throughout the day.

    This evening I went to Chris and Mary Osgood’s for dinner. Last night I went to Jake and Eve Mcdermott’s place, also for a delicious meal. The community of Putney is like my second (or third) home. They are so generous and inclusive. I love spending time here. Plus, both the Osgoods and Mcdermotts make incredible pies. Here’s a picture of Mary’s:

  • "The Nordic Weekend"

    Every fall, Swiss Ski holds The Nordic Weekend in the mountain town of Andermatt. It’s a three day, three race event that brings together 150+ skiers putting on the race bib, a coaches symposium, along with all the industry players to show off the latest equipment. Comparing it to America, I guess its like West Yellowstone on rollerskis.

    The day before the races, Bettina fell ill. Fortunately Guri Hetland, the head coach of the Swiss Team, was heading over to the races the morning of the first race. I hopped a ride. We came over the Oberalp, a twisting, narrow uber-Euro style road you might have seen in the Giro d’Italia or Tour de Suisse and thought, “Roads like that really exist?”

    We were not making good time to Andermatt in the region (Kanton) Uri. A tour bus was puttering up ahead. Guri gunned the VW Transporter, passed two Porsches, then went for the lumbering bus. Unfortunately, the road wasn’t wide enough for us both. Fortunately, the bus and the Transporter lost little more than paint.

    Way back in the 13th Century, the Uri Kanton was the first to break away and form the republic now known as Switzerland.

    I was satisfied with the three days of racing. Perhaps more importantly, I really enjoyed competing. It was interesting to find yourself battling it out with similar faces day after day, and feeling a little comradery amongst your competitors. The stoke is pretty high to burn up the steep hills of Davos with Cologna, Kindschi, Livers and Company.  

                                                      

    Afterwards, Bettina was feeling a little better and we met up in the Ticino region of Switzerland.  It’s an amazing place, to be on the south side of the Alps beside lakes that trade in names like Lago Maggiore and Lago di Como.

    Early morning we hiked in the seriously steep mountains, then headed down to the waterfront for lunch. While checking out the boats, we got invited out for a day sailing on the Celeste. Kind of the perfect ending to a long weekend I won’t soon forget.

    The end.  Until the next time.

  • GMVS On Snow in Italy!

    The groomer put down some fresh tracks for us and we skated in paradise at the Stelvio Glacier on Monday afternoon. We had mostly sunny skies and it was warm but not too warm for 3-4 loops of the switchback trails up at 10,000 feet.

    For half of the group, it was the first time on the Stelvio, and we spent some good time exploring up on the glacier after looking out in all directions on the drive, the tram, and the poma up to the trails. We focused on skiing slowly and smoothly and keeping the heartrate below the red line. The view from the top is breathtaking, and I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story. Another update should be shortly upcoming, as we have many pictures still to post from several days. We are having an amazing time: we traveled around the mountains on our rest day yesterday and did strength this morning. In the afternoon we will visit another english class, then go rollerskiing up at Schlinig. We are trying to fit everything in before we have to return home in five days!

  • Wet Training

    Both sessions today were very wet. It rained all day long here in Putney, Vermont. Here’s a look at my coach Zach Caldwell’s pond:

    It was raining harder than it looks in the picture!

    This morning was a good session of classic roller ski technique work. In order to build confidence, we went back to the beginning, to technique cues we were working with almost three years ago when we started this technique project. We then worked through all the successful cues and built up to where we are now. I had good energy and the progression went well.

    This afternoon’s session, skate technique, was not as successful. My energy was not as good as this morning, and I was struggling to stand on my feet well. We called the session off after about 20 minutes of skiing. We’ll revisit it tomorrow morning.

    Today was the first fire of the year in the Caldwell household:

    It was an efficient method of drying my wet clothes.

    Blueberry season, which I enjoyed immensely last time I was here, is over. However, it is now apple season. And although apples are not quite as delicious as blueberries, apples mean cider doughnuts!

    They are delicious and not very good for me. I ate three of them today.

  • L3 Classic Interval Video

    Video from yesterday’s L3 classic intervals.  Check yourself out!  

  • Zumba as Cross-training

    This Monday evening Jamie, Kyle, and I headed up to the church on the common to check out the Zumba class taught by Rosa, one of our community rowing regulars. For those of you who don’t know, Zumba is a dance fitness class that combines a little of everything, from belly-dancing to kick boxing to the samba. We were expecting to get a workout similar to that of yoga but an hour of booty shaking, shoulder shimmying, and dynamic footwork later we were drenched in sweat and already sore.  So, we decided to take a closer look at the benefits of Zumba as cross-training.

    Maximum Heart Rate: 169 I’m pretty sure this was reached during the belly-dancing portion of the class. Rosa conveniently had three extra belly-dancing hip scarves, the kind that jingle when you move, which she had us wear. Yes, Kyle wore one, and yes it was jingling.

    Average Heart Rate: 140 but the only reason it wasn’t higher was because we didn’t bring our Zumba hand weights. Some of the dances were a little slower but incorporated rhythmic bicep curls with small dumbbells that doubled as maracas.

    Favorite Dance Move: Butt-shake drum-walk. How it’s done: Shimmy your hips in a slight squat as you walk forward while simultaneously playing air bongo drums with your hands. Targeted muscle groups: Glutes, calves, quads, obliques, and deltoids.

    Hardest Dance Move: Brazilian Samba. How it’s done: Who knows.

    Easiest Dance Move: The “I workout” move. How it’s done: During the song “Sexy and I know it” by LMFAO flex both biceps in a power stance when you hear the words “I workout” followed by a sequence of hip thrusts.

    Stretching: The last song was the cool down. This actually was pretty similar to yoga, if you did yoga to the beat of music and strung the poses together with a little interpretive dance.

    Conclusion: It’s going in the training log.

  • Stephen’s Climb to the Castle Margin

    Liz Stephen destroyed the women’s field this weekend in the annual Climb to the Castle rollerski race. The margin, just over 5 minutes in a race that took the leaders between 40-45 minutes is certainly impressive. But I think that margin doesn’t provide much useful information.

    Time trials that are most useful as gauges of performance trends are the ones that have the most stable, repeatable conditions. I believe Climb to the Castle has everyone using identical roller skis (at least that’s my recollection) and that helps. But as noted in the coverage, road and weather conditions can pretty severely impact times. In that light, the fact that Stephen covered the course more than a minute faster than last year in worse conditions is certainly a more reliably good indicator.

    But even then, it’s sort of crucial to note how the race dynamics played out. Stephen skied alone basically the whole way this year. Last year, it sounded like she skied alone for over half the race. That will tend to make those efforts more similar to those produced by a interval start race, which are easier to compare, I think. For example, it’s hard to read much into the fact that Sargent skied around 2.5 minutes slower this time around, since once Stephen was off the front it’s easy for “group racing” mentalities to take over common in mass start events that slow the pace.

    Even if we ignore all that, consider than Sargent and Diggins were around 12.3% and 11.7% behind Stephen. Looks at their head-to-head results from recent history, it’s hard to believe that Stephen really is that much faster than Sargent and Diggins:

    Diggins was actually frequently faster than Stephen last season, and even then it was unusual for the margin between them to be more than 2.5% in either direction. Even Sargent, who had somewhat of a rough season, was almost never more than 10% behind Stephen.

    As a data guy, I’d love to see Climb to the Castle run as an interval start race, which would somewhat improve it’s use as a benchmark, but you’d still have a hard time accounting for differences in weather, particularly wind. But obviously, that’s logistically more complicated.

    Related posts:

    1. <Beitostølen FIS Race Recap: Women
    2. <Climb To The Castle – Men
    3. <Climb To The Castle – Women


  • Busy Monday!

    The pace of life at SMS is slowing down a little bit with the departure of our alpine skiers to Chile last Saturday.  The first three weeks at school were jam-packed with classwork, quizzes, tests, and papers on top of our nine training sessions a week – now school slows down for a week to a more manageable pace and we’ve given our group an “easy” week to recover from three solid weeks of training.  Next week we’ll ramp it up again – with no classes scheduled, we’ll use the opportunity to put in some high-volume workouts and take a trip off campus for a mini training camp.  After our training week, it’s back to school, alpine skiers return from Chile, and we’re back on a normal schedule until we break for Thanksgiving!  
    Even though this is an easy week for our team, yesterday was probably the toughest day of the week.  We started off with our morning training session in Lot 1 – working on balance and specific strength – and finished up by double poling up Treetops (steep road through a development on the side of the mountain).   Special kudos to Mackenzie & Pippin for making big improvements on their balance in the last two weeks!  
     In the afternoon we hopped back on our rollerskis for L3 classic intervals around school.  Girls did 3 intervals and boys did 4 intervals over a set course and we got some video (coming soon) of everyone working on dialing in their L3 pace while trying to maintain excellent technique.  Check out Matt’s video from the DP test of what we’re looking for with double pole technique. 
     To round out our busy day of training, we hit the gym for strength before dinner!  Whew!  
     Pippin.
    Ana & Tegan.
     Kate.
    Alex.
     Hamish.
     Hamish, Jack, Kenz.
     Congratulations (belatedly) to Jack Elder who was named the first “Student of the Week” at our all-school meeting last week!  
    Ana. 
    Our SMS T2 Team, plus PGs Paddy Caldwell & Jordan Fields and senior Gino Pastore have been busy at the USST Lake Placid Camp for the last week.   Check out the SMS T2 website for an update on what they’ve been doing. 

  • Back in LP

    I have been back in Lake Placid for about a week now after our three-week Germany Camp. The camp was great but it has been nice to be back in my own bed and catch up with my family and … Continue reading →

  • Putney

    I made it to the East Coast after another long, but smooth, day of travel. I’m exhausted and didn’t get any pictures from today.

  • September on XC SKI Girl!

    Hey ya’ll! We’re halfway through September but all this stuff still applies!  If you want to check out my training notes for this month (or just this period of the year) go to my monthly guest post on XC Ski Girl’s blog here: 
    I know that some of the pictures look awesome and our girl’s ridge run was fantastic.  There have been some other great workouts and a day or two of sunshine but otherwise the weather the past couple weeks in AK have been “trying” at best.  Between a four day power outage at my house (cooking on a camp stove) and flood level rain I’m certainly looking forward to our altitude block coming up in Park City. 
    More soon…. 
    Holly 🙂 

  • GMVS in Italy: Baseball, Rollerskiing, Kayaking

    A happy group on the water! Make sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page for more kayaking photos.
    It’s been a whirlwind here in Italy, with a great variety of training. We are about to drive up to the Stelvio Glacier for our first day on snow, but I thought I should put up a few pictures to show what we have been doing in the past few days. 
    We have had great collaboration with the Italians this year, and have joined them for several workouts. We skied up to Schlinig with the biathletes, then showed them how to play baseball on what might be the most beautiful field on which baseball has ever been played.

    With an incredible backdrop looking toward the Ortler and the other 3000 meter peaks of the region, we played at least nine innings with a lot of home runs and a lot of excitement.

    The Italian Biathlon coach, Andy.

    Devlin looks on with three Italian teammates.

    The next day we drove down the valley to work on skate technique and drills on some flatter terrain. We finished the workout with a bunch of sprint starts, working up from 80% to 100% by the end. We saw a group of 50 kids under the age of ten on roller skis, who were taking a Saturday morning cruise on the bike path with the Prad Junior Ski Club.

    One of the highlights of the trip is going kayaking on Lake Rechen near the Austrian border. The Ortler dominates the landscape and the chilly water is always an unbelievable blue. We headed out to watch a hoard of kiteboarders slicing and dicing midway up the lake, then turned back for home.

    Our next update will have snow skiing involved! Pretty sweet times over here in Italy!

  • Los Angeles

    I made it to Los Angeles. The long flight from Auckland was easy; I slept for eight hours without any sleeping drugs. Air New Zealand is fantastic. LAX is not. Customs was a total mess. There were way more passengers than they can handle. Once I finally got my bags and got out of the airport, I dropped my stuff at the hotel and caught the metro to Long Beach.

    It was 85 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celcius) and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I love going to the beach!

    I didn’t do much, just walked in the waves and enjoyed the sand.

    I wish I’d had time to hang out, but it was a long commute (but totally worth it.) I love being able to jump on the Metro and go wherever I want.

    It was a happening place with tons of people out.

    I have a fixation with the ocean, probably because it was somewhat of a foreign concept growing up in Aspen.

    One more beach photo:

    At sunset I got some quick dinner then headed back to the hotel.

    I have another long day of travel tomorrow to Putney, Vermont.

     

  • Adventure Day

    photo 111

    Yesterday was a good day! Brian and I both got to sleep on till 8:30AM which never seems to happen! We then pack the cooler, loaded up the car and headed up to the mountains for an adventure!

    photo 29

    Brian grew up here in the Methow Valley and he knows it like the back of his had. I am lucky enough to be married to Brian and have my own mountan guide at hand everyday! Brian gets very excited about heading up into the high country!

    photo 210

    The Views are absolutely amazing on all sides and the weather was perfect! Brian and I both opted to bring our light-weight Salomon Tech jackets which were good sun and wind protection. After long climbs we could simply wrap them around our drink belts and continue to move fast.

    photo 36

    Brian “cruising” he doesn’t even sweat when he runs with me!

    photo 45

    I on the other hand just try and keep up!

    photo20

    Especially when things get technical. After yesterday’s run I now have a new level of comfort when running in the mountains!

    photo 110

    One of the three peaks we reached. This one had beautiful views of Mount Baker and Shukstan.

    photo 56

    After a long day in the mountains we were excited to rinse off in the swimming hole.

    photo 37

    As you can tell it was a little colder then we expected. After “icing” our legs and bodies we headed back to the yurt to make meatloaf for dinner with the Gregg Family! Such a good day and I feel like the luckiest girl in the World!!!

  • Sept. DP test Vid

    Here is some footage from our most recent DP test.  We had nice conditions, fit skiers and tons of PR’s.  They way I spliced it together it runs pretty choppy but does highlight the top and bottom of the stroke.  We can look at how high and forward people get and see if they crunch and drive the arms/hands and legs to the appropriate depth.  The vid compares test winners and SMS T2 elite skiers Jessie Diggins and Skyler Davis to the rest of the SMS crew.

    Link to: SMS Nordic Channel

  • Leaving New Zealand

    Kris Freeman and I had a good last session this morning at the Snow Farm. We did a two hour skate. The weather was quite nice, trails freshly groomed, no wind, and warm temps.

    I took quite a few pictures today. (And luckily, the internet here at the Auckland airport is extremely fast.)

    Kris and I did some head-shot photos with skis. They are nice to have for sponsors. Here’s Kris’s:

    And mine:

    And a nice gentleman took the two of us together:

    After lunch, Steve Gould, the manager of the Snow Farm, drove us down to the airport. Kris flew out a couple of hours before I did, so Steve was nice enough to take me into Queenstown.

    It is a beautiful city along the water of the deepest lake in New Zealand.

    I got a picture of Kris’s plane as it departed.

    I also got some time to hang out down by the lake.

    The water was clear and quite cold.

    I’m now in Auckland after an hour and a half long flight. It is pouring rain and I got rather wet on the walk from the domestic terminal to the international terminal.

     

  • Vertical Challenge

     While some of our skiers were racing up Whiteface, we had our own vertical challenge; a 3 stage event dreamed up by Matt. Above, Tess, Kate and Russell take off on their bike ride.

     The boys started biking from Manchester, while the girls biked a loop up on the mtn.

     Everyone changed from bikes to classic roller skis at the Winhall library and skied up the freshly paved access road to the base of the mtn.

     Tess was the leader after the ski.

    Tegan, Pippin and Ana.

     Hamish and Jack felt good and hammered up the ski.

     Koby was close behind.

     Poppet and Brooke.

     Calvin.

     At the base of the gondola, everyone switched to running shoes and headed up the mtn to the summit.

     Two legs down, one to go.

    Almost done! Since it was the weekend, the gondola was running; we all enjoyed the ride down and made it back just in time for lunch at school!

  • Logistics and Packing

    Today I was busy dealing with non-training issues. This morning Kris Freeman and I did a good two hour classic session. It was warm and snowing, perfect rub ski snow. After the workout I found out my coach, Zach Caldwell, can’t come to Park City this coming week to work on technique with me. He was scheduled to meet me in Salt Lake half an hour after I arrive, but he can’t get away from family obligations and his business, Caldwell Sport. Still, I believe (as does Zach) that the technique work we had scheduled is very important. After talking on the phone to Zach and my other coach, John Callahan, I decided to go to Putney, Vermont, where Zach lives, instead of heading home tomorrow.

    The change of plans meant a logistical nightmare booking and changing flights. The schedule I ended up with will involve flying as far as Los Angeles tomorrow, spending the night and flying to Putney on Monday. I will stay on the East coast until Friday morning.

    After spending the entire middle of the day on the computer, Kris and I headed out for another classic session. I skied for an hour then went inside and did a core strength and plyometric routine.

    After dinner Kris and I packed up the wax room before our departure.

    The US Ski Team stores a full wax set up here, which makes our lives and travel extremely easy. The Snow Farm provides us with a great wax room so we want to make sure we leave it in good shape.

    And we had to go through the normal process of preparing our skis and ski bags for travel. I came down here with ten pairs, seven skate to test and three classic to have good skis for training.

    The travel is going to be long. It will be 46 hours between leaving the Snow Farm and arriving in Putney (but I will have a full night sleep in L.A. during that time.)