FasterSkier

Category: XCFeeds

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

  • Matt’s Take

    Hey all-
    Here’s my story:
    After the long trip over that you’ve all read about by now and a great night in a tiny bed, we all went skiing.  There’s a fair amount of snow here (and more coming all the time) but they only had a 3.8k loop open on snow they had saved from last year.  It was great.  We skied for 2 hours, skating.  It was cold and clear and it was skiing.  I didn’t feel too good but I had figured it was probably jetlag.  It wasn’t.  By that night, I had come down with a cold.  Runny nose, little bit of a sore throat, headache, that sort of stuff.  That keeps me at a clean 50% success rate for traveling and getting sick.  So here I was, all the way over (and up) here, and too sick to ski.  First, I started eating as many vitamin C’s, D’s, and multivitamins as I could absorb.  Like, so much vitamin C that I could practically see the CVS logos in my urine when I peed it out.  I sat out the afternoon run, then the ski thursday morning, the run and strength thursday afternoon.  I did go for a walk thursday afternoon which was nice but made me wish I could ski even more.  I know nobody’s going to feel bad for me being in Finland and on snow in late October, but this was worse than not being near snow at all.  I started feeling better Friday morning, but figured if I would ski at all it would be the afternoon 1 hour classic ski, not the morning 2 hour skate.  So I sat out again.  Actually, I lied out, on my bed, wishing I would get better.  Maybe it’s because we’re so close to Santa up here, but my wish came true quicker than I thought.  By the afternoon, I was ready to classic ski.  And the next morning (this morning), I felt good enough to go again.  And this afternoon, I felt better still.  So I did miss a few sessions in there, but I’m back now, and even more thankful to be able to ski before halloween.
    Aside from the sickness, everything else has been good or interesting.  The food is a little funky, but really, liver paste and pickles on bread tastes pretty good.  And cooking all our meals on a stovetop is a challenge, but one that we’re up to.  And the whole bathroom floor doubling as the shower floor really isn’t that bad.  And the dry sauna in every house for training clothes has been downright nice.
    The only other interesting tidbit from here has been a new pair of skate boots that felt tight when I tried them on at home but turned out to be a little too tight.  I wore them the first day for two hours and by the end my right big toenail had turned black.  I’m pretty sure that’s a bad thing, so I’m working on ways to fix it.  I tried putting the boots in the clothes sauna and putting them on, I tried skiing without insoles.  Still working on the perfect fix.  Maybe it’s a bigger pair of boots.  But right now that’s not really an option so I’m getting creative.
    That’s all from me.  Keep your eyes peeled for a blog post from Dylan coming soon entitled: “Positive Hand Gestures: Which One’s Best?  A study of the thumbs up, hook-em horns, surf’s up, and a-ok signs” *

    *This may never happen.  In fact, it almost definitely won’t.

  • The Avenging Angel of Misery

    a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TMyG6xr53kI/AAAAAAAAAb4/U5e4dxHgFq0/s1600/IMG_9747.JPG”img style=”float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TMyG6xr53kI/AAAAAAAAAb4/U5e4dxHgFq0/s400/IMG_9747.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533946386459516482″ //abr /The old air-cooled bike might not yet quite be road-worthy, but the CB750 Tourer is no longer the oily, dirty rheumatoid tosser purchased earlier this fall. In the last days it’s been stripped down to bare steel, then built up again from the ashes to become the avenging angel of misery, only of the prettiest kind you see here in the photo.br /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TMyH7aXvoAI/AAAAAAAAAcA/Knl2GU8VvGY/s1600/IMG_9745.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qy8LpbgYOag/TMyH7aXvoAI/AAAAAAAAAcA/Knl2GU8VvGY/s400/IMG_9745.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533947496892440578″ //abr /That’s all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. ~Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenancediv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2910103639238326543-3638297286753215025?l=methowolympicdevelopment.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

  • Week In Review: Friday Oct 29th

    You may have noticed some changes in these parts of the Interwebs over the last few days.  Firstly, Statistical Skier has an awesome new logo, designed by my good friend (and very talented in all things web-related) Cosmo.  He also happens to be responsible for the best professional cycling blog in existence.

    If you landed here using Internet Explorer, there’s a good chance the site doesn’t look quite right.  Specifically, you might be wondering what logo I’m talking about.  I suspect that some of the CSS used in the site’s changes isn’t supported by IE<1.  Some Googling tells me that upgrading to IE 9 Beta might possibly fix things.  But honestly, you really shouldn’t be using IE anymore anyway.  Try Chrome or Firefox for a few weeks and you’ll never go back, believe me.<2  Tinkering with the site will continue, so IE issues may be resolved at some point, but until then you’re better off just switching browsers, if you care about everything looking all pretty and stuff.

    If you’ve been following me on Twitter, I’ve decided to split Statistical Skier related tweeting over to a separate account.  You can still follow me, personally, at the old account, but if you don’t want to hear about the random goings-on of my day to day life, stick to @statskier.  Also, for those of you more into social media of the Facebook variety, this blog has its own Facebook page as well.

    Ok.  Now we can get to the weekly recap:

    If you’ve got snow, get out and slide around on it this weekend!

    1. It’s tough for me to check myself, since I’m on a Mac. <↩
    2. To those of you navigating here on IE 6, I seriously hope that’s a work computer!  For shame! ;) <↩

    Related posts:

    1. <Week In Review: Friday July 23rd
    2. <Week In Review: Friday Sep 3rd
    3. <Week In Review: Friday Oct 1st


  • Relays, Environment and Mtn. Run

    a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMtB0vlkcVI/AAAAAAAAFAo/oGXAhYj6J-c/s1600/DSC_8936.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMtB0vlkcVI/AAAAAAAAFAo/oGXAhYj6J-c/s400/DSC_8936.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533588941537833298″ //aToday we had a teacher in service day. That didn’t keep the rest of us from being busy. We started the morning with a great all school relay race. We had 21 four person teams competing in a 1 mile woods run and an obstacle course. Each team had to do 4 laps on each course. The teams were well matched and competition was fierce. Everyone gave a great effort and had a good time. br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMtBuzlTs3I/AAAAAAAAFAg/5tiyqnSJbZY/s1600/DSC_8963.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMtBuzlTs3I/AAAAAAAAFAg/5tiyqnSJbZY/s400/DSC_8963.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533588839531262834″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMtBpCVMQGI/AAAAAAAAFAY/9Lms0jvRCFU/s1600/DSC_9028.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 309px; height: 400px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMtBpCVMQGI/AAAAAAAAFAY/9Lms0jvRCFU/s400/DSC_9028.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533588740410982498″ //aAfter lunch, engineer and environmetalist Steve Hammond delivered an all school presentation on climate change, covering everything from rising sea levels to electric cars and solar energy. The kids enjoyed the presentation and it got them thinking about an issue that is larger than their personal studies and training. Thanks to Tyne Pike Sprenger (SMS XC alum and current teacher) for organizing the event.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMtArKod6KI/AAAAAAAAFAQ/DVCCsozcglE/s1600/IMG_9146.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 249px; height: 400px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMtArKod6KI/AAAAAAAAFAQ/DVCCsozcglE/s400/IMG_9146.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533587677487425698″ //aThe PG’s ended the day with a mtn run. Temps were hovering around 40 with a light rain at the bottom. At mid mtn the rain turned to snow and on top it was cold, windy and snowy!br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMtAdjau_CI/AAAAAAAAFAI/utXkFccplRg/s1600/IMG_9148.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMtAdjau_CI/AAAAAAAAFAI/utXkFccplRg/s400/IMG_9148.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533587443622542370″ //aThe boys ran well. Austin set a PR by 44 seconds and ran a 23:56. Nick set a PR by 26 seconds and ran a 24:44. Skyler was 2 seconds off of his PR and finished in 25:16. Good going for all!br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMtAFDEyjxI/AAAAAAAAFAA/xg9lMaQn2Ig/s1600/IMG_9150.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMtAFDEyjxI/AAAAAAAAFAA/xg9lMaQn2Ig/s400/IMG_9150.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533587022623706898″ //adiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4680416899705879324-5006300528973213969?l=smsxc.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

  • I’m Back!

    After failing miserably to set up my own website, I am back to blogging.

  • I’m Back!

    After failing miserably to set up my own website, I am back to blogging.

  • I’m Back!

    After failing miserably to set up my own website, I am back to blogging.

  • I’m Back!

    After failing miserably to set up my own website, I am back to blogging.

  • Participation Rates

    One really simple question that occurred to me while playing with all this skiing data is, How many races do these athletes actually do?

    Now, I can’t really answer that completely, since I don’t have every single cross country ski race in existence in my database.  But what I’m really getting at is the notion that we’ve seen an ever increasing number of races on the international scene:

    The stage race refers to the newly adopted Tour de Ski event (and the use of the same format at the World Cup finals this past year).  But each individual stage in these events is counted among either the distance or sprint events.

    With more and more races to choose from each season, are skiers racing a smaller and smaller proportion of them?  I mean, there’s only so much travel and racing that a person can handle over the course of a season.  So really what I’m interested in is participation rates.  What proportion of the available major international races do skiers actually do?

    This is actually harder to pinpoint than it seems, as it requires a brief discussion of some nitty gritty details of World Cup racing.  In general, for World Cup races the number participants is allocated by nation (Olympics and World Championships have analogous but slightly different systems).  Each nation gets a certain number of spots, based roughly on how good that nation is.  Norway can start a ton of athletes; Botswana not so much.

    However, in addition to these “regular” spots, the host nation for a particular race will get some number of extra spots for it’s athletes.  These tend to be filled by lower tier skiers who aren’t actually World Cup regulars.

    What this means for us is that when you look at every skier for a season and then look at how many races they’ve done, you have a lot of skiers who’ve done only a handful of events.  Many of these skiers aren’t really in the group I’m interested in, since they aren’t really “World Cup skiers” per se.  I’m more interested in the people who are actually on their nation’s national team and getting regular opportunities to start a race, even if they don’t take all of them.

    So the first thing I’m going to do is to drop skiers who’ve done fewer than three races.  Arbitrary, I know.  And technically I’m contaminating things since it’s possible to have some truly elite skier who for whatever reason only does two races (injury, illness, etc.).  But otherwise these skiers just swamp everything else in the data.

    Here’s a graph of participation rates over time by quantile (don’t worry, I’ll explain):

    First, I’ve actually smoothed the data slightly, so these are trend lines, not the raw data.  I’ll return to the raw values in a moment.

    Now, there are a lot of lines floating around here, but don’t despair.  The vertical axis means just what you think it does: the proportion of races done.  Now, I’ve included 9 different lines to represent the distribution of participation rates for each season.

    I don’t just want to know what the average participation rate is, because in any given season there will be people who do nearly every race, and some people who do only a few.  I want to track whether each subgroup of participating in more or fewer races.  For instance, the top green line tracks the participation rate of the 90th percentile group.  These are the people who do more races that 90% of the skiers that season.  The level on the y axis is the actual, absolute participation level for that group.

    Let’s look at the distance panels first.  The bottom third with respect to participation rate (red lines) appear to have been slowly dropping.  So has the middle third (blue lines).  The top third (green lines) has been more steady, although you see some waving up and down for the women.  Only 10% of skiers participate in more than 80% of the available distance races in a given season, on average, and that has remained roughly constant for 19 seasons.

    The sprint panels are a bit messier, but that is to be expected given the newness of sprinting.  Early on, pretty much everyone did nearly every sprint race.  There weren’t very many of them, and there may have been a perception that they were “easy” compared to distance races in terms of how taxing they are on your body.<1

    Now I want to return to the un-smoothed, raw data for a moment.  The reason is that it turns out that the trend lines, while useful for picking out general trends, particularly when I’m plotting 9 lines all on one panel, have obscured something really interesting:

    First, now you can see why I smoothed these.  With this many lines bouncing around, it’s tough to make sense of.

    But if you look closely, you can see the hint of some periodic behavior in the distance panels, particularly with the top third green lines.  In fact, it looks to be dropping every four years or so.  Hmmmm.  Wonder why that could be?

    The Olympics.

    Check the years when the green lines drop; they are Olympic years.  That’s when many of the top skiers will skip large portions of the World Cup circuit to rest and prepare for the Olympics.  I could do some fancy autoregression and calculate the lag estimate to confirm this, but really, just look at the graph.

    1. I am most certainly not saying this is true.  In fact, I suspect it’s just plain false.  But I’d bet that that perception was fairly common early on with sprinting. <↩

    Related posts:

    1. <How Well Prepared Are World Cup Rookies? (Part 1a: Distance)
    2. <Podium Heartbreak
    3. <Is It Panic Time For The Norwegian Men’s Distance Skiers?


  • Balance, Relays and Halloween

    a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMsClIEp9WI/AAAAAAAAE_4/Su3NLUO9E4I/s1600/IMG_9031.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMsClIEp9WI/AAAAAAAAE_4/Su3NLUO9E4I/s400/IMG_9031.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533519404000212322″ //aHere are a bunch of pictures from yesterday. They are pretty self explanatory.br /Click on any picture to enlarge.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMsCZoadq4I/AAAAAAAAE_w/TR7i117GPyw/s1600/IMG_9033.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMsCZoadq4I/AAAAAAAAE_w/TR7i117GPyw/s400/IMG_9033.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533519206523186050″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMsCMAFSHnI/AAAAAAAAE_o/y-6mgzZkQ38/s1600/IMG_9037.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMsCMAFSHnI/AAAAAAAAE_o/y-6mgzZkQ38/s400/IMG_9037.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533518972358631026″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMsB1UqcYtI/AAAAAAAAE_g/vVRFb2pg5HY/s1600/IMG_9038.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMsB1UqcYtI/AAAAAAAAE_g/vVRFb2pg5HY/s400/IMG_9038.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533518582746211026″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMsAJJ7mWTI/AAAAAAAAE_Y/bWSUFSDUX-g/s1600/IMG_9043.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMsAJJ7mWTI/AAAAAAAAE_Y/bWSUFSDUX-g/s400/IMG_9043.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533516724439505202″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr_7RXey5I/AAAAAAAAE_Q/BjSu46ZvKFg/s1600/IMG_9048.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr_7RXey5I/AAAAAAAAE_Q/BjSu46ZvKFg/s400/IMG_9048.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533516485917330322″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr_kBrM0hI/AAAAAAAAE_I/eRtLuCTCWSY/s1600/IMG_9055.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr_kBrM0hI/AAAAAAAAE_I/eRtLuCTCWSY/s400/IMG_9055.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533516086568079890″ //aMore fun and games. What is everyone doing? hint: they are not snowplowing.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr_NLpRpWI/AAAAAAAAE_A/BGYpYGnFImM/s1600/IMG_9058.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr_NLpRpWI/AAAAAAAAE_A/BGYpYGnFImM/s400/IMG_9058.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533515694107370850″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr–zSmMLI/AAAAAAAAE-4/GK9lx_2SgMI/s1600/IMG_9061.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr–zSmMLI/AAAAAAAAE-4/GK9lx_2SgMI/s400/IMG_9061.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533515447051628722″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr-vEhoWGI/AAAAAAAAE-w/Bbf2aNT6cr0/s1600/IMG_9063.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr-vEhoWGI/AAAAAAAAE-w/Bbf2aNT6cr0/s400/IMG_9063.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533515176800180322″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr-b2x1TsI/AAAAAAAAE-o/lHRO-2-ZZ50/s1600/IMG_9074.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr-b2x1TsI/AAAAAAAAE-o/lHRO-2-ZZ50/s400/IMG_9074.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533514846692527810″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr-L9_x9LI/AAAAAAAAE-g/lA-CzcTtItg/s1600/IMG_9077.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr-L9_x9LI/AAAAAAAAE-g/lA-CzcTtItg/s400/IMG_9077.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533514573752169650″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr9tPN9tnI/AAAAAAAAE-Q/XK477JAi5F0/s1600/IMG_9081.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr9tPN9tnI/AAAAAAAAE-Q/XK477JAi5F0/s400/IMG_9081.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533514045799118450″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr9bIbt0oI/AAAAAAAAE-I/xtP6nLNOHMQ/s1600/IMG_9089.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr9bIbt0oI/AAAAAAAAE-I/xtP6nLNOHMQ/s400/IMG_9089.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533513734740103810″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr9KPe7iVI/AAAAAAAAE-A/4xeMyDnRi0Y/s1600/IMG_9107.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr9KPe7iVI/AAAAAAAAE-A/4xeMyDnRi0Y/s400/IMG_9107.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533513444574857554″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr842-0jwI/AAAAAAAAE94/Tbez7KD56OY/s1600/IMG_9116.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr842-0jwI/AAAAAAAAE94/Tbez7KD56OY/s400/IMG_9116.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533513145939955458″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr8rif5PsI/AAAAAAAAE9w/8CyyhdnwXds/s1600/IMG_9135.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr8rif5PsI/AAAAAAAAE9w/8CyyhdnwXds/s400/IMG_9135.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533512917103230658″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr8gtd1zrI/AAAAAAAAE9o/m-b2K0HM5Bw/s1600/IMG_9138.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr8gtd1zrI/AAAAAAAAE9o/m-b2K0HM5Bw/s400/IMG_9138.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533512731068845746″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr8L7YnBSI/AAAAAAAAE9g/vn8rbqO5WOI/s1600/IMG_9140.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr8L7YnBSI/AAAAAAAAE9g/vn8rbqO5WOI/s400/IMG_9140.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533512374027748642″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr8AI-H14I/AAAAAAAAE9Y/xdb4MWo-6lk/s1600/IMG_9133.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 351px; height: 400px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TMr8AI-H14I/AAAAAAAAE9Y/xdb4MWo-6lk/s400/IMG_9133.JPG” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533512171516319618″ //adiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4680416899705879324-9155770554277031555?l=smsxc.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

  • Snowy Trails and Snowgym

    Muonio2Dylansmile

    Our first few days in Muonio have been pretty interesting. The skiing is great so far – it snowed a bunch in the last 24 hours and today there were many more trails open, which gave us all the opportunity to go on some adventures. I got sick of skiing around the short, well-groomed loop with a hundred other people, so I struck out up the hill and ended up skiing along the top of the ridge below some windmills. I had a beautiful view of the countryside, which is comprised entirely of wooded hills and a few lakes. No mountains, just hills. Even at noon, the sun hangs in the corner of the sky, casting everything in a pinkish yellowish glow. I was psyched to be up on the hill with no other skiers around, enjoying the view, even if it meant skiing in some ungroomed powder.

    Muonio3Tim

    muonio5

    Yesterday Pepa had us do a strength workout. Since we didn’t have access to a gym (that will come later), we did what we now call “Snow-gym.” The first thing we had to do was a bunch of jumps up the hill in the snow. Kind of an adventure. I think all of us fell down at least once. The owners of the cabin complex were watching us out their kitchen window wondering what on earth the crazy Americans were up to now.

    muoniojumps

    After that it was pretty much the usual – push-ups with someone pushing down on our shoulders, dips, supermans with Pepa pushing down on our ankles, one-legged squats on a picnic table with a backpack full of chains to weigh us down. We finished by doing plank with Pepa putting all of her weight on us and seeing how long we could last before we collapsed.

    muoniostrength

    So: wrap up: Finland is great and we’re enjoying it! Hooray for skiing in October and beautiful trails! Yay!

    Pepa made a snowman while we were doing strength!

    Pepa made a snowman while we were doing strength!

  • “The Importance of Balance in an Athlete’s Life”

    Yesterday I spoke to my former high school, National Sports Academy, about the importance of balance in an athlete’s life. My post-lunch talk is a part of a larger series of speakers, ranging from sports psychologists to farmers, and their perspectives on the process of achieving peak performance.nbsp;divbr //divdivOne thing I realized in doing this is that the subtleties of finding balance can be so individual and unique, varying greatly from athlete to athlete. So I wish only the best to those that strive!/divdiv style=”text-align: center;”* * * * */divdivbr //divdivspan class=”Apple-style-span” style=”font-size: small;”Here’s most of what I had to say:/spanbr /div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: left;”!–StartFragment– /divdiv class=”MsoNormal”br //divdiv class=”MsoNormal”I do a sport where success can be elusive and fleeting – literally, a hit or miss. I view peak performance a bit in the same way. As an endurance athlete I train all year to prepare for a few minor peaks and one primary summit at World Championships or the Olympics. I could also call these peaks my goals for the competition season. o:p/o:p/divdiv class=”MsoNormal”br //divdiv class=”MsoNormal”Visualize the view of Whiteface Mtn.span style=”font-weight: normal;”:span style=”mso-spacerun: yes;”nbsp;nbsp;M/spant. Fuji-like in its symmetry, it emphasizes its peak – the summit – the goal – the top – it is but a mere point, albeit a castle, but nonetheless a small point compared to the mountain, the base, its dimensions and immensity.nbsp;/spannbsp;span style=”font-weight: normal;”For me, the summit represents /spanpeak performance and my goals for the season. span style=”font-weight: normal;”As athletes, you know you can’t just go from the beginning trailhead of a mountain straight to the summit. That’s why it’s no news to you that the benefits in reaching peak performance are often not just in the goal but also in the process.nbsp;/span/div!–EndFragment– br /div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”br //divdiv class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”

  • First XC Ski Race Of The Season in Lower Michigan

  • FInal Rollerski of the Year

  • We did not receive any packages today. But Hans got UPS.

    div style=”text-align: center;”a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cBFLp0vFuic/TMocI24xw2I/AAAAAAAAATQ/gcklr-rLfSo/s1600/hans-jump.jpg”img style=”display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cBFLp0vFuic/TMocI24xw2I/AAAAAAAAATQ/gcklr-rLfSo/s400/hans-jump.jpg” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533266030676263778″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-size:85%;”Hans got ups. Yes, that is Thursday 10/28/10 in Waitsfield, VT. Shorts amp; a tee./spanbr //divdiv style=”text-align: center;”a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cBFLp0vFuic/TMob2WgEROI/AAAAAAAAATI/xcc8DUtP9tM/s1600/bounding.jpg”img style=”display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cBFLp0vFuic/TMob2WgEROI/AAAAAAAAATI/xcc8DUtP9tM/s400/bounding.jpg” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533265712745039074″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-size:85%;”Look on that. Jaxon, Hans et al. Gunde hops.br /br //span/divThis is a recovery week, but the athletes are still kicking some ass. They’ll have the weekend off, which is a major part of the recovery process. But before they get the Ramp;R, there are some specific goals they’re trying to accomplish.br /br /For one, they’re continuing work on rollerski technique and volume. As the season draws near, we increase the amount of specific training. You don’t have to be on rollerskis 10 hours per week in May. Now is the time of year for rolling.br /br /Secondly, intensity increases as the season approaches. For most of October, we are working on increasing the ability of the body to move/ski fast. That means the athletes are focused more on L4 training and other intervals that will improve economy and efficiency at higher speeds. We aren’t quite as crazy as Marit Bjoergen circa 2006 with her L4 interval blocks, but the idea is the same.br /br /So here’s how this week shakes out:br /br /MON = AM roll, PM run. Low intensity.br /TUES = AM L4 bounding intervals. PM = strength.br /WED = Classic roll + specific strength (App Gap double-pole!).br /THURS = AM strength + bounding/spenst.br /br /FRI = AM skate rollerski repetitions, 8-12 x 45-60 seconds near race pace.br /SAT/SUN = off!br /br /Our training is always a bit different for every individual athlete. That is one cool thing about our program — personalized service. The team works their butts off day-in and day-out, and they are a team. Yet at the same time, we are capable of making tweaks in the schedule to accommodate particular goals, desires, strengths, academic schedules, extracurriculars, and everything else life throws at us. And to top if all off, I brought Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Almond Joy and Twizzler’s to practice yesterday. One thing I’ve learned, is that athletic teenagers can put down some calories.br /br /We’ll have 1 more big block of training before heading out West for Thanksgiving. Sounds like the skiing is good in Montana!div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1847564486460994594-5457461297709676701?l=gmvsxc.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

  • Fort Kent and Presque Isle: 2011 Biathlon World Cup Hosts

  • YES!

    This past Tuesday I had my fourth blood draw in a month. And this time there was rejoicing – my ALT (liver enzymes) count was finally down, indicating the mono infection is no longer active in my system. Being a small town clinic and the fact that most of the nurses know me there, they were all happy and rushed in to tell me. Dr. Joe Jensen has been great through this whole month – offering great advice and staying in very close contact with me about the pathologies and what they all mean. As well, Dr. Jeff Clarke in Wenatchee has been invaluable with his care and advice regarding returning to training and how best to rebuild. Thank you both!br /br /So now I have a few weeks of careful re-entry into exercise. After taking nearly a month entirely off I want to be sure I’m ready before I dive headlong back in. A relapse would really burst my balloon. As it is I’m able to train about 1 hour per day in Level 1. Hopefully by mid or late November I’ll be back to 10-15 hours per week and maybe can grab some on-snow time at Silver Star. The speed will be there for Nationals.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2910103639238326543-8759065976707537454?l=methowolympicdevelopment.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

  • Final Rollerski of the Year

    There’s plenty of beginnings and endings in skiing. And today I passed a relatively notable one, the one in which I trade in my trusty, slightly rusty Marwe rollers for my fleet of Rossignol’s, which are all packed up for the flight across the pond to Norway. My season kicks off at the Norwegian Cup in Beitostolen, Norway in about two week’s time. br /br /Tomorrow, I have an uphill run on the schedule, into the mountains of the Cascades, an appointment in the afternoon in the Liberty Bell junior high classroom for my In The Arena project, then a little drive to the airport.br /br /Until the next time,br /Torinbr /br /object width=”320″ height=”266″ class=”BLOG_video_class” id=”BLOG_video-f77861e0e1c2c704″ classid=”clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000″ codebase=”http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0″param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/get_player”param name=”bgcolor” value=”#FFFFFF”param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true”param name=”flashvars” value=”flvurl=http%3A%2F%2Fv5.nonxt6.googlevideo.com%2Fvideoplayback%3Fid%3Df77861e0e1c2c704%26itag%3D5%26app%3Dblogger%26ip%3D0.0.0.0%26ipbits%3D0%26expire%3D1297180038%26sparams%3Did%252Citag%252Cip%252Cipbits%252Cexpire%26signature%3D371C931F4B75C6341A57475FD16277CE18F942F9.73C45961A3E80D556AED0CA4BD9AD3735F7C7623%26key%3Dck1amp;iurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.com%2FThumbnailServer2%3Fapp%3Dblogger%26contentid%3Df77861e0e1c2c704%26offsetms%3D5000%26itag%3Dw160%26sigh%3DbdrJsb9m6eMJ2XPm33zZSzNDBaMamp;autoplay=0amp;ps=blogger”embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/get_player” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”width=”320″ height=”266″ bgcolor=”#FFFFFF”flashvars=”flvurl=http%3A%2F%2Fv5.nonxt6.googlevideo.com%2Fvideoplayback%3Fid%3Df77861e0e1c2c704%26itag%3D5%26app%3Dblogger%26ip%3D0.0.0.0%26ipbits%3D0%26expire%3D1297180038%26sparams%3Did%252Citag%252Cip%252Cipbits%252Cexpire%26signature%3D371C931F4B75C6341A57475FD16277CE18F942F9.73C45961A3E80D556AED0CA4BD9AD3735F7C7623%26key%3Dck1iurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.com%2FThumbnailServer2%3Fapp%3Dblogger%26contentid%3Df77861e0e1c2c704%26offsetms%3D5000%26itag%3Dw160%26sigh%3DbdrJsb9m6eMJ2XPm33zZSzNDBaMautoplay=0ps=blogger”allowFullScreen=”true” //objectdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2910103639238326543-2694044294203253400?l=methowolympicdevelopment.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

  • Made it to Muonio

    Greetings from Finland!

    After a long couple days of travel we are now settled in our home for the next three weeks: Muonio, Finland. The flights over were pretty uneventful, except that our plane to Paris was remarkably empty so we were all able to stretch out and sleep a bit during the flight. As our final flight descended into Rovaniemi we caught glimpses of a dusting of snow below and an excellent view of a brilliant pink sunset. That may have been our last flight of the journey to Finland but it was not the end of our travels, as we still had a 3 hour drive to Muonio.

    The view from our cabin.

    The view from our cabin.

    The drive from Rovaniemi to Muonio really deserves its own paragraph. Try to picture this: eight skiers plus one Pepa and all of the accompanying ski bags and luggage attempting to squeeze into a nine-seater van. We wanted to strap the ski bags to the top of the van but it only opened on one side (and there was no rack) so there was no way to string the straps through the doors. Instead we piled the ski bags down the center aisle of the van and the duffel bags on top and around – basically wherever they could fit. Chelsea and Hannah had to assume their seats in the back before the van was totally packed because we had to stuff the bags around them. (They definitely drew the short end of the stick on that one.) Three of the seats were facing backwards and the ski bags ran right up to the middle seat in that row. I was sitting there which meant that I had to either straddle the ski bags or stand on the seat while leaning over to avoid hitting the ceiling of the van. For the next three hours I alternated between these two positions, which understandably probably drove Pat and Ollie nuts, but it was the only way I could figure out to prevent my legs from going numb. All in all it was a pretty interesting drive. However uncomfortable we may have been it was exciting to be driving north and seeing snow. And it felt so good to finally get to our cabins beside the river in Muonio!

    Our first time on snow was during a skate ski on Wednesday morning. There is some natural snow but what we are skiing on right now is mostly snow saved from last year (mounded into a big pile and preserved under sawdust) and man-made snow. The skiing is great! About 4 km of trails are open at the moment but they hope to double that by this weekend. A big biathlon range with 41 points is located right in the middle of it all and I’m looking forward to getting some shooting in. Though I have to admit that seeing the entire Swedish National Biathlon Team training this morning was really intimidating. This morning we had the pleasant surprise of waking up to a few inches of new snow for our classic ski. Technique has been the big focus so far, making sure we start off the season with good, efficient skiing. This is the time to make changes and today Pepa was out with her video camera, watching carefully as always. The trails are packed with athletes from all over: Sweden, Norway, Russia, Belarus, Switzerland, Estonia, and Ukraine. It’s awesome to see so many great skiers in one place, although I think if I tried to ski behind one of the Russian women going “easy” I would be somewhere north of my threshold pace. They. Are. Fast.

    Chelsea during the sewing party, putting our new patches on our new gear.

    Chelsea during the sewing party, putting our new patches on our new gear.

    Hans, Chelsea and I had a chance to explore the town during our afternoon run yesterday. We successfully located the library and the thrift store, so we’re hoping to go back and visit them again soon!

    Grocery shopping: an important part of any training camp.

    Grocery shopping: an important part of any training camp.

  • 28 Days and Counting….

    Twenty eight days until what?  Until my first race! Not that I’m counting or anything….! But really, I am ready.  Mentally at the very least.  There are skiers who mostly love training. There are skiers who mostly love racing.  I would say that I REALLY LOVE both training and racing.  That’s not a cop-out but instead, completely honest.  I love the routine of pushing my body every day, usually multiple times per day, in an effort to get stronger and faster.  The training season is great but I’m ready to move onto some head to head competition.  
    Girl’s Team, Post-Time Trial

    That said, we’re putting in a final in-town dryland preparation period.  Training has consisted primarily of roller skiing, with a couple of running sessions (one interval foot with poles) and two strength sessions – each with hard core workouts, one with spenst, and one with fast classic double pole. So far, none of our training has been on snow which is slightly uncharacteristic for Alaska as many other skiers in the US have gotten their first ski before we have.  Surprisingly I’m not that anxious about it. Our dryland training has been very high in quality and I know we’re going to find PLENTY of snow this winter. 
    Last weekend we had two time trials. It was awesome to go as fast as you can without holding anything back. The first was a classic roller ski sprint race.  Each racer completed two prologues which is used to qualify for the heats – afterwards, we simulated two sprint finals using a “hunting start” or backwards pursuit.  The person that won the prologue started last with the idea that all skiers would theoretically arrive at the finish around the same time. The following day we had a grueling 8k uphill skate time trial.  We started at sea level near Potter’s Marsh and skied to the top of Prominence Point through neighborhoods.  I will be competing in at least two hill climbs this year so it was good to experience the “pain train.”  Uphill skiing is somewhat equivalent to mtn running and I love to go uphill so the time trial suited my strengths. 

    Near the top of the hill climb. You can see the water below were we started 8k below
    Coaches timing – they collected some great info, splits, percents back, etc
    This teammate pushed it hard…. he hugged the pavement for a while…. 

    And a while longer. He seemed to have a rolling-on-the-ground recovery theme

    Katie Ronsse resting in her birthday spandex at the top of the hill climb

    This is surely the time of year where everyone seems to get fairly serious and focused.  There is a certain amount of anticipation going into a new season.  I’m sure every skier out there, including myself is asking the same questions: What kind of fitness do I have right now? Am I stronger than last year?  Did the changes I made to my training help? Was I able to hold onto and capitalize on what worked well for me last year?  …. I hope I got some good new skis this year….. Can’t wait to get the uniforms to see what spandex I’ll be wearing almost everyday!…… Geez, these plane tickets are expensive, etc, etc, etc. 

    After your uphill time trial we had a couple hours before we had to be back at strength to “drive wheel barrows” as we call it

    Kinsey and Morgan rocking the incline partner medicine ball throw

    One-legged jumps in the AK October sunshine

    Twenty eight days from now I’ll have some answers to these questions. Until then, stay tuned! 
    Have a good one, 
    Holly 🙂