2010 October

I have thankfully received several wonderful gifts in the last week.  Today they made me a real happy camper. Kuan and Barry came across the ‘Wish List‘ here on xcSkiLife.com.  These are things that I consider luxuries but that would make the life of a ski racer a little bit easier and more comfortable.  Thank You. [...]

This is the sprinting version of my earlier post looking at some of the best young distance skiers on the World Cup circuit last season.  The methodology here is basically the same.  I’ve set an age cutoff of 24, I’m only considering skiers who did at least four major international (i.e. WC, OWG, TDS) sprint [...] Related posts:Most Improved: Men’s Sprint Most Improved: Women’s Sprint Most Unimproved: Men’s Sprint

div style="text-align: left;"This period of the season is my favorite part of the entire year of training. With the combination of the cold weather, the snow in the mountains, and the building anticipation for the racing season quickly approaching us- there is no way to show up or leave training without unusually high levels of energy. I am beginning to get the feeling that every single workout I am putting in is directly effecting how hard I will be able to push over the steepest hills throughout the season.br //divdiv style="text-align: left;"br //divdivThings are shifting here in Alaska. Starting a couple weeks ago- we drive to training in the dark and do our warm-up in the dark, but we are lucky enough to be doing the true "work" just as the sun rises over the mountains! It sure makes for some awesome views as we speed through the icy streets and trails of Anchorage./divdivbr //divdivThe past month and a half I have been able to shift back into lots of foot workouts. It has been great to do some exploring on foot over the weekends, and to mix up the rollerskiing throughout the week. Last week I decided to put one of my "alpine" friends through some pain and brought him on an OD over the weekend up to Symphony Lakes and the surrounding peaks in Eagle River. It turned into quite the adventure :)/divdivbr //divdiv style="text-align: center;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;" Symphony Lakes Below.. and lots of white mountains that I wish I knew the names of!/span/divdivbr //divdiva onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/TMhJZikcp7I/AAAAAAAAAcs/NdsfySeGt2Q/s1600/symphny+2.jpg"img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/TMhJZikcp7I/AAAAAAAAAcs/NdsfySeGt2Q/s320/symphny+2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5532752845349889970" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 162px; " //a/diva onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/TMhJickpSFI/AAAAAAAAAc0/MubknFDVQbk/s1600/ice.jpg"img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_l4L_01UOs1s/TMhJickpSFI/AAAAAAAAAc0/MubknFDVQbk/s320/ice.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5532752998358927442" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " //adiv style="text-align: center;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"I am screaming because the ice just dropped and broke right under my feet!/span/divdivbr //divdivWe also had TT's last week just to test the body and get it used to "racing". Though maybe a bit rustic, I was happy with where I am right now. The first day consisted of a sprint day simulation. With a team of 6 or 7 of the top skiers in the US, this simulation is quite accurate... it truly resembles a race! The next day we did a 35 min Hill Climb skating from the ocean to one of the highest access roads in Anchorage. In the past, I would have normally despised a race like this, as who wants to put your head down and climb to the peaks, but I actually enjoyed it.!! I have a video posted below that Erik took near the top of the climb. Check out the sweet houses and view in the background!/divdivbr //divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre-wrap; font-family:-webkit-monospace;font-size:12px;"object width="640" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qPD06LPxlX0?fs=1amp;hl=en_US"param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qPD06LPxlX0?fs=1amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"/embed/object/span/divdiv style="text-align: center;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"It's hard to tell because everyone is wearing pink and blue. But I am wearing blue tights, pink shirt, white helmet and white boots. /spanbr //divdiv style="text-align: center;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"br //span/divdiv style="text-align: center;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"br //span/divdivbr //divdiv3 more weeks until departure for the season..... YEAHHH!br //divdivUntil then.... topping 'er off!/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2018521813175454198-2928077285879069817?l=sadiebjornsen.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

With snowy mountains in the horizon and the days down to the single digits before I'm waking up to stride-and-glide most every morning, my power training has been changing with the season. And while Mr. Hazle or Karl Erickson or Mustafa might call int...

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