Category: XCFeeds

As part of the new fasterskier website, they have included interviews with many of the nation’s top racers. If you ever wondered what drives that dedicated athlete or what your ski idol eats for breakfast, it’s just a click away. Below are my responses to the interview that I had prior to the racing season.When did you start ski racing, and what were some highlights of your young skiing career?

The other day I got out of bed, looked out the window, and saw huge snowflakes falling to the ground. My initial reaction was excitement, but I was a bit disappointed because it was going to make the intervals I planned for the day that much harder.br /br /I met my coach at the ski hut ready to go at 9:30am. The snow wasn’t letting up and the wind wasn’t either. I strapped my skis on and began my warm up, plowing through 5 inches of fresh fallen snow. I was the only lone soul out on the trails. It was hard to get psyched for this workout when I could hardly see where I was going! After making a few loops, I put my head down and went for it. “It’s conditions like this that make you tough. You never know when you’ll have to race in dumping snow.” These were all thoughts that ran through my head and were latter reiterated by my coach. “That’s right,” I thought. “This is only going to make me tougher.” With that thought in my head, I began my first interval. Three minutes into the interval I had to take my glasses off, they were fogging up and they were covered with snow! The wind was blowing and snow was covering my face…I couldn’t see a thing! As I skied along, I ran off the trail a few times, getting way off track. I squinted my eyes and even shut them on the downhills…that’s when I caught a tip in the snow and did a nice face plant. Aaawww! After the fall, I was getting more and more frustrated. I was trying to go fast but I couldn’t see a thing! I finished my interval and stopped to get a lactate reading from my coach. This would be the moment of truth, did I go hard enough? Sure enough, my lactate was within the correct range!br /br /Despite plowing through 5 inches of snow, skiing down the hills blind, and falling on my face, I was able to execute the intervals as planned. I was relieved to be done with the workout! I kept my mind in the game and completed it just as well as I would have if it was solid tracks. Sometimes achieving excellence isn’t just about performing well at races and getting good results, but it is also about making several small achievements along the way. I could have easily waited until the next day to do the intervals when it was clear and sunny, but I put my mind to the test. Ultimately, I felt like I achieved excellence and benefited greatly from such a tough and brutal workout.br /br /And of course as I finished my cool down, the sun began to peek through the clouds.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5903545846797966075-583481223876905246?l=in-the-arena-nicole.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

The World Cup season parallels and occasionally intersects with the Marathon Cup, the FIS-sponsored circuit of long, really long, and crazy long races that are also held under the Worldloppet banner. This season, the Marathon Cup includes ten races, starting in the middle of December with La Sgambeda, a 42km skate race in Italy, and concluding in late March with the famed Birkebeiner in Norway,

Stephen and Arritola 17th and 22nd.  Good one-two punch for the youngsters.
Geek it up inside with some numbers.

Stephen and Arritola 17th and 22nd.  Good one-two punch for the youngsters.
Geek it up inside with some numbers.

Stephen and Arritola 17th and 22nd.  Good one-two punch for the youngsters.
Geek it up inside with some numbers.

Well, the first night here I slept pretty much straight through – I guess I must have been tired from travel, because last night and tonight haven’t gone so smoothly. I’ve been up from 2-4 for the second straight night, and can’t make my eyes tired enough to fall asleep right now… and to think racing in 36 hours. Sleeping would be good.

My favorite place on Earth is “flat, desolate, and muddy as sin” -JCL. The mudflats used to be my summer infatuation, but I have discovered they can be a playground in the winter months as well. Mom running out to the ocean to try a few yoga moves. Mt. Redoubt– the volcano that’s been in the news lately for its seismic activity– is to the right of my right leg. I guess it runs in the family. I

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Though there are many storylines to tomorrow’s 30km freestyle mass start race, a dominant one is whether Aino-Kaisa Saarinen can make the podium and thus earn a medal in every event at the Liberec Worlds. A win and a fourth gold would put her ahead of the three-gold hauls of teammate Kuitunen at the ’07 Sapporo Worlds and Marit Bjoergen at the ’05 Oberstdorf Worlds.I don’t think the gold is in

I’m bummed that Petra Majdic is leaving Liberec without a medal, because she seems pretty cool, as this English-language interview from Swedish TV shows. The bit at 2:20 about the origins of her famous excitability is especially great.

The women’s relay was an incredible contest: Kowalcyzk going out harder than hard at the start, Japan hanging in third place deep into the third leg, Steira skating so fast that she closed down a 31.8s gap to Finland in just 3500 meters, giving Kristoffersen an 8.2s lead at the start of the fourth leg. And then the fourth-leg war between Kristoffersen, Saarinen, Nystad, and Kalla – wow. Every

Man, the sprint events have been good appetizers* for the main course: the four days that include the women’s and men’s relays (Thursday and Friday) and the 30km and 50km freestyle mass start races (Saturday and Sunday). The Vasaloppet – effectively the world ski marathon championships – occurs on Sunday, too, as a sort of dessert.The women’s relays are almost always good for a surprise and some

The Sven Johansson, the final race in the AMH Anchorage Cup, is nicknamed as “The Tour of Kincaid”, because the course tackles just about every big climb in the park– Stairway to Heaven, Hairpin, Ice Box, Elliots Climb, Burky’s climb, Lekisch, you name it.Several of the elite women got the honor of starting in the elite men’s wave, which made for a more interesting and exciting race. Once the

The website was down there for a bit, but we’re back now. It would be nice to pretend that all the web traffic after the 15K crashed the server, but that’s not the case. The host got changed and I screwed up the nameserver something or other. Managed to lose some content along the way as well (if anybody has any saved copies of the missing reports please send them to me!). Anyway, it’s a multi-purpose title as it works for Kris as well. He’s back in a pretty big way, and at just the right time to hit his major race goal of the season.

There has been decent enough coverage of the 15K so I needn’t go into any great depth. Kris started conservatively with the confidence from the Val di Dentro race the week before that he had the fitness to contend. He got the perfect ride as Bauer started about 15 seconds after Kris finished his first lap. Kris jumped on for a lap and three quarters and then passed Bauer at the end, posting the fastest final 10K of the day. Its easy to suggest that he should have started faster, but the race was defined by Bauer’s pace as much as anything. He could just as well have pulled over and waited for him. It was the perfect ride. Skis were among the best in the race. While 4th place is frustrating Kris has no regrets and can’t claim that those 1.3 seconds were available to him if only…

Kris’s preparation for the Championships has been defined by a very low level of training. While this has been the plan all-along – to really scale the load back in a pre-competition peaking phase – the compartment syndrome diagnosis made us even more cautious. Mostly this was a matter of giving his legs some extra consideration. As he started to regain some feeling in his legs after Whistler Kris realized that inflammation and fatigue had masked some of the CS symptoms and he came to understand how poorly his legs had been functioning, even in classic races. So he scaled things back even further than we had planned in order to give his legs a break.

Taking training down a big notch necessitates some other adjustments for Kris in the realm of sugar management. One of the reasons he’s carried such a high training load at times in the past is that blood sugar management can become a big issue when the load comes down. The Rybinsk race last season was a good example of this phenomenon. And when blood sugar management goes bad it’s really easy for Kris to get run down and sick. This time around Kris modified his diet more than he has in the past – knocking back his carb intake quite a lot, and eating more protein. The Omniopd has also given Kris a tool to deal with the day to day, and even hour to hour dosing variations in a way that was impossible before.

It’s not time for a post-mortem on the season quite yet. Kris’s final race of the year is coming up in the distance relay and he’s feeling very good. We’ve already started talking about next year but before we get too far it’ll be necessary to do a comprehensive review of what went right and what went wrong with this year. It’s a much prettier picture than last season, and we’re all going to come out of this pleased with the way that Kris has responded to disappointment and learned from errors.

Late Addition: Today’s sprint relay was frustrating because Kris and Torin didn’t make the final. But Kris felt excellent, and did what he set out to do – delivered Torin the lead with a lap to go. He felt as though he could have skied a tremendous final – plenty left in the tank. Distance relay is the day after tomorrow. He’s fired up.