Fall Camp Report
I just returned from the annual West Yellowstone, Montana fall camp. The fall camp is an open to the public on snow ski camp where participants get a chance to do two daily technique sessions with experienced skiers including former Olympians and National Team coaches. The group size is anywhere from 4 to 9 and you are placed in groups based upon your technique level.
We train as much as we practically can when we get the chance and have to accept some off days when we get behind on other commitments. Overall we feel fit and ready to approach the season. Our goals are as I have said before, not to beat someone in races but to be fit and (hopefully) healthy 5, 10 and 20 years from now. We then want to be able to do things that our generation can’t do, like really play with their kids, run in the mountains, and do long strenuous bike rides and ski for hours without getting tired. Ski racing is just our way of making things fun by having short terms goals, and sure we like to do well in racing since it tells us that our training methods and planning works. Join us by reading our more or less well thought out articles and comments, reports and suggestions or come and join us for an upcoming camp. We always appreciate constructive feedback and suggestions. Â
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 was when I told them about seeing where seven wolves had crossed the trail!</p><p>A couple years ago we had a buffalo that camped next to the trail.</p><p>For me this is really the annual thing – I have been there every year from 1985. Even in bad snow years we always find snow within a 30 minutes drive from town. My longest stay was 6 weeks!            </p><p>This year we could do the 5 minute walk from the hotel to the trailhead and use good race skis. See you there next year.</p><p>Next large event inWest Yellowstoneis the Rendezvous ski race in March. We’ll feature that in an upcoming article.</p><p> </p><p>November Training</p><p>My training hours were again around ten hours per week. Gordon was trailing me with less total hours. It’s hard to free up more time than that when you coach, run a business – TorbjornSport, writes articles for this site besides being a family person. Gordon is in the same situation and in addition he is doing daily “day-care runs†with his two kids. I graduated from that a few years ago so I tell him to relax — it gets easier when your kids start in first grade Gordon!</p></div><div class=)
 and done dryland training including rollerskiing as preparation for the Olympics. That worked pretty well!</p><p>Continue to do around two weekly interval sessions in December but back off if you do weekend races.</p><p>I suggest one mid week interval session in weeks with one race.</p><p>I also suggest that you reduce the intensity and the length of the intervals in weeks with races.</p><p>The most important part of training following hard or long and hard races is not the next interval session but recovery.</p><p>Hard training is pretty worthless if you are still tired from the last race.</p><p>Skip mid week intervals all together if you are doing consecutive weeks with races longer than 20K.</p><p>The last hard session before important races should not be 1-2 days before the event.</p><p>Hard workouts this close to the race will most likely not make you any better but can greatly damage the outcome of your race if you went really hard and can’t recover. It’s not fun to race if your muscles are sore and your legs feel heavy!</p></div><div class=)