FasterSkier

Category: XCFeeds

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

  • And We’re Back!

    It’s that time of year again.  I am out in West Yellowstone, MT getting ready for the first races of the year.  We were supposed to start racing today, but it has been snowing so much that lots of people had trouble getting into town…including the timing company.  I have never seen so much snow […]

  • And We’re Back!

    It’s that time of year again.  I am out in West Yellowstone, MT getting ready for the first races of the year.  We were supposed to start racing today, but it has been snowing so much that lots of people had trouble getting into town…including the timing company.  I have never seen so much snow […]

  • And We’re Back!

    It’s that time of year again.  I am out in West Yellowstone, MT getting ready for the first races of the year.  We were supposed to start racing today, but it has been snowing so much that lots of people had trouble getting into town…including the timing company.  I have never seen so much snow […]

  • And We’re Back!

    It’s that time of year again.  I am out in West Yellowstone, MT getting ready for the first races of the year.  We were supposed to start racing today, but it has been snowing so much that lots of people had trouble getting into town…including the timing company.  I have never seen so much snow […]

  • Minus 9 and windy

    Today was the coldest day I can remember at Fall Camp in West Yellowstone. The thermometer says it was not too bad, at -9F (-23C). But the wind never let up. Put the two together and you were quickly at the off-ramp to Frozenville.

    How to dress for a day of skiing in such cold? Follow along as we get dressed for the ski day.


    Wind briefs, of course.

    Undershirt and silk sock liners.


    Even with wind briefs, a little extra protection is welcomed. A bandana, folded and stuffed in the briefs. Gents, you won’t regret it.


    Wicking zip-neck T and tights.


    Wind vest. This one was sewn by my mother in 1995. It has skied, run and pedaled thousands of hours with me. Thanks, mom.


    Great breathable wind pants.


    Plastic bags on feet. In this case, mismatched English muffin bags. Simple, cheap, does an amazing job. Just cover your toes and your feet can still breathe.


    Boots. Classic, of course. Think your skate skis will glide at these temps?


    Breathable ski jacket.


    Balaclava, covering at least your neck and ears.


    A nice warm Toko ski cap to cover the balaclava.


    Booties over the ski boots. Make sure they don’t interfere with your bindings.


    Thermobelt for your drinking needs. Your water bottle will quickly become a frozen brick.


    Puffy parka. Yes, I do ski in this when it is this cold. The thermobelt is under the parka.


    Toko Windstopper gloves.


    Toko overmitts.


    Rudy Project sunglasses. Your eyes can suffer in such cold temps. Give them some protection.


    Skis and poles and you are out the door!

    A few other items to consider: Have food with you and a bit more in your car. You will churn through the calories just trying to stay warm. Have a dry shirt, hat and gloves for the walk or drive home. Finally, enjoy your day outdoors! We love winter.

  • Minus 9 and windy

    Today was the coldest day I can remember at Fall Camp in West Yellowstone. The thermometer says it was not too bad, at -9F (-23C). But the wind never let up. Put the two together and you were quickly at the off-ramp to Frozenville.

    How to dress for a day of skiing in such cold? Follow along as we get dressed for the ski day.


    Wind briefs, of course.

    Undershirt and silk sock liners.


    Even with wind briefs, a little extra protection is welcomed. A bandana, folded and stuffed in the briefs. Gents, you won’t regret it.


    Wicking zip-neck T and tights.


    Wind vest. This one was sewn by my mother in 1995. It has skied, run and pedaled thousands of hours with me. Thanks, mom.


    Great breathable wind pants.


    Plastic bags on feet. In this case, mismatched English muffin bags. Simple, cheap, does an amazing job. Just cover your toes and your feet can still breathe.


    Boots. Classic, of course. Think your skate skis will glide at these temps?


    Breathable ski jacket.


    Balaclava, covering at least your neck and ears.


    A nice warm Toko ski cap to cover the balaclava.


    Booties over the ski boots. Make sure they don’t interfere with your bindings.


    Thermobelt for your drinking needs. Your water bottle will quickly become a frozen brick.


    Puffy parka. Yes, I do ski in this when it is this cold. The thermobelt is under the parka.


    Toko Windstopper gloves.


    Toko overmitts.


    Rudy Project sunglasses. Your eyes can suffer in such cold temps. Give them some protection.


    Skis and poles and you are out the door!

    A few other items to consider: Have food with you and a bit more in your car. You will churn through the calories just trying to stay warm. Have a dry shirt, hat and gloves for the walk or drive home. Finally, enjoy your day outdoors! We love winter.

  • Tis the night before the first race(s)!

    The snow has finally subsided, the race timer and jury has finally made it to town and tomorrow, we’re off!   Since arriving in West Yellowstone five days ago this is the first time it’s stopped snowing.  
    APU girls “deck diving” into the waist-deep powder

    Group shot

    Morgan struggling for air
    The roads are finally open and folks are flocking – to West that is!  It’s exciting to be here and my family finally made it here after spending three days driving from snowy Seattle.  It took them four hours to get from downtown (Seattle) to Snoqualmie Pass, one hour east of Seattle.  My mom and my uncle spent the night the Kongsberger cabin and my dad spent the night IN THE CAR because he didn’t want it to get broken into.  (A good example of toughness!) 
    Our team celebrated Thanksgiving early, on Monday, so that we wouldn’t experience the traditional “food coma” between races.  My contribution to the meal was five pounds of brussel sprouts.  Our team seems to be divided into folks that love them and folks that HATE them.  It’s turned into our favorite argument or threat 🙂 

    My Thanksgiving creation
    Mark and Patrick celebrate with Turkey legs

    APU coaches run to the rescue of the St. Olaf team that stuck on our road…. (we got stuck too!) 

    Our team loves the new Swix triacs! 

    Reports from racing soon… thanks for reading! 
    Holly 🙂

  • Glad to be a Friend-of-Dewey!

    div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”/divdiv style=”text-align: left;”Thanks for the nice post on Saranac Lake’s Dewey Mtn ski

  • Where Skiing Can Take You 2010-11-24 13:14:00

    div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”

  • Who Wins Relays? (Part I: Women)

  • Training or Exercising in Futility?

    pFall has always been my least favorite time of year. It’s dark, cold, bad conditions for just about anything, and we’re supposed to be putting in a lot of hours. Not a good combination. This November has proved no different. I haven’t had my heart in my training lately so that is not helping either. I’ve been more in the mood to ‘nest’ in this weather than get out and train and hadn’t trained in a couple days. Dave came to my rescue today and got me out the door. We decided to try the U of M golf course since we figured it’d still have snow. Well, it had snow, sort of. It was more ice than snow, but we ventured out anyway. There is a fair amount of terrain there that we had to navigate in addition to bare spots and ruts so finding a good area to ski was tricky. Conversation was difficult above the noise of us scraping along but some snippets were… Angie to Dave, “Look, another fool!” as we spotted another skier, who wasn’t out long. Dave to Angie, “Come on!” in the tone you’d use to coax a puppy along. We finally picked our way to the north and east sides of the course and found some fairways that had decent coverage, few ruts, and were gradual enough that we could get up and down them reasonably well. Even so, it was rather comical to see each other hobbling and skittering along. I think my heart rate topped out at 110 since it was so hard to move around. All that said, I actually began to enjoy myself. It was a nice sunny day, I enjoyed the company, and I was even getting the hang of the ice at the end. I was thinking how it was good practice in case we have to race in conditions like we did at Pepsi last year. So it wasn’t so futile after all. (I’m still praying for a few inches of fresh snow rather than more freezing rain tomorrow though.)/p div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1572647974447867713-2391469453985667342?l=vakavaraceteam.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

  • Snow Report from Mt. Mansfield

    Earlier this morning, when it was a balmy 49 degrees and raining (for the 2nd day in a row), I felt the need to hunt down some snow.  A reliable source, Mr. Marc Gilbertson, told me tales about weekend crust skiing on the toll road at Stowe, and it sounded almost too good to be true.  However, I needed to do something for training today, and hiking up Mt. Mansfield sounded more exciting than my other options, even if there was no snow at the top.

    When I parked at the base of the toll road, the mountain was entirely fogged in and I couldn’t see the upper trails at all.  I felt a little foolish hiking by other people carrying my skis.  I wasn’t expecting nice crust skiing, not with the warm rain, but what if there was no snow at all?  At least cross country skis are light and easy to carry.

    As I hiked up, I relived memories of racing the Stowe Derby.  In case you aren’t familiar with it, the Stowe Derby is a screaming ski race down Mt. Mansfield’s toll road , followed by about 10 km of rolling and flatter terrain into the village of Stowe.  Most people choose to race in cross country skis.  There are numerous hairpin corners where entire waves of people go flying off the course; there are steep open slopes that turn into sheet ice because too many people snowplow; and halfway down the course is a small Mountain Chapel.  I often wonder how many people attend services there.

    After about 40 minutes of hiking, I rounded a bend, and low and behold! there was my snow.  On a trail adjacent to the toll road, mounds of man-made snow blanketed an entire slope.  The mounds left near the snowguns were at least 7 feet deep, and the trail probably averaged about 3 feet.  I changed into ski boots and started to herringbone.  Near the top, a trails crew was out building rails and jumps.  They told me I was going the wrong way.  Who in their right mind skis up a mountain?  In the heavy fog, I almost got run over by a pistonbully out smoothing the slope.  Good news for all you diehards- Stowe opens tomorrow!  They have one full length run with excellent snow cover. Winter’s coming.

    Unfortunately the natural snow has melted and the toll road itself is not ski-able.  The remaining snowy terrain is pretty steep and does not lend itself to cross country training.  However, that doesn’t mean we should pass up the opportunity for a little herringbone and downhill practice.  I felt awesome to ski down.

    Next up I’m going to check out conditions at Jay Peak.  However, I’m going to expect lots of snow and plan accordingly.  That means bringing poles with snow baskets, not rollerski tips that sink down all the way to the pole grips.

  • Improved Gällivare Plots: Technique Focus

    Several people have commented that my summary graphs should take into account skier’s potentially differing abilities in skating and classic.  (We could slice up the data as thinly as we’d like: mass start vs. interval, etc.  But that will get complicated quickly, so let’s add technique and see how it goes for now.)

    I pondered this a bit and made a few decisions:

    1. The reason my graphs in the follow up posts were a bit misleading in a few places (Majdic, Longa, Bauer) was because I didn’t have a way to visualize technique differences in the first place, in the race snapshot graphs.
    2. The best way to incorporate more information in the race snapshot graphs would be to leave my comfort zone (R graphics using lattice or ggplot) and hand code them to be partially interactive using some more “traditional” web technologies: PHP, Javascript, HTML5, etc.

    (2) is a goal of mine for this site in general, but that’s going to be an “off-season” project, I think.  So I’m going to go with a decent, but probably sub-optimal solution for now.  What I’m going to do is just make duplicate graphs and place them in side-by-side panels for the race snapshots.  That means your eyes have to do a bunch of darting back and forth, which isn’t great.  But I think I’ve optimized the “best solution + easy for me” cost function here.

    Here are the new versions (reduced, top 30 plus North Americans only):

    As it turns out, I think that Majdic and Longa’s races, in terms of their freestyle ability, are still on the “bad” end of the spectrum, but less so.  I was more misled in the case of Lukas Bauer, who is exhibiting a starker shift between his freestyle and classic skiing.  (I’m not saying Majdic/Longa don’t have a preference for skating; Majdic’s is pretty strong.  But it just turns out that, in terms of FIS points, that wasn’t a great skate race for her after all.)

    I’m not going to go back and redo all the more detailed graphs this time, but hopefully these summary graphs will sharpen my analysis a bit going forward.

    PS – Yes, I know the alternating color blocks are truncated in the horizontal direction in the men’s graph.  I think there’s a simple solution for that.  If we really want to get picky (and I am!) I’m still bothered that in the reduced versions the skiers outside the top 30 are included in the block coloring as if they were really in 31st, 32nd, etc.  Baby steps…

    Related posts:

    1. <Most Improved: Men’s Distance
    2. <Most Improved: Women’s Distance
    3. <Most Improved: Men’s Sprint


  • Hej från Sverige!

    A view of the Östersund biathlon range with the lake in the background.

    It’s winter here in snowy Östersund, which suits me just fine as I’m putting the final preparations in before the first World Cup, which starts exactly a week from today! Trials in Canmore are over, and the rest of the WC Team will be joining us in the next few days. Congrats to Laura Spector, Russell Currier and Lowell Bailey for making the World Cup team, and to Tracy Barnes, Annelies Cook, Zachary Hall and Bill Bowler for making the IBU Cup team. The IBU Cup Team heads to Europe in a little over a week for the second and third IBU Cup in Martell, Italy and Obertilliach, Austria.

    Being here a few days early has been nice. The training has been great, as the snow here is a plentiful mix of man-made and natural. A few teams have been here for the past week, but most are just starting to arrive, making the atmosphere feel more and more like the World Cup. I’ve been staying in town for the past few days which has allowed me to explore Östersund a bit more. On Friday, I’ll move up to the hotel at the venue, where we’ll be through the races. It will be very convenient to be right at the race venue, cutting down on travel and logistics for the races.

    They continue to make more snow and perfect the trails. This weekend the range will be getting buffed out and World Cup ready. Its hard to believe the races are so close after so much preparation, but my mindset is switching over to race mode. Hej World Cup!

    The tracks in Östersund at 4pm-ironically the lightest time to be skiing!

    The pumpkin pie I wish we were having on Thanksgiving. One thing’s for sure, the Swedes will feed us potatoes!

  • Hej från Sverige!

    A view of the Östersund biathlon range with the lake in the background.

    It’s winter here in snowy Östersund, which suits me just fine as I’m putting the final preparations in before the first World Cup, which starts exactly a week from today! Trials in Canmore are over, and the rest of the WC Team will be joining us in the next few days. Congrats to Laura Spector, Russell Currier and Lowell Bailey for making the World Cup team, and to Tracy Barnes, Annelies Cook, Zachary Hall and Bill Bowler for making the IBU Cup team. The IBU Cup Team heads to Europe in a little over a week for the second and third IBU Cup in Martell, Italy and Obertilliach, Austria.

    Being here a few days early has been nice. The training has been great, as the snow here is a plentiful mix of man-made and natural. A few teams have been here for the past week, but most are just starting to arrive, making the atmosphere feel more and more like the World Cup. I’ve been staying in town for the past few days which has allowed me to explore Östersund a bit more. On Friday, I’ll move up to the hotel at the venue, where we’ll be through the races. It will be very convenient to be right at the race venue, cutting down on travel and logistics for the races.

    They continue to make more snow and perfect the trails. This weekend the range will be getting buffed out and World Cup ready. Its hard to believe the races are so close after so much preparation, but my mindset is switching over to race mode. Hej World Cup!

    The tracks in Östersund at 4pm-ironically the lightest time to be skiing!

    The pumpkin pie I wish we were having on Thanksgiving. One thing’s for sure, the Swedes will feed us potatoes!

  • Gällivare Recap: Europeans

    Now for some of the folks across the pond.  I’m less familiar with a lot of the European racers, so who I focus on will be largely dictated by what stands out to me in the data (or you can drop me a line if you think there’s someone I should put under the microscope!), not necessarily just who wins or earns a podium.

    First the good:

    I’m plotting all races, not just major ones since several of these skiers only have a few WC races under their belts.

    Petr Sedov is an obvious standout here, particularly given how young he is.  Notice how little data there is on him!  I don’t have an “official” statistical take on this, but after having spent many hours hip deep in results data, I’m willing to put myself out there and say that skiers who suddenly appear on the WC scene going that fast (without the steady, year over year improvement over many seasons on the WC) either (a) flame out completely and you never see them again, or (b) end up being Per Elofsson/Petter Northug.

    At the moment, most people seem to be leaning toward option (b), and I certainly don’t know anything to the contrary.  Time will tell…

    Maria Rydqvist we’ve discussed before, and it’s certainly nice to see her show that her race last weekend wasn’t a fluke.  I stand by my claim that this isn’t really wildly out of line with her general talent level (just look at her past results), but as a guy, it’s always awe inspiring to see women have kids and come back quickly to elite athletic competitions.  Unbelievable.

    Sjur Roethe is a name that (being a dumb American) wasn’t really on my radar screen, but he definitely seems legit and has a less frighteningly quick development pattern (compared to Sedov) which makes me worry less about whether he’s “for real”.  Chris Jespersen, on the other hand, has actually been a round awhile, and Saturday’s result (4th) is considerably better than anything he’s managed before.  He was 13th in a 15km in 2008, but all his other WC starts have been in longer events (30-50km) and range from 28th-72nd.  Has the Norwegian men’s distance squad suddenly turned a corner?  Personally, I always thought that the complaints about their deficiencies were a bit overblown, but I suppose we’ll see.  Predictions at this point in the season are sure to make one look foolish, but I’d be pretty cautious about expecting this kind of performance from Jespersen on a regular basis.

    Mia Eriksson has had two good races in a row now, being at the better end of what she managed last year.  I wonder if Rydqvist has stolen a bit of the attention early in the season, but Eriksson’s race in Gällivare was a much bigger jump for a WC race than for Rydqvist.

    Two skiers who’ve been on a steady (if somewhat slow) improving trend are Silvana Bucher (SUI) and Robin Duvillard (FRA).  As such it isn’t necessarily surprising to see them starting strong, but it certainly must be encouraging.

    Actually of more interest to me were some of the worse performances.  Here’s a selection of well known men who turned in races that might be considered “bad”:

    Bauer’s inclusion here is maybe a bit of stretch, seeing has how he was 8th, but compared to his past few seasons it wasn’t quite up to par.  Otherwise, do you notice a trend here?  With the possible exception of Jauhojaervi, we’ve got several skiers who are, for lack of a better word, old.  And their “average” performance has perhaps started to trend in the wrong direction.

    Now, I’m absolutely not saying that guys like Teichmann, Angerer, Piller Cottrer, etc. are simply done for and we should count them out.  Far from it!  Each of these guys will I’m sure have some excellent results this year.  But we might be looking at the tail of their careers, where even though they are capable of competing with the very best, they may not be able to do it as often as before or aas consistently.

    Sami Jauhojaervi is a bit different, I think, being slightly younger and never quite as fast as the others.  What does stand out with his results is how inconsistent they are.  His results seem like they’ve been all over the map, so it might not be terribly shocking to see him turn in a few poor races from time to time.

    Here’s sampling of some women with sup-par races this past weekend:

    Again, calling Kowalczyk’s race “bad” is a bit of a matter of perspective.  But 7th isn’t what she showed up for, I’d bet, and she certainly doesn’t want to be as far behind Bjoergen as she was.  Similarly, Johaug was 9th, but I’m not liking the trend, short as it is.

    I think the other three are in a bit more trouble, similar to the men above.  Again, it’s only one race, but these three appear to be on the wrong end of their careers and not necessarily trending in the right direction (although Longa’s change in fortunes is recent enough that the trend line doesn’t quite pick it up).  As with the men, you can’t write these ladies off, not at all.  But I don’t think we should be surprised if these sorts of skiers have seemingly poor races more frequently than we’re accustomed to seeing from them.

    Related posts:

    1. <Most Improved: Women’s Distance
    2. <Participation Rates
    3. <USST Preview: Liz Stephen & Morgan Arritola


  • Taking the Rollerskis out for a Concrete Boot

  • Rovaneimi Sprint

    We have just returned to our secluded and beautiful mountain cabin at Hotel Rustad in Sjusjoen, Norway after a day of travel from Rovaneimi, Finland and the sprint race above the Arctic Circle. FYI: Roveneimi is loosing 1 hour of daylight a week right now. With sun up at 9 and sundown at 2 snow conditions and temps stay fairly constant.br /br /We connected with the Americans on the Maine Winter Sports Center Tour de Finland trip put together and lead by the very able Will Sweetzer. Will, being an old hand at these Privateer ventures designed to expose American skiers to top level European competition was the inspiration for my MOD trip to the OPA Cup race last February. This year Will gained another convert as the Craftsbury Green Racing Project joined forces with Will’s merry band. For more on these two clubs’ trips please refer to their websites, aa onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dNktq7tevMw/TOuCl2eb6-I/AAAAAAAAAEI/ACB4ED5-2bA/s1600/IMG_9844.JPG”img style=”float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 397px; height: 400px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dNktq7tevMw/TOuCl2eb6-I/AAAAAAAAAEI/ACB4ED5-2bA/s400/IMG_9844.JPG” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542667353199471586″ border=”0″ //as they each have their own stories to tellbr /br /After another good week of training it was time for Torin to slip on a bib and toe the line in a classic sprint with a solid field of Canadians including Stefan Kuhn (10th in 2010 Oly Sprint), former world sprint champ Vassili Rotchev and a host of Estonian and Finnish sprinters.br /The qualifier was a shock to all of us observers as Torin, seeded second, finished 25th but looked to be skiing much faster. Some confusion over timing was quickly put behind us as we prepped for the heats.br /br /Photo: Torin leaving the stadium in the qualifier and about to enter the cork screw tunnel/bridge affair.br /br /br /br /br /A quick ski change and wax adjustment was done while Torin borrowed floor space in the Craftsbury GRP nearby house. It was clear to see that Torin was really eager and aggressive in the heats as he gave no quarter in the quarter final.br /br /He was slow off the line but by the time the pack left the stadium he was in control of the race and left it clear that to beat him was going to take a lot.br /br /One look at his face in this photo as he leads Rotchev over the bridge and back into the stadium and you ca onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dNktq7tevMw/TOuSTgKl64I/AAAAAAAAAEo/D05Ybtqcxvo/s1600/IMG_9861.jpg”img style=”float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 389px; height: 413px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dNktq7tevMw/TOuSTgKl64I/AAAAAAAAAEo/D05Ybtqcxvo/s400/IMG_9861.jpg” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542684630159059842″ border=”0″ //aan sense his frame of mind. The mind of a champion. Undaunted by the miserable qualifying (see his number?) time trial and determined to give his best effort in each heat.br /br /A photo finish in the semi final meant Torin was advancing to the A final. Since Sam’s illness and Erik’s departure for school Torin has been training alone and so this was his first head to head final since the Super Tour A final in Maine last March where he and Andy Newell fought to the line and Torin barely, literally, inched in front.br /br /br /br /br /br /br /br /br /A slip at the line left him in 6th place at the start of the final and last out of the stadium. This shot from above on bridge as the pack enters to corkscrew shows Torin trying to move around on the outside to get a better position before the big climb. a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dNktq7tevMw/TOuO9CQh3pI/AAAAAAAAAEg/dcJwZ-DETF4/s1600/IMG_9877.jpg”img style=”display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 388px; height: 379px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dNktq7tevMw/TOuO9CQh3pI/AAAAAAAAAEg/dcJwZ-DETF4/s400/IMG_9877.jpg” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542680945638891154″ border=”0″ //aThis turn was a full 360 degrees! The first I have ever seen.br /br /The finishing sprint left him in 4th place. I was a bit disappointed because I was really hoping for the new wax iron that was being handed out for 3rd. It was, altogether, a great effort and should have the needed training effect to boost his racing fitness.br /br /We will be off to Gala, Norway for another Norwegian Cup race next weekend.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2910103639238326543-9193588375983988861?l=methowolympicdevelopment.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

  • Intervals in West

    I didn’t know it could snow this much.  The snow just keeps coming down here in West.  7*4m intervals were hard and slow, with about 3 inches of fresh snow on the trail.

    Thank you Caitlin for taking video and lactates for me.

  • Bibs and Boards (Gällivare Edition)