From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.
NMU alumnae Felicia Gesior (far left) and Caitlin Gregg (far right, blue shoes) during a fall training session with the Northern Michigan University (NMU) women’s ski team in 2016. (Courtesy photo)
This week’s Wednesday Workout comes from Central Cross Country (CXC) Team member Felicia Gesior. In her second year with CXC, Gesior, 24, is currently working on coordinating the Bergkönig Trail Run, an annual event that began six years ago to raise money for post-collegiate CXC skiers. Race registration and information can be found here.
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Bergkönig. In German, it translates to “mountain king”. In 2011, it translated to the perfect name for the trail run Northern Michigan University (NMU) alums Maria Stuber and Bryan Cook were launching in an effort to fund their ski racing with Central Cross Country (CXC).
Both Stuber and Cook had been brainstorming a name to make the event, with 5- and 10-kilometer races, stand out from others in the mid-eastern Wisconsin area. Intending to email her brother for an outsider’s opinion, Stuber explained she accidentally sent a message to a “random guy” by the name of Thomas Stuber hailing from Germany. Thomas immediately informed Maria that she had the incorrect Stuber, but not before suggesting the trail run be called Bergkönig. In lieu of the erroneous email, the Bergkönig bank account and Bergkönig Trail Run began.
“Our goal was to give back to the local community, raise money for our winters, and create some awareness for the sport,” Stuber explained in an email to FasterSkier. “After a few years it became a big race and we felt fortunate to be able to rely on it for financial support every year. It was one of the factors that allowed up to keep ski racing as long as we did … something we are really proud of. We didn’t want to see it go away after we were done racing so we kept doing it for a couple years and put the money in a bank account to help future skiers with similar aspirations that needed funding.”
Felicia Geisor (CXC Team) at 2017 U.S. nationals in Soldier Hollow in January. (Courtesy photo)
One of those future skiers included CXC’s Felicia Gesior. Five years after the inaugural Bergkönig, Gesior, originally from Waukesha, Wisconsin, qualified for the 2016 U23 World Skiing Championships in Rasnov, Romania, and the Bergkönig extended its connections beyond Germany and the continental U.S. That year, it granted Gesior a round-trip plane ticket to get her to Romania.
“It was SO COOL for us to be able to send Felicia that check!” Stuber wrote.
This year, Gesior, a 2016 NMU graduate now in her second season with CXC, will be in charge of coordinating the very race that helped her get to U23 Worlds. Proceeds from this race will help cover her travel and ski expenses as well as go toward that “Bergkönig Scholarship Fund that will assist future generations of Wisconsin Skiers pursuing Olympic dreams after college,” the event’s website states.
Stuber, head nordic coach at the College of St. Scholastica, and Cook have stepped back this fall, though they both plan to drive down from Duluth, Minnesota, for the event. The race is scheduled for Nov. 11 in Delafield, Wisconsin, on the hilly trails of Lapham State Park, a course Gesior, Stuber and Cook all trained on as Peak Nordic skiers in high school.
“Many of the [Peak Nordic] coaches are the same today as they were when I was in high school and they went way above and beyond to support me throughout my entire career,” Stuber noted. “We are all so proud of this place that we would go to great lengths to see Felicia represent us at the highest level of U.S. skiing.”
Felicia Geisor on graduation day at Northern Michigan University in the spring of 2017. (Courtesy photo)
Gesior has been training in Marquette, Michigan, this summer and fall under the guidance of the CXC Team’s new head coachEliška Hájek Albrigtsen. Most of Gesior’s goals revolve around U.S. SuperTour races and U.S. nationals in January. She views being an American woman on the domestic race circuit as “an exciting time” with “everyone pushing to new levels.”
“Every time I have the opportunity, like at U.S. nationals, to race against those elite girls that’s just excellent because they’re pushing the whole field,” Gesior said on the phone last month.
When she isn’t training, Gesior substitute teaches at local schools in Marquette. The work not only serves as a supplemental income, but also as way for her to stay connected to her post-skiing career — she has a degree in education from NMU. She also plans to help with CXC’s ‘Nordic Rocks’ for Schools program, an initiative that aims to get more youth involved with nordic skiing.
“That’s one of CXC’s major goals is to get Nordic Rocks in more of the schools. My relationship is getting it into Marquette this year,” Gesior explained, adding that the program has donated up to 30 pairs of nordic skis to more than 200 elementary schools.
“Kids can put them on with their snow boots and then they can walk literally from the gym outside to the door … You can imagine all these little kids, it’s hilarious,” she said. “So that’s just another side thing where I can connect my two passions together.”
Beyond training and teaching, the Bergkönig will be the most forthcoming of Gesior’s fall focus, along with the Level 4 ski-walking intervals she recommends as race prep for the Bergkönig trail’s hills. May the best Mountain King win.
The Workout: “Marquette Mountain Repeats”
Type: Level 4 Ski Walking Intervals
The workout should be hard to complete with a focus on an elevated heart rate and mental fortitude. Gesior usually incorporates this workout into her plan towards the end of her summer training cycle and and continues doing it once a week through the fall.
She suggested doing this workout without ski poles to prevent building up too much lactate while climbing.
“The best part about this workout is that you do not get as much lactate build up as you might on a bounding workout because you don’t have poles in your arms,” Gesior wrote in an email. “Instead, you can push your heart without building up too much lactate. This is a good workout during a week that you don’t want to necessarily build lactate but still want to get in a hard effort.”
Terrain: Small alpine hill (should take 4-5 minutes to ascend; Geisor recommends no more than 6 minutes)
Warmup: 20-25 minutes jogging with a couple minutes of Level 3 toward the end of the warmup followed by strides
The set: 5-8 x 4-minute ascents; off time is amount of time it takes to descend the hill
The first 4-minute set should be done at the high end of a Level 3 pace. Each consecutive set should be done slightly faster.
“This workout is an interval ski walking workout so you ski walk up the hill swinging your arms as if you are classic skiing and you should be going at Level 3-plus into Level 4,” Gesior explained.
Cool down: 20-30 minutes easy jogging
Total time: 1.5 to 2 hours
Gesior’s Golden Rules:
Record; don’t get wrecked. Since each ascent should be faster than the previous one, Gesior indicated that recording times should not be overlooked, nor should going to hard from the start. “It is important to keep track of your times on each interval because you want to have your last ones be faster than your first ones,” she wrote. “You want to do the first one starting in L-3 and then you go for a faster time on each consecutive interval. The majority of the intervals are done in Level 4 and you should strive to push the pass towards the end of each interval as well as the last few intervals in your set.”
Make mental note. Don’t be afraid to use the intervals as practice for pushing past negative thoughts that might pay visit during competitions. “You should be focusing on your mental toughness that you tap into during races,” she wrote. “You should remember to use good ski walking technique in your legs as well as using your arms as if you were striding.”
Eliška Hájek Albrigtsen (formerly Hájková, front right) with Madison Nordic Ski Club’s Trail Kids this summer.(Photo: Tobias Hájek Albrigtsen)
Many mornings, Eliška Hájek Albrigtsen’s husband, Tobias Albrigtsen, has to peel her out of bed. Living the life of an early bird like her spouse is nowhere near the top of her list — partly because she spends most nights prodding her hubby awake as he finishes his work, partly because she is strung out between four jobs of her own.
Being in charge of three ski programs while assisting a fourth is not where the 29 year old envisioned herself when she moved to Madison, Wisconsin, this past June to work for Central Cross Country (CXC). But a lot can change over the course of a summer and for Albrigtsen (formerly Hájková), a lot did.
After relocating to the Badger State’s capital from Lake Tahoe, California, to serve as CXC’s Community Olympic Development Director, Albrigtsen’s responsibilities began to accrue.
It started with the addition of coaching CXC’s online master’s program. Then she had an interest in helping with CXC’s Paralympic and adaptive athletes. Finally, in late August, Andy Keller left his head-coaching position with the CXC Team to join Northern Michigan University (NMU) as an assistant coach, and Albrigtsen was in a prime spot to take over the reins.
“When Andy took the assistant coaching job at NMU, it was kind of natural that I got the CXC Team head coach position,” Albrigtsen, a Czech Republic native, said during a recent phone interview. “For me, it’s not like a big promotion, it’s just more stuff to do while I still do all the stuff I was doing before. I have a lot of responsibilities all of a sudden that I didn’t start with.”
Among those responsibilities, she has been busy making informative videos for CXC Academy under the job title of Community Olympic Development Coach.
While attending the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU), she finished in the top 10 of 45 out of 48 races over the course of her college career, according to a CU press release, all while maintaining above a 3.5 grade-point average.
Eliska Hajkova (CU), racing against Sophie Caldwell (Dartmouth) and Corey Stock (CSU) during a sprint semifinal in 2012. Hajkova graduated in 2013 and after marrying, changed her last name to Hájek Albrigtsen. (Photo: James Doucett)
After three seasons coaching the BNJRT in Colorado, Albrigtsen moved to Kings Beach at the north end of Lake Tahoe last year, where the juggling act continued. There, she served as the head coach for Tahoe XC, while also volunteering with the Auburn Ski Club’s elite athletes, taught private ski lessons for Tahoe Donner, coached an online master’s program, and once again raced U.S. nationals, placing 12th in the 20 k classic mass start.
She’s also raced more than two dozen World Cups, most recently in 2014.
Though Albrigtsen indicates that she “never stops officially training or racing” this year might be a little different as it will be her first season coaching senior elite skiers. Still, the idea of more challenging practice sessions is enough to draw her in, even if it means scaling back her training a bit. As a coach she brings not only race experience, but the empathy and understanding of an athlete.
“With U14 kids, I mean, I was challenging them, but I was not getting challenged,” she reflected. “I think being challenged as a coach, being able to hang out with your athletes, you really see and you can really feel their pain. When you’re right on their butts and doing every exercise, you can see, ‘OK, I know that in the Level 4 on the fifth minute, during the sixth interval you died, so let’s figure that out.’ I think that’s one of my powers, that I can really be there when it’s happening.”
When asked of her strengths as a coach, CXC Executive Director Yuriy Gusev was quick to respond.
“Her racing experience, number one,” he said on the phone. “And [she’s] just very energetic and hardworking and organized.”
Albrigtsen will work with three CXC Team skiers this winter: Felicia Gesior, Kyle Bratrud and Sam Elfstrom. All three graduated from NMU, are currently based out of Marquette, Michigan, and will set their focus on the first few SuperTour races and U.S. nationals before re-evaluating their season goals. The fourth CXC Team member, Nichole Bathe (who graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks) remains on roster, but headed to Europe earlier this fall to train in Norway with a goal of making the 2018 Winter Olympic Games for Great Britain’s national team.
Until the first week of SuperTour racing in early December, the amount of time the other three CXC elite skiers and Albrigtsen work together will depend on the athletes. Albrigtsen wanted to keep the summer and fall schedule fairly flexible so her athletes would not feel restricted in the amount of paid work or fundraising they could accomplish while training for the upcoming season.
For example, Gesior made a trip to Madison earlier this fall for a training session on CXC’s rollerski treadmill with Albrigtsen, but will spend most the next few weeks training in Marquette and preparing for a fundraiser she’s organizing: the Bergkönig trail run on Nov. 11. The event features 10 k, 5 k and 1 k races and was originally created by Maria Stuber and Bryan Cook in an effort to raise money for local cross-country skiers looking to continue their ski careers post-college.
Gesior also works as a substitute teacher in Marquette, and most of her training this summer and fall has been with the NMU women’s team. Similarly, Bratrud and Elfstrom train with the NMU men’s team.
Felicia Geisor of the CXC Team prepares to hop on the treadmill in early September. (Courtesy photo)
“I think that’s OK that they follow [NMU],” Albrigtsen said, “That’s kind of the program that really took them where they are and they have something to top it. They don’t train like college skiers; I mean, it’s their job right now so they do train more. But the base is very similar and [NMU Head Coach] Sten [Fjeldheim] is being really nice about allowing them to train with them. Not all college coaches are that way, so we’re definitely really lucky.”
According to Gusev, partnerships like the one CXC has with NMU and other programs in the Midwest are the reason for CXC’s expansion. Over the last decade, he said CXC has grown from a $50,000-dollar organization to a million-dollar one.
“It’s all of those partnerships,” Gusev said of the CXC programs’ continued growth. “They’re incredible organizations so we’re able to work with all of them together and help them work together.”
The organization hopes to continue its expansion with the addition of a $12-million-dollar training complex just outside the Madison suburb of Middleton, Wisconsin, which is currently in the planning stages. The facility would not only include a competition venue, but snowmaking equipment, a lit rollerski loop, and 30,000-square-foot facility open for recreational use as well.
The idea behind the complex, Gusev indicated, would be to provide CXC athletes with a training venue, while simultaneously encouraging community members to get outside and active, using skiing as an example. The center already has one complex, the CXC Center of Excellence in Madison, complete with rollerski treadmill. “With the CXC Team, our number-one goal is to support the athletes that need the support. That’s as simple as that,” Gusev said. “But overall, our goal as an organization is to grow the sport at all levels.”
To Albrigtsen, the new facility is another reason Madison and CXC seemed like a good choice for her and her husband, Tobias, who is CXC’s media and communications coordinator, when moving from Tahoe to the Midwest. That, and the cost of living.
“We always talk about what can Midwest offer that other regions can’t. We don’t have the mountains, we don’t have the best winters, but what we really have is the best quality of life,” Albrigtsen said.
“You can live much cheaper here than anywhere else in U.S. and still make somewhat good money,” she continued. “Not everybody, especially in the U.S., there’s maybe 10-15 people who can do this professionally and get paid being skiers, otherwise you have to work and that’s something Midwest does have to offer. You can have a normal life and be a skier. You can do it here.”
While Albrigtsen’s “normal life” is somewhat busier than others might prefer, she is in no way deterred.
“I am a total sport addict, and I think every coach has to be, otherwise it’s not really worth it,” she said. “Tobias and I, we’re just trying to do what we love and give something back.”
Give something back, and get a little training in at the same time, even if it’s in between her multiple jobs.
“My motivation is also to fit in my jeans, wearing tight dresses,” Albrigtsen added with a laugh. “I have a five-year-younger husband so I have to take care of myself.”
Eliska Hájek Albrigtsen (formerly Hajkova) leading a Fourth of July run with Madison Nordic Ski Club’s Trail Kids this summer. (Photo: Tobias Albrigtsen)
2017 U23 World Championships teammates Nichole Bathe (l) and Jesse Knori, of the U.S., on Thursday at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: Bernie Nelson)
In an effort to showcase the North Americans competing at next week’s International Ski Federation (FIS) 2017 USANA Nordic Junior World Championships and U23 Cross Country World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, we asked those qualifying athletes several questions about themselves — actually, we had them fill in the blanks. Here we have 21-year-old Nichole Bathe, of University of Alaska Fairbanks and CXC Team, who’s representing the U.S. at her first U23 World Championships after having raced at 2014 Junior Worlds.
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“My full name is Nichole Bathe, but you can call me Nichole.
I was born in Madison, Wi, raised in Madison, and one thing you should know about my hometown is, go Badgers!! I started cross-country skiing when I was around 12, thanks to Yuriy Gusev and my dad.
I currently train in Fairbanks, Alaska, with University of Alaska Fairbanks and also the CXC Team.
If I’m not skiing, you might find me eating cheese and chocolate in a papasan chair. If I had to pick a favorite book, it would be ‘Bossypants’ by Tina Fey.
One of the things I’m most excited about for U23/Junior Worlds at Soldier Hollow is that it’s on home soil, and my coaches get to watch! One race I’m especially targeting there is the classic sprint.
The best advice anyone ever gave me about skiing or racing was ‘stay relaxed, stay tough’ –Christina Turman. One of the best race memories I have is the first time I beat my dad in a hometown race.
If I could meet one World Cup skier, it would be Heidi Weng.
If I don’t end up being a professional skier, I’ll probably be a social worker.
I’m missing 10 of school to be here, and my professors are probably thinking, ‘Good luck graduating this year, haha.’
The “American” podium at U.S. Cross Country Championships for the men’s 15 k freestyle, with Kyle Bratrud of CXC (c) in first, Tad Elliott of SSCV (l) in second, and Patrick Caldwell of SMS (r) third. Moritz Madlener of Germany, competing for the University of Denver, was third overall and ahead of Caldwell.
MIDWAY, Utah — On Saturday at Soldier Hollow (SoHo) many of the variables that make cross-country skiing a conundrum were in play: morning fog and early hours, -8° Fahrenheit temps, a reluctant and too timid sun, a mix of artificial and natural snow.
It didn’t take a robust microphone to pick up the all-too-familiar sound of hard-packed, arctic-cold snow — think styrofoam.
For the men’s race, starting at 1 p.m., the morning’s slow snow had morphed into a slightly more efficient gliding surface. The Central Cross Country (CXC) Team’s 23-year-old Kyle Bratrud made the most of it. He gapped the field and won Saturday’s 15-kilometer freestyle individual start in 34:52 minutes, repeating his title earned at 2015 U.S. nationals in Houghton, Mich.
Two-time World Championships team member Tad Elliott of Ski and Snowboard Club Vail (SSCV) placed second (+21.6).
Germany’s Moritz Madlener, a senior at the University of Denver and double podium finisher at last year’s NCAA Championships, took the third podium spot (+30.4). However, only 0.7 seconds back in fourth was Patrick Caldwell of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS). As the next-best U.S. finisher, Caldwell, a U.S. Ski Team D-team member, was the third American in the talent-deep field.
Kris Freeman (Team Freebird) was fifth overall (+36.0) and Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team member John Hegman placed sixth (+37.9). The pair were the fourth- and fifth-best Americans.
Another Title for Bratrud
Where this reporter sat in the SoHo infield — an intersection of the lap/finish lane in one direction and the beginning of a gutting climb in the other — the names Gelso, Patterson, Elliott, and Freeman were being shouted by coaches communicating who was at the sharp end of the leaderboard.
CXC’s Kyle Bratrud on his way to winning the men’s 15 k freestyle at 2017 U.S. nationals on Saturday at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.
The name Bratrud was missing. Yet his statement was loud and clear, winning by 21.6 seconds over multiple national champion Elliott.
“Two years ago when I had a really good season, I basically started every race as fast as I could and either I blew up or did really well because I had a big lead,” Bratrud told FasterSkier after the podium ceremony.
“This last year, being at altitude for these first SuperTours really helped me feel what a good pace is, especially at altitude,” he continued. “I noticed some heart rates where I could sit for a while. If I went too far above that, then I would blow up. I tried to just stick with that and go off the feel of it, but make sure I was in control. I felt good the entire time.”
Although he lives and trains at low altitude, Bratrud’s month out west for early SuperTours and a seven day pre-race stay near SoHo mitigated any altitude adjustment concerns.
“The breathing was high, but it was manageable,” Bratrud said.
The upcoming World Championships in Lahti, Finland, loom large on the horizon for many skiers at nationals. That’s certainly the case for Bratrud, who also competed in 2015 World Championships in Falun, Sweden.
“[World Championships] has been my objective since the summer began, so this puts me in a position for it,” Bratrud said. “I knew after the SuperTours I was a little out of [the running]. I needed to get on the podium in one or both of these races. So today was a good start. I’m excited about the sprint tomorrow, but the 30 k is my next focus.”
The field should pay attention. Four days after winning his 2015 national title race, Bratrud placed third in the 30 k mass start classic in Houghton.
Tad Elliott (SSCV) skiing to second in the men’s 15 k freestyle at U.S. Cross Country Championships on Saturday at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.
American Podium
No stranger to national podiums is the sinewy Elliott.
First in the 2011 U.S. nationals 30 k skate in Rumford, Maine.
First in the 2012 national 15 k skate, also in Rumford.
First in the 2016 national 30 k skate mass start.
Elliott has been second at nationals on five other occasion before Saturday. Take a breather at SoHo’s higher-than-most venue? Not really happening for Elliott: he’s 28 years old and charging.
Upbeat and grateful, Elliott, standing next to his twin brother Evan, mentioned the moment was special.
“It feels good to finish second, for sure,” Elliott said. “I mean, any time you get on the podium, especially at a race like this, it always feels good. My whole family is here except for my sister. But my twin brother Evan waxed my skis. My dad’s here. It’s also my mother’s birthday, she’s here watching, so that was cool, for sure.”
“It’s still a long road, I mean, there’s still times where it’s like a rollercoaster,” Elliott said of his gradual return to form. “I’m on the upswing. It’s good in that the symptoms are getting less and less. But I think the main thing today to get on the podium was wisdom: knowing to start slow, knowing to be in control, knowing you can throw down the last lap.”
Elliott also deflected some of the attention and took a moment to reflect on Bratrud’s dominance.
“Huge congrats to Kyle Bratrud, that kid was unbeatable today from the time gap we saw,” he marveled. “That’s quite an impressive effort for him. He’s a young guy too, it’s cool to see. I mean, he came from low altitude, and won here.”
As the third-fastest American, Caldwell stood on the “American” podium on Saturday. The Vermont-based skier has already qualified for U23 World Championships, to be held at SoHo at the end of the month.
“I think going into the day I wasn’t thinking about results as much as just hoping to feel good on the day, and give it my all out there,” Caldwell said after. “And I was definitely really psyched to be in contention for the podium. Bummed to miss [the overall podium] by a close margin, but I was definitely happy with the result overall.”
The race was as much a learning experience as a results oriented end game for Caldwell.
“I’d say the big takeaway is figuring out pacing, it’s definitely tricky up here at altitude,” Caldwell said. “And I think having the chance to race here before U23’s is going to be a huge advantage in figuring out pacing and trying to figure out where you can redline, where you have to keep it under control, and that kind of thing.”
Nationals continue Sunday with a full day of men’s and women’s classic sprints.
The Alberta Cup men’s podium in Sunday’s 8.1 k classic interval start, with winner Kyle Bratrud (c) of CXC Team, NTDC Thunder Bay’s Evan Palmer-Charrette (l) in second and AWCA’s Dominique Moncion-Groulx (r) in third. (Photo: NTDC Thunder Bay/Twitter)
Here’s one that didn’t make Sunday’s Rundown: the Alberta Cup’s opening distance races, which took place Nov. 26-27 in Canmore, Alberta.
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The Alberta Cup kicked off this past weekend with several big names competing in the distance races at the Canmore Nordic Centre on Saturday and Sunday.
Brian McKeever, Kyle Bratrud, Chelsea Holmes, and Felicia Gesior picked up victories, with the latter three all hailing from the U.S.
In the men’s 13.5 k freestyle interval start, McKeever, of Canada’s Para-Nordic Ski Team, took first in the men’s open race, beating his teammate Graham Nishikawa by 3.6 seconds with a winning time of 30:01.8. A visually impaired skier, McKeever races with Nishikawa as his guide in Paralympic races. But not on Saturday.
Bratrud, of the CXC Team, placed third in the 13.5 k skate, two seconds back from Nishikawa and 5.6 out of first.
David Palmer (Black Jack) was the second Canadian in fourth overall (+20.0), Matthew Hudec, of the Biathlon Alberta Training Centre (BATC), was fifth (+36.3), and Brian Gregg (Team Gregg) took sixth (+50.1). Rounding out the top 10 (of 54 in the open men’s field), Russell Kennedy (Team R.A.D.) placed seventh, Erik Carleton (Canadian Para-Nordic Ski Team) was eighth, Evan Palmer-Charrette (NTDC Thunder Bay) ninth, and Dominique Moncion-Groulx, of theAlberta World Cup Academy (AWCA), 10th.
Holmes, of Alaska Pacific University (APU), won the women’s 8.1 k freestyle on Saturday, finishing nearly 45 seconds ahead of Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) in 21:10.7. Biathlon Canada’s Emma Lunder placed third (+52.1) and junior biathlete Megan Bankes (BATC) finished fourth (+1:08.4), ahead of another BATC junior Nadia Moser in fifth (+1:13). Andrea Dupont, of Rocky Mountain Racers (RMR) finished sixth (+1:19.6) and Katherine Stewart-Jones (NTDC Thunder Bay/National U25 Team) was seventh (+1:30.8), while Kathryn Stone (University of Alberta) placed eighth, Annika Richardson (NTDC Thunder Bay) was ninth, and India McIsaac (RMR) 10th out of 33 women in the open category.
On Sunday, CXC posted this photo and caption about its women’s winner Felicia Gesior (l), runner-up Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) (c), and Annika Richardson (r) (NTDC Thunder Bay) who placed second in the junior race in the Alberta Cup classic distance race: “Double CXC Team Win! Felicia Gesior double poles to a victory in the women’s classic race. Photo with the other two girls to double pole the race. These girls are STRONG!” (Photo: CXC Skiing Facebook)
On Sunday, Bratrud came out with a 9.9-second win in the men’s 8.1 k classic interval start over Palmer-Charrette. Bratrud won in 19:00.1, Palmer-Charrette was second, and Moncio-Groulx placed third (+29.2).
On his first of of four laps, Moncion-Groulx recorded the fastest lap time of the day.
“I didn’t know if I was in the game, but I was happily surprised when I was third,” Moncion-Groulx said of his finish, according to an AWCA press release. “It’s an improvement, and there are definitely some good guys racing. It’s a good confidence boost.”
Michael Somppi (NTDC Thunder Bay) was fourth (+32.5), Julian Smith (NTDC Thunder Bay) fifth (+45.7), and for the second-straight race, Brian Gregg finished sixth (+53.0). Nishikawa was another two seconds back seventh, Palmer was eighth, Kennedy cracked the top 10 for the second straight day in ninth, as did Carleton in 10th.
McKeever finished 11th, half a second behind Carleton, his other Paralympic guide, out of 26 in the men’s open race. After Sunday’s race, McKeever tweeted, “Vented personal frustration today. Mental error=inability to count laps in today’s race. Realize I’ve put a lot of stress on myself lately.”
In another tweet on Sunday, he wrote, “Congrats to Kyle Bratrud from @cxcskiing and the @NDCTBay boys for laying down the hammer on the field today! Cool to see!”
Also on Sunday, Gesior won the women’s 6.3 k classic and Caitlin Gregg repeated in second. Gesior put down the fastest time in 17:46.8, and Gregg finished 9.3 seconds back, while Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt (AWCA/National U25 Team) placed third (+13.1).
According to the AWCA press release, Bouffard-Nesbitt is still recovering from a stress fracture and spent three months this summer on crutches. “I know I need to step up to the challenge. I feel the pressure and it’s helping me become a better athlete,” she said.
Stewart-Jones double poled to fourth (+23.3), Holmes placed fifth (+36.0), and Dupont was sixth (+54.1). Alannah Maclean (NTDC Thunder Bay) placed seventh, Emma Camicioli (RMR) was eighth, Delphine Duvernay Tardif (AWCA) ninth, and Ember Large (University of Alberta) 10th out of 18 women in the open field.
Central Cross Country (CXC) junior development skier Siri Martin (r) gets a mid-summer VO2max test on the rollerski treadmill at CXC’s Center of Excellence in Madison, Wis., in late July (Photo: CXC Facebook)
A glance into any one of the glass windows lining the east side of Central Cross Country (CXC) Academy’s Center of Excellence building might give the impression of the average athlete gym. But if you step across the front threshold or take a peek at the academy’s 360-degree virtual online tour and sport science page, you’ll find much more than treadmills, stationary bikes and medicine balls.
Located in Madison, Wis., the CXC Center of Excellence also houses a 10-by-12-foot rollerski treadmill, SkiErgs, and an in-house-made, power-pole machine. For many, though, equipment is not the most powerful tool in the center. Rather, it’s the center’s capacity to evaluate and educate its members and non-members alike about nordic skiing.
Currently, the Center of Excellence offers performance evaluations, as well as fitness testing for lactate and VO2max using the oversized treadmill. Recorded and individualized technique coaching sessions on the rollerski treadmill are also available for those willing to pay $150 dollars per hour. To help athletes gain a better understanding of their body within sport, the center is also presently working on developing a biomechanical analysis software.
The rollerski treadmill at the CXC Academy Center of Excellence (Photo: cxcacademy.com)
And CXC recently hired a sport development and education director, Egor Akimov, CXC head coach Andy Keller explained on the phone.
“He’s got a bachelor’s and PhD from the Russian State University in physical education and sport, so he majored in human physiology, he’s competed over in Russia and then he served on the Moscow Center of advanced sports technology as the head of the science department,” Keller said. “So he’s done a lot of research over in Russia on the biomechanics and stuff like that. He’s kind of leading our center [in Madison], doing a lot of the sessions down there and the technique work.”
According to the CXC Executive and Athletic Director Yuriy Gusev, the Center of Excellence is approximately 90 percent complete. Anyone from CXC club members, to donors, to CXC team members, and the general public, can access the center at no cost. Rollerski treadmill evaluations cost CXC clubs $250 per day, $150 per hour for all others.
“We are finalizing a few more partnerships on the sports science program and equipment but will start performing studies in cross country skiing this coming fall,” Gusev wrote in an email. “Our goal is to have top sports science facility to study latest innovations in the sport, potential application in cross country skiing to improve training, recovery and performance.”
While the CXC elite team, known as the CXC Team, uses the center for testing, its current base in Marquette, Mich. has also led the team to seek out other partnerships. This included collaborating with the Northern Michigan University (NMU) Olympic Training Site, allowing CXC Team members to use the school’s facility and other amenities.
CXC Team Head Coach Andy Keller (r) works on strength with Scott Harrison outside a barn near the team’s former home base in Cable, Wis., in 2014. The team is now based in Marquette, Mich. (Photo: CXC/Facebook)
“This year we moved up to Marquette partly because a lot of the athletes have come from Northern Michigan, but also because there’s quite a bit of opportunity up here,” Keller said. “We’ve kind of partnered up with the Olympic training site located here. So we’ve been able to use the dorms on campus, offer schooling, have a training room and weight facilities available. … [The move to Marquette] has given us a lot more freedom with athlete housing and training opportunities.”
At present, the CXC Team has three full-time athletes and two part-time collegiate skiers. Kyle Bratrud returned to the CXC elite team for his second year; new full-time members include Dartmouth graduate Oscar Friedman and NMU grad Felicia Gesior. Jan Ketterson, a Dartmouth student currently taking the fall and winter trimesters off to focus on skiing, plans to race for CXC along with Nicole Bathe, presently a student at University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The growing numbers on the CXC Team was one reason CXC also recently decided to nix its marathon team, Keller explained.
“That was kind of another thing with refocusing with the marathon team, just my role and what resources I can put out just being by myself,” Keller said. “The main reason why we [ended our marathon team] is we’re trying to make a big push to promote club development.”
By discontinuing the marathon team, CXC saw an opportunity for athletes to return to their home clubs and promote racing on a more local, community-based level.
“The athletes that were on our team last year, both our current athletes and our previous athletes that we don’t have on the team anymore, we encouraged them this upcoming year to be a part of the clubs in their local area,” Keller said. “From what I heard in talking to them, most will continue to race in some facet.”
Chris Pappathopoulos won the men’s overall CXC Marathon Cup last season while competing for the CXC marathon team. (Photo: CXC)
He added that the team’s reigning CXC Marathon Cup winner Chris Pappathopoulos would likely be supported by companies like Rossignol and Boulder Nordic Sport.
While former CXC marathon team members like Pappathopoulos will look to return to their local clubs, Keller looks to expand the CXC Team program and podium at U.S. nationals with the athletes he’s currently working with.
“For a couple years [CXC] was really down and out from the years when we had Jessie [Diggins], Caitlin [Gregg], and Jennie [Bender], all those strong athletes,” he said. “So we definitely want to get back to fighting for SuperTour podiums, fighting for World Cup spots … and in this next year, I think there’s athletes who are on our team that are capable of it.”
With access to the NMU Olympic Training Site, CXC’s Center of Excellence and new scientific research taking place this fall, Keller doesn’t doubt CXC as a force to be reckoned with this season and seasons to come.
“We have the training group, we have the structure and the facilities,” Keller said. “And I think the more excitement we got here, the more we can achieve those goals of being at the top level.”
Sunrise on campus at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich. (All photos: Alice Flanders/aliceflanders.wordpress.com)
This week’s workout comes from Michigan Tech masters student and skier, Alice Flanders, also a satellite athlete with the Central Cross Country (CXC) Team. Flanders trains with the Michigan Tech team, and largely does workouts designed by head coach Joe Haggenmiller, while CXC Team coach Andy Keller oversees her training. Read her complete blog post here.
Do you have a workout you’d like to share? Email info@fasterskier.com with the subject line: Wednesday Workout.
***
I’m waiting in the starting pen, the 20-degree wind blowing gently across the stadium as the clock beeps the tell-tale tones of another racer starting. I chisel the chunks of snow out of the bottom of my boot and clip into my skis. I step up to the wand.
“15 seconds”
“Beep… Beep… Beep….Beeeeeeeep”
I try to start but for some reason my feet just won’t move.
“Beep… Beep… Beep…. Beeeeeeeep”
“Thwap!”
Early morning speeds during metronomes at Michigan Tech in Houghton, Mich.
Groggily, I fumble through the sheets looking for my persistently beeping phone. It’s 5:52 am and my body feels like a sack of bricks.
I roll over placing my index and middle finger on the underside of my wrist. 10 beats in 15 seconds, 40 BPM (beats per minute). Not a bad a.m. pulse, but that’s a little higher than normal. I’ll have to drink lots of water today and make sure I haven’t caught the back-to-school-plague that seems to have taken over the school.
Stepping outside, the entire town seems dead. If it weren’t for the street lights, I’d be unlocking my bike by starlight. Occasionally I’ll pass by a group of ROTC students running in synchrony, but until arriving at the Student Development Center there’s no one in sight. This morning we’ll be doing metronomes, a workout where we double pole around the track at different tempos to work on technique and speed.
The Workout: Metronomes
Total Time: 45-60 min
Goal: Focus on high quality technique while using different tempos. Immediately apply this to sprints and starts.
Warmup: About 10 minutes or 3 songs
Workout:
Set 1:(with metronome playing over loudspeakers: listen to an actual metronome and match your pole plants to the beat)
2:30 @ 50 BPM
0:20 @ 60 BPM
0:10 @ 80 BPM
Repeat 3-5 times
Set Break: Length = one song of your choice
Set 2: 6-10 x 100-meter sprints
Cool down: About 10 minutes
This workout has a lot of benefits.
It teaches the athlete how to ski using varying tempos
By skiing around the track, it is much easier for coaches to work with athletes of different speeds and track progress throughout the session
Technique and tempo can be applied immediately during the 100m sprints
It’s good mass start practice due to the amount of passing that occurs
Pace lines will form and it’s fun to go fast in a group!
There are a lot of opportunities for younger skiers to ski with, watch and learn from older people on the team.
You get to listen to music
No Cars!
But be careful, this is an intensity session and should be counted as such. Recovery in between the 80 BPM and sprints should be a priority.
By 7:30 the sun is painting the sky hues of pink, purple and yellow. It’s not hard to realize how lucky we are to live in a place like this.
Class time: Where recovery and learning come together.
In class, while other students are guzzling coffee trying not to nod off, I’ve got positive endorphins keeping me engaged. However, as the day continues I find myself gazing out the window as storm clouds congregate on the horizon. It’s supposed to rain tonight. Right now I keep my fingers crossed that the rain will go somewhere else, keeping our roads dry for practice this afternoon. In a few weeks these clouds will hold potential for snow. As my professor fills the board with equations, I daydream about how much snow we’d get if it were 15 degrees cooler.
Excelling in any sport takes an extreme amount of commitment and self discipline. It takes over your thoughts, drives your decision making process and rules your schedule. Every moment of the day is carefully crafted to strengthen your body through nutrition, intensity, recovery or education. It’s an all encompassing full time job. Luckily, this job comes naturally when you have passion for the sport. It begs us to reach higher, to do one more pull-up, to push the limits of comfort and ultimately persevere. What are your goals this season?
Michigan Tech masters student and skier Alice Flanders setting goals, specifically to podium in the American Birkebeiner skate race, as photographed on Brockway Mountain in Copper Harbor, Mich. (Courtesy photo)
Alice Flanders of the CXC Team and Michigan Tech illustrates a rollerski stop gone bad: the Superman, a.k.a. a face plant or eating the pavement. (Photo: aliceflanders.wordpress.com)
Got a bad case of the Mondays? Maybe this post from Alice Flanders, a Houghton-based master’s student at Michigan Technological University and satellite athlete with the CXC Team, will cheer you up: 10 Ways to Stop on Rollerskis. Read her original blog post here.
***
Rollerskiing on the bike trails around the Minneapolis area, you get a lot of comments and weird looks. Everything from “Birkie Birkie Birkie!” to “Holy Crap arm strength,” if there’s an exclamation about seeing someone doing something odd, it’s probably been said to a rollerskier on the Greenway. One of the most common questions I’ve encountered when people find out that I rollerski is,
“How do you stop on those things?”
This is a great question, one with a lot of really bad answers. Just as with anything that requires a quick decrease in speed, there are good ways and not so good ways to come to a standstill.
The following is a list of ways to stop on rollerskis, some of them good and some of them awfully painful.
1. Superman
Also known as “face-plant” or “eating the pavement,” this technique is best known for the momentary “OH CRAP!” weightless feeling quickly followed by getting the wind knocked out of you. Causes often include cracks in the pavement, railroad tracks and appropriately sized pebbles.
2. The Butt Scoot
This technique is common on snow but is much more effective at stopping you on pavement. When you get going too fast and don’t know how to stop, just sit down and eventually you’ll glide to a halt. Unfortunately pavement is not nearly as forgiving as freshly fallen snow and often contains small pebbles that are painful to remove. The Butt Scoot is not a recommended method of stopping on rollerskis.
The “butt scoot” (All photos: Alice Flanders)
3. Sliding into Home
“And Lucca nearly knocks it out of the park! The right fielder throws it to third for the out, but Hedblom is just too fast. Hedblom is sprinting for home plate. The third baseman throws the ball to the catcher. It’s going to be a close one folks! Hedblom sticks her foot out and slides into home, SAFE!”
There’s a reason we don’t play baseball on rollerskis. Similar to the butt scoot, characteristic results of this technique include road rash on the hip and outer leg, scuffed ski boots and ripped shorts.
Sliding to a stop, by sliding into home.
4. The Black Stuff
Beware of The Black Stuff, especially on hot days. This is the goo they squirt into cracks in the road. The hotter it gets, the more it likes to grab the wheels of unsuspecting rollerskiers. The faster you’re going the more it likes to reach up and give you a surprise crash landing.
5. Rolling Stop
The rolling stop is one of the better stopping techniques. It requires having a good feel for the speed of the rollerskis, enough room ahead of you (or an uphill), and a back-up plan in case your speed calculations are wrong. When done correctly you will slowly and gracefully come to a stop at exactly the right time and everyone will be impressed.
6. Stop Drop and Roll
This is a planned fall method for the dramatic flair in us all. It is a good back-up plan when rollerskiing next to a grassy curb. To employ this method, aim for the softest patch of grass and like a paratrooper hit the ground with a solid roll. As always it is important to make sure your helmet is properly fitted and adjusted.
Stop, drop and roll (Like many of these techniques: NOT RECOMMENDED!)
7. Grassy Knoll
Possibly one of the best and least technical methods, the Grassy Knoll allows the skier to control their speed and come to a stop without hitting the ground. For the Grassy Knoll, the rollerskier shall first stagger their feet and shift most of their weight to the back leg. The skier shall then aim for the grass alongside the trail and gently roll onto the grass while staying upright. Sometimes ski poles can be used to assist in balancing. Be wary of long grass, hidden rocks and sticks. If done incorrectly this can easily be adapted into a version of the Stop Drop and Roll.
Rolling to a stop on a grassy knoll. One of the best and least technical methods.
8. Urban Tree Hugger
When coming into an intersection a little fast, the Urban Tree Hugger is your best option. Aim for a light post or crosswalk post, catch it with one arm and redirect your forward inertia into the stationary light post. Be careful not to hurt your arm and make sure the light post/ crosswalk post is strong enough for the collision prior to using this method.
“Urban Tree Hugger” method: for when you need to stop immediately in an urban setting.
9. “Snowplow”
Similar to how you snowplow in the winter, this is the most common way to slow yourself down on rollerskis. In order for this method to be successful, it is important to make sure your wheels do not touch (don’t cross your tips!). To do this, push outward on each ski. This will force them to stay separated. You will stop due to the friction between the pavement and the rubber wheel as the wheel slides sideways across the road. This technique does take some practice to perfect.
The classic snowplow, minus the snow. Makes sense.
10. Water Landing
Water hurts a lot less than pavement. Summer days get hot. Sometimes it pays off to aim for the lake.
Ahhh, a water landing! Feels good and doesn’t hurt!
Let’s enjoy what pieces of summer we have left. Train hard, go fast, and don’t fall down.
The newly appointed CXC Team Head Coach Andy Keller (r) works on strength with postgrad Scott Harrison outside a barn near Cable, Wis. (Photo: CXC Skiing/Facebook)
Three years ago, Andy Keller was a college kid looking for an internship toward his exercise-science degree at Michigan Tech. He knew a girl, who knew Jason Cork, and he used the connection to land an apprenticeship at the Central Cross Country (CXC) Ski Association in Cable, Wis.
At the time, Cork was heading up the CXC Team, which executive director Yuriy Gusev established in 2006 to support promising skiers striving for top national and international performances. Keller, who grew up just outside Minneapolis in Chanhassen, Minn., became Cork’s intern assistant.
Andy Keller started as an intern, then an assistant, and finally a junior coach before being promoted to CXC Team head coach this month, following the departure of Bill Pierce. (Photo: CXCnewsfeed.wordpress.com)
Months later, before Keller began his senior year, Gusev offered him a job.
“I said, ‘I kind of want a degree so I’ll talk to you in a little less than a year,’ ” Keller reflected on the phone last week.
He skied for four seasons at Michigan and graduated in 2012, then asking Gusev if there was still a spot for him. There was, though Keller’s job title and responsibilities changed three times before he officially got started, he said.
First, he was hired as sport-development manager, tasked with connecting CXC to youth clubs and high-school programs in the Midwest. Then, CXC’s assistant coach Gus Kaeding left to head the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) elite team in Vermont. Cook needed an assistant, and CXC’s board decided Keller would be it.
“Then there was a little bit of [difference] with coaching styles and athletes on the team, so Bill [Pierce] got brought on to work alongside Igor [and] I took more of a dedicated role to the junior program,” Keller said of last season. “This year started off the same way … I was focused more on the junior program.”
For the next several months, Badamshin oversaw the program and Pierce worked as the elite head coach. In late January, Badamshin died unexpectedly of a heart attack while skiing the Birkie trail between Cable and Hayward, Wis. He was 47, and his passing left CXC and the surrounding community stunned.
“A guy that works his ass off and is willing to do anything for his program … his passion truly lied with working with athletes,” Keller reflected. “[I] was just trying to carry on his legacy — inspiring kids to ski and getting them excited to be out there. If there’s one thing he was good at, it was definitely that, and also carrying on his work ethic. The guy wouldn’t complain. He’d be out there skiing 50 k and waxing…
“There was definitely big shoes to fill when he passed away,” CXC Team’s new head coach continued. “As I’ve come through, I’ve been working under a ton of coaches; my philosophy is I can always learn something. When I was interning under Jason and Gus that was what I loved to do — learning and listen.”
“There was definitely big shoes to fill when [Badamshin] passed away. … As I’ve come through, I’ve been working under a ton of coaches; my philosophy is I can always learn something.” — Andy Keller, CXC Team Head Coach as of September 2014
Keller Becomes Head Coach
That’s right, Keller, in his third season as a CXC coach, was recently promoted to head of its elite team following Pierce’s decision to accept a job in Colorado (he’s becoming nordic director of the Snow Mountain Ranch YMCA near Winter Park this fall) earlier this month.
But “elite” is a term Gusev and several other U.S. nordic directors like to stay away from: it’s about development and helping athletes reach their higher-competition goals. The CXC Team became Team Vertical Limit in 2009 as part of a sponsorship deal, and a year later it had 18 athletes, including a couple Olympians (Garrott Kuzzy and Caitlin Compton — now Caitlin Gregg).
The New: 2014/2015 CXC Team
CXC Team:
Cory Ellertson
Bjorn Batdorf
Bill Bowler
Chris Pappathopoulos
Hilary Patzer
Andrew Brown
Scott Johanik
Natalia Naryshkina (lives in Russia, plans to compete in western SuperTours and U.S. nationals)
Postgrads: (living in Cable this fall/winter)
Scott Harrison
Sam Boardman
College Summer Residency Group:
Nichole Bathe (University of Alaska Fairbanks)
Nicolette Reker (now at Winona State University, competing for CXC Team)
Tom Bye (Postgrad last year, now at Michigan Tech)
Thomas Kendrick (Michigan Tech)
Will Frielinghaus (St. Lawrence University)
Seth Mares (Gogebic Community College, plans to transfer to Michigan Tech)
International Training Partner:
Leandro Lutz (living in Cable this fall, plans to travel to Europe for international races in an attempt to qualify for World Championships; may stay in Cable and race U.S. circuit)
The CXC Team currently has eight members, most of which will be focused on top-10 results in Midwest marathons to attract sponsors. In addition, Keller is overseeing two postgrads, about 10 juniors and an international guest skier.
“All the coaches agreed, the team needs to get back to the roots of developing athletes,” Gusev explained on the phone. “You would have never called our team the CXC Elite Team, it just came later when this word became very popular.
“We always see our team as a development tool for that higher step,” he added. “We don’t see this team as full of stars, but we want to have a team open to athletes of that level. If it can help them great … It’s just like having a child: at some point you need to let them go and see if they can stand on their feet.”
Considering that, Gusev is encouraged by the direction his program is headed, especially with a homegrown coach at the helm.
“It’s exciting to see somebody who went through the original pipeline and became a coach,” he said. “And that’s a goal from the time he applied from an internship.”
Still, the last few weeks — and months — have been busy at CXC, to say the least. Following Badamshin’s passing, Gusev said the organization interviewed a couple people to hire in his absence, but ultimately, Pierce and Keller stepped up and said they could handled the added responsibilities without another coach.
“It was probably more emotional for some of us, but you just move on,” Gusev said. “The programs needed to move on as well and … we had to adjust right away.”
It didn’t take long for everyone to get back “in the groove,” he added. Pierce continued to serve as head coach and Keller as his assistant and junior coach.
Last Friday, Keller drove 300 miles southeast to Madison to test about 10 juniors at a weekend camp at CXC’s administrative headquarters. The group meets about once a month in various places, holding camps with other Midwest clubs, like Loppet Nordic Racing (LNR), May through December, Keller said.
He also helps host monthly CXC master’s camps, and while he’s not scheduled for every single one, he led a recent camp under Pierce’s guidance earlier this month.
“I made Andy run over half the sessions, and I watched him and helped him a little bit,” Pierce said. Then he told him and the rest of CXC about his decision to leave.
“I saw it coming,” Keller reflected. “Bill did talk to me as he found out more about the new position he was taking.”
In Cable, where Keller lives in a condo on the Telemark property, he spent the summer working with six athletes in CXC’s new college summer residency program, which Pierce initiated.
“That overlapped with what you would call our team now, more of a marathon team,” Keller said of his previous and current responsibilities, coaching juniors and now seniors as well. “The athletes that we’ll have competing on the SuperTour is relatively small.”
Those skiers include two postgrads from LNR — Scott Harrison and Sam Boardman — who plan to live and train full time in Cable this fall and winter. Their main races include western SuperTours, U.S. nationals, and the Midwest Junior National qualifiers .
“We don’t see this team as full of stars, but we want to have a team open to athletes of that level. … It’s just like having a child: at some point you need to let them go and see if they can stand on their feet.” — CXC Executive Director Yuriy Gusev
With an overall emphasis on regional competitions, CXC is looking to assemble the best skiers in the Midwest.
The Old: What happened to last season’s CXC Team?
Not returning: Karl Nygren, Eric Wolcott, Dmitriy Ozerski (was flying back-and-forth from Russia for races)
With a single returner from last year’s CXC Team (college skier Tom Bye), Keller explained what happened:
“When Igor [Badamshin] took over there was little bit of communication issues … a little bit of discontent,” he said. Athletes like Karl Nygren, who might have had as many as five coaching changes in seven years, ultimately decided to leave the program.
“If there’s anything the program needs is some stability,” Keller said.
“As the coach now, I’d love to build the program back up to how it was when I interned,” he said, referencing past CXC standouts like Jessie Diggins, Caitlin Gregg, Brian Gregg, and Jennie Bender. “…That was the year they won the NNF Cup so that’s the level I’d like to bring it back to.”
One of Gusev’s priorities is hiring another coach focused on sport development to further connect CXC with grassroots organizations and schools throughout the central U.S. Looking at the big picture, it’s about promoting the sport and coaching development. In the long run, CXC is hoping that will translate into athlete retention.
“Regardless whether the athletes come to us directly or not … it’s a matter of whether we have consistent, easy to follow progressions, like soccer does or swimming does,” Gusev said of two sports he considers domestic successes in the U.S. “[Those sports outline the] steps to high school, college and beyond, which doesn’t exist really in cross-country skiing. We have all the pieces in place, and we can communicate that to parents.”
For Keller, his goal is to help grow the base and competitive nature of skiers in the Midwest, which includes Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
“It’s where I grew up,” he said. “[We’re] trying to make the Midwest more of a ski powerhouse, and that’s definitely happening. We’re developing athletes, but we’re having a hard time getting them to stay around.”
He counted eight skiers in elite programs outside their region, including Jessie Diggins (SMST2), Anne Hart (SMST2), Ben Saxton (SMST2), Gordon Vermeer (Craftsbury Green Racing Project), and Rosie Frankowski (Alaska Pacific University).
“It seems like everybody wants to go somewhere else and I’ve got to figure out why,” Keller said. “I think the level of support CXC gives is among the best … It’s just we’re not in the mountains and we don’t have a glacier to [train on]…
“The Midwest might not be the most sexy training site as a Sun Valley or something like that,” he continued. “… [But] it’s not that we’re not producing the athletes.”
“It seems like everybody wants to go somewhere else and I’ve got to figure out why. I think the level of support CXC gives is among the best … It’s just we’re not in the mountains and we don’t have a glacier to [train on]…” — Keller
In terms of coaching styles, Keller said he gained a lot from working with Cork, Kaeding, Pierce, and Badamshin.
Coach Igor Badamshin having some fun on a few patches of snow. Photo is titled “Snowflakes, ice cream and Igor,” by former CXC Team elite coach Bill Pierce. Badamshin was the CXC program head coach until his unexpected death in January 2014. (Photo: cxcnewsfeed.wordpress.com)
“I’d hope I’d be maybe as analytical [as Cork],” he said. “I’m hoping I can be half as enthusiastic and motivating as Igor … I try to pull from all those guys and find out what works for myself and what doesn’t fit my personality. I would say I’m relatively soft-spoken and sometimes it’s a little bit harder for me to put myself out there. I hope I’ve gotten better at that.”
When it comes to managing athletes, Pierce will continue to write training plans for those that started with him at the beginning of the season, including Cory Ellertson, Chris Pappathopoulos, Andrew Brown, and Scott Johanik.
Keller said he’ll take on those that joined the team more recently and will be in Cable the next several months: the two postgrads and guest skier Leandro Lutz from Brazil, who plans to travel to Europe to try to qualify for 2015 World Championships.
As for coaching and waxing for 18 or so skiers throughout the season, Keller said that working alongside other Midwest clubs at races, especially at main events like U.S. nationals, should help. And not all the athletes will compete at the same events, given their varied focuses — from marathons to junior-qualifying races.
At the same time, Keller said he’s looking forward to having an assistant or some kind of helper in the future. Gusev said the new hire would largely help with junior camps.
In the last month since Pierce’s decision, he said he’d been working with Keller on the transition and will continue to offer assistance beyond his final day at the end of September.
CXC Team’s fall/winter crew during a recent workout in Cable, with postgrads Scott Harrison and Sam Boardman, and guest skier Leandro Lutz from Brazil, who will be joining the team for the next couple months. (Photo: CXC Skiing/Facebook)
“I’ve basically given [Keller] my daily responsibilities,” Pierce said earlier this month. That included even the little stuff, like “teaching him how to smooth out a trail and pick rocks and seeds.”
“There’s definitely a lot to catch up on as far as ski selection and things like that,” Keller observed. “Working with Rossignol, getting in contact with those guys, getting up to speed with things Bill might’ve taken care of as far as a team aspect and getting [ready] to compete.”
He’s also tasked with attracting sponsors through top results in Midwest marathons.
“We’ll do fine with that,” he said of his mostly marathon-focused team. “Our postgrads have goals of trying to make World Juniors … definitely a big one is qualifying for Junior Nationals and trying to make top-20 [there]. The goals for the marathon team is being on the podium or top 10 … that should be no problem.”
He’d also like to bring the CXC Team back to an “elite, elite” team, he said, by recruiting recent graduates.
CXC Para Nordic Team member Steve Baskis training with U.S. Paralympics Nordic Program in the ski tunnel in Torsby, Sweden, earlier this month. (Photo: CXC Skiing/Facebook)
According to Gusev and CXC’s mission statement, the 2,000-member organization has four straightforward goals: to build its base, promote the sport, achieve competitive success, and create partnerships through collaborations. The way he sees it, member athletes are part of that as well.
“[The CXC Team] athletes are in a community to be motivation to adult athletes at clinics, to be role models and whatever else comes with it,” Gusev said. “With competitive excellence, we hope to get them to the level [of someone like Garrott Kuzzy or Tad Elliott, who made the U.S. Ski Team]. We hope the athletes that come through our program will eventually contribute to international success…”
Emerging Adaptive Team
CXC is also focused on building its adaptive program under coach Andrew Poffenberger, another Minnesota native who skied as a junior and studied health fitness at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn.
Augusto “Goose” Perez (sit-skier, cancer survivor, 2014 Paralympian)
John Oman (standing athlete, 2014 Paralympian)
“Emerging Talent” Program:
“People who have tried nordic skiing on several occasions and show promise, interest in competition, and commitment to the sport,” Poffenberger wrote. “This is an area where I am looking to grow in the next few months as people turn their attention from fall sports to winter.”
Junior Para Development: Focused on youth development and coaches interested in instructing adaptive skiers in high schools. “Our annual coaches clinic and certification will include a few sessions on adaptive nordic skiing for those interested this year,” he wrote.
This year, the CXC Para Team has expanded to include five elite athletes, four of which went to the 2014 Sochi Paralympics: Aaron Pike, Travis Dodson, Augusto “Goose” Perez, and John Oman. Its fifth member, Steve Baskis, a blind athlete and veteran, recently joined the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Team at an on-snow camp in Sweden.
Poffenberger also works with three “emerging talent” adaptive skiers — those “who have tried nordic skiing on several occasions and show promise, interest in competition, and commitment to the sport,” he explained in an email.
In addition, he coaches about four or five junior-development skiers, athletes that “can sit ski for 10 to 15 k in a session,” Gusev said. “Andrew’s done an amazing job with them.”
“Ideally we would like to mirror the development structure of able-bodied skiing,” Poffenberger explained. “Possibly the most important component of that structure is youth development. If we expect to be competitive at the highest level, we need to start developing young athletes.”
Among their efforts: CXC has submitted a proposal to include adaptive nordic at the Wisconsin state meet.
“We are also seeking out coaches who are willing and able to coach adaptive nordic skiing at the high school level,” he added.
Last week, Poffenberger attended a conference with The United States Association of Blind Athletes at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
“I love working with these athletes because they have perspective of the entire picture, and don’t let small things stand in their way,” he said, now in his second season with the team.
“I hope we can keep having more and more individuals like [Poffenberger and Keller] that get involved with a sport as a profession,” Gusev said. “They understand the way athletes move from one stage to another stage and it’s easier for them to communicate with athletes at the younger level what expectations are. That’s really the goal.”
CXC elite-team head coach Bill Pierce recently accepted a position as nordic director of Snow Mountain Ranch YMCA of the Rockies in Granby, Colo. (Photo: CXC/Facebook)
Almost a decade ago, Bill Pierce and Yuriy Gusev took a walk in the Cable/Hayward area of northern Wisconsin, where Gusev, the director of Central Cross Country (CXC) since 2005, decided to root the CXC Team and Junior Program (and later an adaptive program and CXC Academy).
Pierce, who built custom homes at the time through his own company, Pierce & Associates Design/Build, Inc, wanted to show Gusev a thousand-acre parcel — a potential site for a big idea.
A competitive cross-country skier and runner up until the mid-80s, when he studied at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Pierce moved to Hayward and found part-time work in 1997, grooming the Birkie trail on a need-basis with one broken-down snowcat.
“When I went to Hayward, my first job to get paid skiing was [as head coach] at Hayward High School,” Pierce said Thursday on the phone. “That was enough money for one month over five to make a living off of so I did other things.”
It wasn’t long before he was chairman of the American Birkebeiner Board of Directors and landed his first full-time coaching job in 2007. He built his home in Seeley and dreamt of more for Hayward: a charter school and training center for nordic skiers — and not just any nordic center: a multi-use events center.
“If you want to be mainstream and survive as a business, you can’t just be nordic,” Pierce reflected.
In his development near the Birkie’s “00” halfway point, ski trails touch every lot. Yet without Telemark Resort open, the area remains without a nordic center.
Thinking back to his idea, he imagined opening the events center to non-skiing attractions: music festivals, beer-and-wine tastings, bike shows, and more. Unless its developers were subsidized, they would have to — selling trail passes four or five months a year wasn’t going to pay the bills, he said. But with the offseason revenue, they could fund their dream of a true nordic-training center.
To this day, Gusev has kept that same goal in sight and taken steps, such as researching the potential of Telemark Lodge, to make it a reality. It’s been on Pierce’s mind for the last two decades, and he said the 1,000-acre parcel remains on the market.
“It’s a soft market and soft economy … [and] we’re looking at another piece of land south of here,” he said. “There’s opportunities.”
An estimated 60 athletes and coaches attended the 2014 CXC/Loppet Nordic Racing/F.A.S.T. dryland camp in Ironwood, Mich., earlier this summer. Here, athletes were caught in action during a bounding workout. (Photo: Bill Pierce/Facebook)
But Pierce, CXC’s elite head coach since May 2013, couldn’t wait on that. In the last few years, he applied for other jobs, including with the American Birkebeiner — which Gusev knew about as a board member — and as executive director at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.
One position near Winter Park in Granby, Colo., stuck. Pierce accepted the Snow Mountain Ranch YMCA’s offer to come on as its first full-time nordic director this fall, and he sat down with Gusev to tell him about it three weeks ago.
“I knew that sooner or later Bill will leave and we were somewhat planning on it,” Gusev wrote in an email. “We have discussions with other staff about possible options if that would happen. We also had plans to add additional staff this fall even before Bill notified us about his leaving.
“It is definitely a loss for CXC and the Midwest Nordic community but Bill is following his passion and I’m glad he found something that he is very excited to be involved in,” he added. “We all at CXC wish Bill the best in his new venture.”
“It was a hard choice,” Pierce explained. “I’d come back in a second to work for [CXC]. It was a lot of factors, some of them were personal…”
In post on CXC’s Facebook page on Thursday, Pierce announced his departure and move to Colorado on Oct. 1.
“… Life is extremely short and we really won’t ever know what the next day will bring,” he wrote. “In the past year, I have seen a lot of loss and it has been a difficult one. I lost my Mom, two very close friends and colleagues in John Hugus and Igor Badamshin, and I lost my marriage. It is time for a change.”
CXC’s former high-performance advisor and CXC Team coach, Badamshin died of an apparent heart attack while skiing on the Birkie trail in January. He was 47.
Hugus, who founded the Knicker Nordic Ski Club in Wausau, Wis. — of which Badamshin was also head coach — and served as secretary of the Central Wisconsin Skiing Association, died last October at 57 after batting multiple myeloma for 17 years.
“With Igor’s death and coaches leaving to do different things, I’m leaving because I feel like I can do something more for developing the sport, to help people enjoy it and enjoy winter,” Pierce said on the phone.
His first job with CXC came in 2007, when Gusev hired him as a full-time head coach of CXC’s Junior Development Team. He worked there until 2010 and went on to co-found F.A.S.T. Performance Training with his wife Kathy, spending the next three seasons working to establish a high-performance mecca in Hayward.
It wasn’t for naught. Athletes like Ben Saxton, now on the U.S. Ski Team’s D-team, came up through F.A.S.T., and Nichole Bathe, a University of Alaska-Fairbanks sophomore and CXC training partner, have already achieved top national results.
Gusev had brought International Paralympic Committee (IPC) World Cups to Cable, and in the last year, landed the 2015 IPC World Championships and 2016 U.S. Junior National Championships. But Pierce said the next step — creating a permanent nordic or training facility — required teamwork.
“Any project of that size takes a group of people and collaboration,” he said. “Everyone wants to be a part of that growth. I think people need to realize more that we need to work together to do that.
“No matter how small, you are just doing the right thing. If you’ve got four or five kids, just coach ’em. … You’ve just got to stick at it year after year and just be consistent what you do. It’s a long, long process.” — Bill Pierce, F.A.S.T. Performance Training founder and CXC elite-team head coach, who recently took a job as Snow Mountain YMCA’s nordic director
“You think of Hayward as a destination,” he added. “You get a few hundred people every weekend.”
Upon a recent visit to Winter Park, he estimated 1,000 people in the area on a weekday.
“That’s a destination,” he observed. “I call it an adventure park or activity park. They’ve done a good job of becoming a true destination.”
While he said Hayward’s not quite there yet, “they’re different animals,” he explained. Snow Mountain’s YMCA of the Rockies has been around for more than 100 years. “The Birkie trail has been groomed for twenty years,” he pointed out.
Birkie racers on the Birkie Trail (Photo: ABSF/Kelly Randolph)
Since then, the American Birkebeiner has grown its fleet to three PistenBullies and roughly four snowmobiles under Pierce. Formerly the Birkie’s head groomer, who oversaw 88 k of trails and 14 pieces of equipment, he retired from grooming last year to return to full-time coaching.
“I love sitting on the groomer at night; it’s a blast,” he said. “[But] I don’t have to sit on it every night for eight hours.”
As for that job: “I felt like I did what I wanted to do and it was time to leave and do something else,” he explained.
Leaving the Midwest, where he was born in southern Wisconsin, went to school in Milwaukee, and spent 14 years in Minneapolis, was about timing as well.
“I’ve always moved around — I haven’t been home in three years,” he explained. “That was actually one of the considerations: when you’re on the domestic circuit, you’re on the road from October to March. … To me, it wasn’t a sacrifice, it’s just hard.”
He began researching other opportunities to educate himself. When he discovered the opening at Snow Mountain, the idea of expanding an existing nordic area with 100 kilometers of trails, adding to mountain-bike terrain and cultivating the fat-bike craze there was too good to pass up.
“Of all the jobs I’ve looked at, this is an accumulation of all the duties in one,” Pierce said. “I kind of look at it as three phases: running the center, overseeing the coaching, and overseeing the trails. It’s a year-round job.”
And while it will be a transition — from elite coaching to building a nordic culture from the ground up — he said he’s ready.
“The relationships that have been formed with many people, colleagues, and athletes cannot be matched or replaced,” he wrote on Facebook. “I loved all aspects of the position but most of all I really enjoyed coaching the Master skiers. They truly are trying to find enjoyment and re-creation in this sport and it was so rewarding to see progression and enjoyment from these athletes and people!
“The hard part is leaving the relationships,” Pierce explained on the phone. “I won’t forget them, I just wont see them as much as I did now.”
At a CXC masters camp late last month, he had CXC Development Coach Andrew Keller run more than half of the sessions. Keller will fill in as elite coach during the transition this fall, Gusev confirmed.
“Of all the years that I’ve coached masters, this was the best,” Pierce said, adding that they have another masters camp next week. “Being a coach … is being able to look at someone and tell them how to change, and … the level of professional and social relationships that you build…
“You’ve just got to be consistent and keep doing it,” he said of his passion and advice to other coaches. “No matter how small, you are just doing the right thing. If you’ve got four or five kids, just coach ’em. … You’ve just got to stick at it year after year and just be consistent what you do. It’s a long, long process.”
In October, he’ll start all over again in Colorado, assessing what is needed there. Unsure of what the future holds, he’s excited by the challenges and possibilities.
Karl Nygren (l) and Dmitriy Ozerskiy working Level 3 skate intervals during one of three CXC elite camps this summer near Hayward, Wis. (Photo: Bill Pierce)
Note: This is the 11th preview in our U.S. elite-team series, the “The 12.” We asked coaches to tell us what’s new and whom to look out for this season, and we’ll publish the final U.S. preview as well as Canadian training-centre profiles in the coming weeks.
Team: CXC Team
Coaches: Bill Pierce (elite head coach), Yuriy Gusev (executive and athletic director), Igor Badamshin (high-performance advisor, CXC Team head coach), Andrew Keller (development coach), Andrew Poffenberger (sports manager).
Roster: Karl Nygren, Eric Wolcott, Tom Bye, Dmitriy Ozerski; Corrine Malcolm
Eric Wolcott, Scott Johanik and Andrew Nadler during Level 3 running/ski walking intervals at a CXC Team camp earlier this summer near Hayward, Wis. (Photo: Bill Pierce)
Who’s new: Bye, who raced for Eden Prairie High School and is taking a post-grad year before skiing for the University of Utah, according to Pierce.
Ozerski, a Russian, joins the team as a marathon skier and trained with CXC for nearly 2 1/2 months this summer in Cable and Hayward, Wis. He’s back in Russia now, but Pierce says he’ll return for the opening SuperTour races in November in West Yellowstone, Mont.
Previously on the US Biathlon national team, Malcolm had to do some soul searching this spring when she was not renominated. She moved back to her college town of Bozeman, Mont., to finish her degree at Montana State University. Upon visiting her hometown of Hayward for the CXC Regional Elite Group (REG) camp earlier this summer, Malcolm signed on with CXC, but will continue to train in Bozeman.
Who’s missing: Jennie Bender (now with the Bridger Ski Foundation in Bozeman), Brian and Caitlin Gregg ( joined the Methow Olympic Development team in Washington while continuing to live and train in the Twin Cities), Nichole Bathe (University of Alaska Fairbanks freshman), Adam Martin (Northern Michigan University freshman), Doug Debold, who “went on with life,” according to Pierce.
Top results last season: In a phone interview, Pierce said the team’s in a rebuilding year and moving on after some less-than-stellar results in 2012/2013. Nygren, 26, went from second on the overall U.S. SuperTour standings in 2011/2012 to 19th last season, logging his best results in sprint qualifiers at the SuperTours in Minneapolis and Madison, Wis.
A CXC junior development coach from 2007 to 2010 who went on to lead his own F.A.S.T. Performance Training team, Pierce became CXC’s elite coach in May and started off by meeting with his athletes, including returners Nygren and Wolcottt.
“A lot of them are in flux and weren’t satisfied where they were, Karl especially,” Pierce said. “He has the gifts and the talents to do that, and we’ve already been making big steps in the first three months of training.”
Wolcott, 26, “felt fatigued and not recovered from his workouts,” Pierce explained. “We’re in a rebuilding year with him, too.” He was sixth in the freestyle sprint qualifier at U.S. nationals in January in Midway, Utah, and went on to tie Nygren (and Ozerskiy) for second in the freestyle sprint qualifier in Madison.
Coach’s comment: Coming into the CXC picture in May, Pierce said he didn’t have a chance to recruit, but that’s already on his radar. This season, he said each of his athletes have set realistic goals — not necessarily Olympics-oriented — because there are so many other races and objectives to focus on throughout the winter.
“We’re looking at the top SuperTour spot,” he said. “Our goal is to get athletes to the top of the SuperTour, to get them to the World Cup, to get them to the OPA Cup, and as times goes on we hope [the unit] steps up.”
According to Pierce, “Corrine was about to give up on biathlete and I didn’t think she should do that yet. … She’s got to put in some training and we’ll see what happens when she does some cross-country racing.” He asked her to compete at the North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships (which doubled as US Biathlon overseas camp trials) last month, “just so she stays engaged in biathlon,” he said. After two days of racing in Jericho, Vt., she ended up 14th.
This week, Nygren will join the U.S. Ski Team (USST) and National Training Group (NTG) in Lake Placid, N.Y., then meet CXC in Park City, Utah, for the beginning of another USST camp in late September. CXC will then travel north as a unit to Canmore, Alberta, for some on-snow training in October on Frozen Thunder.
As for the transition, Pierce said he’s impressed with guys like Nygren, who have stuck with the team through several coaching changes in the last few years.
“They’re resilient and they’re patient,” Pierce said. “Karl’s first year was [USST Development Coach Bryan] Fish’s last year and my last year at CXC. He’s seen four coaches in six years. Good or bad people have left for different reasons.
“I look at Karl and I see what he’s got to tweak,” he added. “Physically he’s one of the biggest and strongest there is, but why isn’t he the fastest and why did he decline last year? I think at first, [the athletes] were skeptical to listen to me because they’ve heard this before and results have ebbed and flowed, but I think they’re willing to give it a chance.”
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/10/ski-walking.jpg")
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![Nichole Bathe (Left) and Jesse Knori. (Photo courtesy of Bernie Nelson)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Nichole-Bathe-e1485544483465.png")
![Men's National Championships 15 k freestyle "American" podium at Soldier Hollow, Utah 1/7/17: Kyle Bratrud (CXC) 1st, Tad Elliott (SSCV) 2nd, and Patrick Caldwell (SMST2) 3rd. (Photo:FasterSkier)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/IMG_4750-e1483857092308.jpg")
![CXC's Kyle Bratrud on his way to winning the men's 15 k freestyle National Championship at Soldier Hollow near Midway, Utah. (Photo: FasterSkier)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/IMG_4652.jpg")
![Tad Elliott (SSCV) skis to second in the men's 15 k freestyle National Championships at Soldier Hollow near Midway, Utah. (Photo: FasterSkier)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/IMG_4707.jpg")
![The Alberta Cup men's podium in Sunday's 8.1 k classic interval start, with winner Kyle Bratrud (c) of CXC Team, NDC Thunder Bay's Evan Palmer-Charrette (l) in second and AWCA's Dominique Moncion-Groulx (r) in third. (Photo: NTDC Thunder Bay/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/CyS0A66VQAAHclh-1.jpg")
![On Sunday, CXC posted this photo and caption about the Alberta Cup classic distance race: "Double CXC Team Win! Felicia Gesior double poles to a victory in the women's classic race. Photo with the other two girls to double pole the race. These girls are STRONG!" (Photo: CXC Skiing Facebook)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/15181277_1336436969732373_4603067906833894954_n.jpg")
![Central Cross Country (CXC) Junior Development skier Siri Martin (r) gets a mid-summer VO2 max test on the rollerski treadmill at the Center of Excellence in Madison, Wisc. in late July (Photo: CXC Facebook)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/08/13680609_1202518746457530_49441935391323123_n.jpg")
![A view of Central Cross Country's rollerski treadmill from the inside of the Center of Excellence (Photo: cxcacademy.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/08/Performance-Testing-4.jpg")
![The newly appointed CXC Team Head Coach Andy Keller (r) works on strength with an athlete outside a barn near Cable, Wis. (Photo: CXC/Facebook)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/09/10626496_792941470748595_5695463824068904897_n.jpg")
![Chris Pappathopoulos won the men's overall Central Cross Country Marathon Cup last season while competing for the CXC marathon team. (Photo: CXC)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/08/unnamed-2.jpg")
![Sunrise on campus at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich. (All photos: Alice Flanders)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/09/unnamed-24.jpg")
![Early morning speeds during metronomes at Michigan Tech in Houghton, Mich.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/09/20150924_0658291.jpg")
![Class time: Where recovery and learning come together (Photo: Alice Flanders)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/09/img_20150918_140328.jpg")
![Michigan Tech masters student and skier Alice Flanders setting goals. (Courtesy photo)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/09/img_20150913_191245-1.jpg")
![Alice Flanders of the CXC Team and Michigan Tech illustrates a rollerski stop gone bad. (Photo: aliceflanders.wordpress.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/08/20150817_100001-1.jpg")
![The "butt scoot" (All photos: Alice Flanders)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/08/20150817_0949111.jpg")
![Sliding to a stop, by sliding into home.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/08/20150817_094627.jpg")
![Stop, drop and roll (Like many of these techniques: NOT RECOMMENDED!)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/08/20150817_095442.jpg")
![Rolling to a stop on a grassy knoll. One of the best and least technical methods.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/08/20150817_095145.jpg")
!["Urban Tree Hugger" method: for when you need to stop immediately in an urban setting.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/08/20150817_103224-e1439846240121.jpg")
![The classic snowplow, minus the snow. Makes sense.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/08/20150817_095729-e1439846288286.jpg")
![Ahhh, a water landing! Feels good and doesn't hurt!](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/08/20150817_100331.jpg")
![Andy Keller started as an intern, then an assistant, and finally a junior coach before being promoted to CXC Team head coach this month, following the departure of Bill Pierce. (Photo: CXCnewsfeed.wordpress.com) https://cxcnewsfeed.wordpress.com/category/training-camps/junior-skiers/](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/09/andy-keller-coach.jpg")
![Igor Badamshin: photo is titled "Snowflakes, ice cream, and Igor," by former CXC Team elite coach Bill Pierce. Badamshin was the CXC program head coach until his unexpected death in January 2014. (Photo: cxcnewsfeed.wordpress.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/09/Igor-Badamshin.jpg")
![CXC Team's fall/winter crew working out in Cable, with postgrads Scott Harrison and Sam Boardman, and guest skier Leandro Lutz from Brazil, who will be joining the team for the next couple months. (Photo: CXC/Facebook) https://www.facebook.com/cxcskiing/photos/a.108988649143884.5167.107878629254886/793777080665034/?type=1&theater](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/09/The-fallwinter-crew-is-finally-all-in-town-and-ready-to-go.-Post-grads-Scott-Harrison-and-Sam-Boardman-are-joined-by-guest-skier-Leandro-Lutz-from-Brazil-for-the-next-couple-months..jpg")
![CXC Para Nordic Team member Steve Baskis training with U.S. Paralympics Nordic Program in the ski tunnel in Torsby, Sweden, earlier this month. (Photo: CXC Skiing/Facebook)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/09/10636113_533083770158649_7326128887038534300_n.jpg")
![CXC elite-team head coach Bill Pierce recently accepted a position as nordic director of Snow Mountain Ranch YMCA of the Rockies in Granby, Colo. (Photo: CXC/Facebook) https://www.facebook.com/notes/cxc-skiing/thank-you/809964002358509?fref=nf](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/09/bill-pierce.jpg")
![An estimated 60 athletes and coaches attended the 2014 CXC/Loppet Nordic Racing/F.A.S.T. dryland camp in Ironwood, Mich., earlier this summer. Here, athletes were caught in action during a bounding workout. (Photo: Bill Pierce/Facebook)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/09/10547555_675680555853477_8006636712235266386_n.jpg")
![Jesse guides Shawn through the 50km Birkie Trail. Photo: Kelly Randolph](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/03/Jesse-guides-Shawn.jpg")
![Karl Nygren (l) and Dmitriy Ozerskiy working Level 3 skate intervals during a CXC elite camp earlier this summer. (Photo: Bill Pierce)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/09/DSC04102.jpg")
![Eric Wolcott, Scott Johanik and Andrew Nadler during Level 3 running/ski walking intervals at a CXC Team camp earlier this summer near Hayward, Wis. (Photo: Bill Pierce)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/09/DSC04641.jpg")