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.
According to organizer Randy Gibbs, former chief of glide for the U.S. Ski Team (who retired this spring after eight years with the team): “We are going to arm participants in our camp with the very same routines and simple drills and nuances currently used on the World Cup. The camp will focus on both classic and freestyle techniques, training tips and ideas and of course, World Cup waxing tips and tricks for having great skis all of the time. There will be many stories from the open road told as well.
“Our staff includes former U.S. Ski Team Head Coach and 2-time Olympian Pete Vordenberg, Gold Medalist and 3-time Olympian Chandra Crawford, Gold Medalist and 4-time Olympian Billy Demong, former U.S. Ski Team Service Technicians Cory Wubbels and myself. Between the five of us, we have either competed, coached or provided ski service at 15 Olympic Games, 25+ World Championships and 500+ World Cup events.”
Register at www.heavymedalcamp.com. Space is limited and the prices go up on November 1 so sign up as soon as possible.
Learn more about the Heavy Medal Camp on Facebook and Twitter.
Randy Gibbs is the executive director of Jenny’s Light, which his family started in early 2008 after they lost his sister Jenny and her son Graham to a maternal mental health disorder that went undetected.
Stratton T2 skier Annie Pokorny (l) and Middlebury’s Heather Mooney (r) start together during the skate-speed session on Aug. 29 at the U.S. Ski Team camp in Lake Placid, N.Y. (Photo: Bryan Fish)
Growth is good, and when it comes to improvement, even the U.S. Ski Team has areas it wants to work on collectively. Sprinter or not, if racing’s in your future, chances are you could benefit from some speed work off the starting line.
That’s why U.S. Ski Team (USST) Head Coach Chris Grover adjusted one of his team’s workouts last week at its camp in Lake Placid, N.Y. Instead of doing 16 to 18 skate-speed accelerations on rollerskis (each lasting about 10 seconds), Grover and his staff decided to cut down the number of accelerations, or rolling speeds, and add some sprint starts (transitioning from double pole to skate).
The Workout: 4-5 x rolling speeds and 12 x sprint starts
Where: Bear Cub Road (about 2.3-miles long to a dead-end) next to the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid
Why: “We decided that we wanted to change the focus of the session to improving skate sprint starting technique,” Grover explained in an email. “We had a very productive session where most athletes made some excellent changes, and we have a follow-up session scheduled for Park City in October.”
What: Warmup as usual, then begin rolling speeds: 4-5 accelerations (each lasting about 10 seconds), with about 3 minutes of recovery in between.
When you’re done with that, recover for 3 minutes, and move to skate-sprint starts. From a standstill, build speed off the line: double pole then transition to V2. After 10 seconds, stop, recover for three minutes, and start again (for a total of 12 times).
“We do practice starts regularly since they are important for certain sprints in some conditions,” Grover wrote. “We generally keep our speed training closer to 10 seconds for maximal neurological benefit and less fatigue.”
Length: The workout itself should take about an hour. With warmup and cool down, you’re looking at 2 hours.
Out of the USST’s 12 training days of camp in Lake Placid, there were about a dozen rollerski sessions scheduled and seven cross-training workouts. One of them was VO2-max bounding at Whiteface Mountain, an annual staple of their Lake Placid camp.
“Bounding/ski walking intensity is a go-to workout for most cross-country ski racers around the world, most likely because you can access grades that are not available on pavement for rollerskiing,” Grover explained. “You can find long, steep pitches that resemble some of the bigger hills you might find on a ski course, and the mechanics, body position, and power application of bounding is identical to good steep classic striding or herringbone.”
All of this can be done without worrying about cars or road hazards.
“The question has been asked many times why don’t cross-country skiers simply rollerski and ski for all training,” he added. “After all, runners run, bikers bike, and swimmers swim. For me, there are two answers to this question. The first is that the preparation period for cross-country ski racing is so long, and the training volume is so high at the elite level, that cross-training modes like running become essential for preventing over-use injuries and for keeping training mentally fresh for the athlete.
“Cross-training modes like running become essential for preventing over-use injuries and for keeping training mentally fresh for the athlete.” — U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover
“The second is that running provides increased leg strength because the athlete actually carries 100% of their own body weight (unlike biking or rollerskiing) and lifts that weight off the ground repeatedly,” he continued. “Agility is also improved by running, especially if you are constantly hopping from rock to rock in the Adirondacks!”
The USST camp wraps up on Sept. 7 following the Climb to the Castle on Saturday, Sept. 6, of which Liz Stephen and U.S. Biathlon’s Tim Burke are the defending champions.
SMST2 teammates Erika Flowers (l) and Anne Hart work on skate-sprint starts on Aug. 29 at the U.S. Ski Team dryland camp in Lake Placid, N.Y. (Photo: Bryan Fish)
With less than 10 months to go until the 2014 Winter Olympics, three of seven men on the U.S. Ski Team (USST) were not renamed to the 2013/2014 national squad.
A former U.S. Ski Team D-team member, Erik Bjornsen (APU) is shown at 2013 World Championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy. After winning his first national title and achieving several other personal bests last season, Bjornsen, 21, was recently named to the B-team for 2013/2014.
Official nominations have not been publicized, but it appears the remaining four – Andy Newell, Noah Hoffman, Simi Hamilton and Erik Bjornsen – will be divided between the A- and B-teams. By making the World Cup Red Group, Newell retained his A-team status while Hoffman and Bjornsen explained they will be the B-team along with Hamilton, a former A-team member.
One of two Development Team skiers for the last two seasons, Skyler Davis of the Stratton Mountain School T2 Team (SMST2) was not renamed and his D-team status was not renewed. Bjornsen, of Alaska Pacific University, received the call-up to the B-team, and both said on the phone Friday that they were surprised.
“I didn’t think they would take anyone off the team before an Olympic year,” Davis said. “I thought, why not keep us on for one more year? Especially when you’re cutting half the guy’s team. That didn’t make much sense to me.”
At least three women are expected to remain on the A-team, with Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins confirming they kept their spots. After a breakout season, Liz Stephen has also met the Red-Group, A-team criteria.
Earlier this week, three-time Olympian and A-team veteran Kris Freeman expressed his alarm at being dropped. Teammates confirmed Tad Elliott was not renamed to the B-team. Head coach Chris Grover has declined to comment until nominations are released early next week.
“I was pretty confident with all the strong racing at the end of the year, I thought they would keep me on,” Bjornsen said, coming off his first SuperTour Finals title at the age of 21. “Last year, I was pretty nervous. This year, I didn’t think much about it. … I just felt like I’m stronger than those next-tier guys, like David Norris and Tyler Kornfield. For Grover to chose me over them was [huge].”
On the other hand, Davis said the phone call he received from Grover was a “little surprising,” considering he showed improvement over the previous season and scored World Cup points in Canmore, Alberta, where he was 24th in the freestyle sprint.
Skyler Davis qualifying at the World Cup freestyle sprint on Dec. 15 in Canmore, Alberta, where he finished a career-best 24th. A former D-team member, Davis was not renamed to the USST, but will continue training with Stratton Mountain School T2 Team in an effort to make U23s and the 2014 Olympics.
“I didn’t think they were gonna bring back the D-team,” Davis said. “It was more like you have to race fast and live up to the B-team if you’re gonna be on it.
“I’m still only 21 years old,” he added. “I thought they’d try to keep me on, but it’s not that big of a deal because if you ski fast, you make it again. … With the D-team, I didn’t really get much funding as it was, so that part’s not really different. Basically I got stripped of the title and some free clothes.”
He said not being named shouldn’t affect his sponsors, and he plans to attend certain USST camps except the upcoming one in Bend, Ore., and those in New Zealand and Europe this summer. Davis will try to make U23 World Championships and the Olympics next year, drawing inspiration from SMST2 teammate Sophie Caldwell, who is expected to be added to the U.S women’s team.
“World champs [are the] same as Olympic criteria; Sophie got picked because she was racing fast,” Davis said. “I didn’t get picked. I don’t think [not being on the U.S. Ski Team] will help or hurt your chances.”
As for the reduced men’s team size, Davis and Bjornsen had mixed reactions.
“It’s not really a team anymore with [four] guys,” Davis said. “That’s really small for any group to be a team.”
“It’s definitely a stronger team,” Bjornsen said. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I’m gonna miss training with Freeman and Tad and having Skyler there was awesome.
“All the women, too, it seems like it’s such a strong group right now,” he added. “Everybody has the possibility of doing something amazing. I’m glad that they categorized me with those other guys and I hope I can show everybody that I was a good choice and I’ll be making a charge for the Olympics.”
The Canadian women’s nordic training group on Thursday, including biathletes Rosanna Crawford (second from left) and Zina Kocher (third from right), American Jessie Diggins (second from right), and Germany’s Monique Siegel (front right). (CCC photo)
The U.S. Nordic Ski Team’s final dryland camp of the season starts in earnest on Monday, but many of its athletes are already getting after it in Park City, Utah.
Liz Stephen, Noah Hoffman and Tad Elliott generally live in the high-altitude training mecca when they’re not traveling, and Jessie Diggins arrived almost a week ago. According to U.S. Ski Team (USST) head coach Chris Grover, the Alaska Pacific University (APU) athletes rolled into town on Wednesday. He outlined an “early arrival” routine for skiers like them, with some bounding and intensity, a distance rollerski, roll/run combo and testing at the Center of Excellence beforehand.
U.S. Nordic Ski Team member Tad Elliott (tucked behind leader Bill Demong) works out with the U.S. Nordic Combined Team earlier this week at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Dave Jarrett photo)
Between that and the presence of U.S. Nordic Combined and Canadian men’s and women’s teams, they’ll probably stay busy.
By Monday, the entire USST will unite in Park City, at which time they’ll delve into the main course: a weeklong training camp that runs Oct. 9-16.
Grover wrote in an email that the primary goal is exposure to altitude living (at nearly 7,000 feet above sea level) and increase in hemoglobin (Hb) mass. The idea is to boost the athletes’ oxygen capacity before they start racing in Europe in late November.
Another reason the USST is returning to Park City is follow up on labs tests taken in earlier this spring and summer. Grover wrote they’ll determine where athletes have made progress and where they need more work. Testing takes place during the first two days of camp in both the morning and afternoon.
After that, there will be some distance rollerski sessions, bounding and skate intensity and lower-elevation training (in Soldier Hollow or Salt Lake City) mixed in with recovery workouts. On Oct. 17, the USST coaches will drive north to Canmore, Alberta, while most of their skiers fly to meet them at Frozen Thunder (Canmore Nordic Centre’s 2-kilometer loop of stockpiled manmade snow).
“The goal of the Canmore period is to get on snow and to work on technique before heading to the World Cup, and to tune up for racing with some on-snow time trials,” Grover wrote. “The entire team will be in Park City and most of team in Canmore, the exception being the Alaskans who will head home to find snow.”
Other notes:
— German skier Monique Siegel has been training with the Canadian women and Diggins and Stephen in Park City. According to U.S. women’s coach Matt Whitcomb, they joined the Canadians for an interval session on Thursday.
“We haven’t lined up very well for too many workouts as we are just beginning our altitude acclimation period with Jessie and Liz, and the Canadians are in full training camp swing,” he wrote in an email.
Siegel will continue training with the Americans through Sunday when she heads back to Germany, Whitcomb wrote.
— Just as it did in July, the U.S. Nordic Combined Team is hosting Norway in Park City. The Norwegian Nordic Combined Team will be in the area for about a month, U.S. head coach Dave Jarrett explained. Meanwhile, his guys will travel to Europe for a jumping camp from Oct. 15-25.
“It is very busy in PC,” Jarrett wrote. During his team’s time trial Wednesday morning at Soldier Hollow, the Canadian men’s and women’s biathlon squads were also there, along with the Canadian women’s nordic team.
“We are here, US XC men and women will be here, Canadian XC men and women, Canadian BT [biathlon] men and women, Norway NC, and US Para [Paralympics] team will be here as well,” he wrote. “Would be fun to get one session together but probably not feasible.”
— The Canadian men’s cross-country team leaves Park City on Tuesday after more than two weeks of dryland training. The women’s teamdeparts Saturday for St. George, Utah, about a five-hour drive south, where they’ll train through Thursday.
About 25 elite nordic skiers did maximal-intensity, ski-bounding intervals up Whiteface Mountain on Tuesday as part of the U.S. Ski Team Elite Camp in Lake Placid, N.Y.
WILMINGTON, N.Y. — The view from partially up Whiteface Mountain on Wednesday morning was about as picturesque as they get. From the trail, one could see that the leaves had started to turn shades of red and yellow — just in time for the U.S. Ski Team’s fall training camp in Lake Placid, N.Y.
Way down below, a few small dots proceeded up the dirt access road: first to warm up, then to get after it. US Ski Team Head Coach Chris Grover organized the maximal-intensity, ski-bounding interval workout for about 25 athletes, and said it was probably the toughest many had done this training season.
“Typically what we’re doing in the fall is switching gears from kind of our base anaerobic phase in training, where we’re concentrating more on is distance and technique acquisition, and now starting to work a little bit more poignantly with developing the athletes’ VO2 max,” Grover said. “You probably heard comments from athletes who said this was the first session of quite hard bounding that they’ve done this season. A lot of these guys have done quite a bit of threshold-type bounding, but they haven’t done short, hard bounding like that. It’s intended to develop their maximal aerobic capacity.
“So that’s what we’re going for,” he added. “It’s the beginning of September, kicking it into a little bit more intensity mode. Obviously during the camp, we have some more hard workouts coming up, including the Climb to the Castle [on Saturday], the sprint rollerski time trial, as well as some threshold sessions. Just trying to start into a little bit more hard training.”
“We saw some great performances [today] out of individual athletes, both national-team athletes and club athletes, but it’s definitely early in the season and we won’t get the real measuring stick until we get to Muonio [Finland], get to Gällivare [Sweden] in the fall and see how these guys stack up.
“This is the point of the year where I think everyone around the world is looking around going, ‘Oh yeah, these guys have made great progress through the summer,’ but it’s easy to forget that probably everybody in the world has made good progress through the summer. It’s kind of hard to take away from this particular workout except for particular technique changes, perhaps, that someone’s made, that they’re maintaining their form through the bounding sessions, for example. And if they’re mature enough to learn to really pace it well so that they’re still there at the end.”
How did each athlete decide whether to do five or seven intervals?
“Each of these guys is pretty much talking with their individual coach about what they should be doing right now and kind of what their training history has been over the summer, how old they are, and particularly what they’ve done over the last couple of weeks. Some athletes have come in with a good rest week, for example, and they’re ready to do the full-prescribed seven [intervals]. Others are coming off a little bigger training block, for example, and they’ve got to kind of work their way into camp a little slower.”
Andy Newell:
“I felt good. I always try to pace this workout well. It’s one of the harder ones we do at the camp, I think, as far as how much it takes out of your body. It kills my legs usually. But these are the kind of workouts that really you make lot of gains in building VO2 max. We haven’t done a ton of them so far this year, so for me I try to build into them so I can make the last few intervals hard. But it’s a long camp so we try not to blow ourselves out too much.”
How did you like doing the intervals with about 15 others, including some up-and-comers pushing to lead the pack?
“I like that. Some people don’t like training with a big group, but I think it’s sweet. I think the more people you have out, the better for an interval session. It’s funny, some of the young guns come to the front and go really hard on one, and they’re dead two intervals later. I was that same guy probably five or six years ago back when I was coming to these camps, too. So it’s cool to see these younger guys go out and hammer in front.”
Jessie Diggins:
“At the start of the workout I wasn’t feeling that great. It wasn’t the worst workout, definitely not the worst, but I wasn’t feeling the very best. It took me a while to warm into it and on the last three it started feeling really good, which is nice. I’m still trying to experiment with when beforehand I should take my inhaler. … I’m getting closer and closer to make it kick in when I want it.
“When you do these intervals, it’s super, super important to not dig yourself into a huge hole, but once in a while it’s really good to figure out exactly where your limits are and know what it feels like right before you hit the wall, and I found that 30 seconds before I was done today so that was really nice.”
Tad Elliott:
How was your summer?
“I’ve had a great summer out in Park City, [Utah]. I’ve been there pretty much all summer and then, just to Europe and back really quick [for a USST men’s camp in Austria and Germany]. It’s really nice to have my old coach Jason Cork back [as] the U.S. Ski Team men’s coach. He trains with me every day and we hang out, so training’s been going really well and it’s fun to have him around, too. Things are going awesome.”
What kind of training changes have you made?
“Ski training. I’ve been ski training a lot more, haven’t been mountain biking as much and a lot more strength, too, this year with our coach Michael [Naperalsky] at the COE. A lot more bounding, a lot more running, and yeah, less biking.”
What are some of the bigger mountain bike races you’ve done this year?
“I did nationals and that went all right. I was still solid when I came on the last lap, but nowhere near as well as I did last year. I think it’s all this muscle I’ve gained in my upper body, can’t carve as fast. I was 14th this year, sixth last year [in my first two years in the elite field].”
What was it like watching mountain biking at the Olympics?
“Man, the Olympics was awesome. Todd [Wells] is one of my good friends back in Durango. My dog, Gus, and his dog, Winston, have little man crushes on each other so we always go on play dates together with Todd, and I play golf with him. It was really fun to see him get a 10th place in his final Olympics [the best U.S. men’s result in Olympic history]. That was really cool. And then I’m good friends with Georgia [Gould], got to talk to her at nationals; she came home with some hardware [as the second U.S. mountain biker to ever win Olympic bronze] so that was sweet.”
Ida Sargent:
How was your summer?
It’s been great. I was in Craftsbury [Vermont] for basically the whole summer, except for our camp in Sweden, so it’s been good to be home and in one place for a while.
What have you been working on, and what did you learn from your first season on the World Cup?
“More hard training and keeping some consistency with the gains that I made last year and a lot of technique stuff, too. … It was tough to race the full season on the World Cup. I was pretty tired at the end of the year after having been on the road and traveling and racing the World Cup every weekend, so that was a great experience. This year I’m looking forward to building on that and returning to some of the same venues and having a little more familiarity with the whole scene, just ready to improve my results with that extra experience.”
What would you say your strengths are?
“I think sprinting is my strength, so this year I’m going to try to focus a little bit more on [that], but I would love to be a really good distance skier, too, so I don’t consider myself a sprinter. I want to be in the points in the distance races as well. It’s great to do training camps with Jessie, and Liz will be here later this week, and these other girls, too, to kind of improve my distance skills, too.”
How was your joint camp with the Swedish women’s national team in Sweden?
“It was good. We trained a ton. It was a lot of hard work, a lot of hours, but it was cool to see that they weren’t doing anything different than us, and we could hang with those guys and train with them. It was just a good confidence builder that our team’s really on the right track and building momentum also.”
![Heavy Medal Technique camp Postcard Back](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/10/Postcard-Back.jpg")
![mantra wax destress effect](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/10/mantra-wax-destress-effect.jpg")
![Middlebury's Heather Mooney (l) and Stratton T2 skier Annie Pokorny (r) start together during the skate-speed-starts workout at the U.S. Ski Team camp in Lake Placid, N.Y., last week on Aug. 29. (Photo: Bryan Fish)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/09/FS-WW-USST-SprintStarts.jpg")
![Anne Hart (l) & Erika Flowers (r) work on skate-sprint starts on Aug. 29 at the U.S. Ski Team dryland camp in Lake Placid, N.Y. (Photo: Bryan Fish)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/09/IMG_1283.jpg")
![A former U.S. Ski Team D-team member, Erik Bjornsen (APU) is shown at 2013 World Championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy. After winning his first national title and achieving several other personal bests last season, Bjornsen, 21, was recently named to the B-team for 2013/2014.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/02/IMG_5029.jpg")
![Davis qualifying.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/12/davis-us-web.jpg")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/10/A4Y4AmVCYAAQJnW.jpg-large.jpeg" "Canadian women's team, Park City")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/10/demong.elliott.tfletcher.nickhendrickson.jpeg" "demong.elliott.tfletcher.nickhendrickson")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/09/IMGP6575.jpg" "Whiteface Mountain, USST fall training camp, bounding intervals")