Per Johnsen

What is your favorite place to ski?
Royal Gorge is the greatest place I have skied. In addition, I love any skiing
in the mountains in Norway. On a weekly basis I like skiing on the upper trails
at Snoqualmie Nordic, especially at Windy Pass.

Favorite place to race?
I like racing on any trails that have turns, undulating terrain, and technical
sections. I feel I can use my skills better than on trails that are literally
roads through the woods.

Favorite place to train (skiing or dryland)?
Skiing: Cabin Creek at the Kongsberger Ski Club, in the Snoqualmie Pass area
Dryland: The woods in the Banner Forest in Port Orchard, Washington. Lots of
trails in gentle terrain. This as a great place for long easy runs with poles.
I do most of my training there alone.

Why do you enjoy being a ski racer? What part of being a ski racer don't
you enjoy?
I have a difficult time thinking of myself as a ski racer. I am just someone
who loves to ski as much as I can. I love the chance to test my skills and to
learn from other skiers. I am constantly working on technique and will often
experiment in a race, just to see what works. In some races,
I make a conscious decision to ski slowly for the first half of race and then
push hard. Other times, I will experiment with changing effort from
easy to hard to easy, during the race. I feel I can afford the experimentation,
since the outcome is not what is most important. I know of several races where
I placed well, but didn't ski well. Those memories are not as positive as those
races where I felt I skied well, no matter what the
outcome. I have an extensive collection of race videos from the World Cup circuit
from the past 12 years and I often study the tapes for technique ideas. As a
visual learner, I take the images with me and try things out. I am always conscious
of technique, even when I am exhausted, at the end of a hard workout or race.
The fact that I have had great success over the past few years as a Masters
skier has been surprising, since I have been a decent racer my whole life, but
never the best. For some reason I decided about seven years ago to gradually
increase my training level about 10-15% per year and the good results came after
that. Maybe I was just never well trained before.

I can't think of anything I dislike about ski racing. I will put up with poor
race organization, marginal conditions, waxing nightmares, timing
mix-ups, long drives, and competitors who are too intense for my liking. Those
things don't affect me. They don't have to. As one of the senior
members of the Kongsberger Ski Club, Asbjørn Nordheim, says: "When
you are skiing, the conditions are always great."

If you weren't a ski racer, what would you rather be doing?
Because of a bad back and how it limits me, there is no other sport that I can
enjoy as fully. I can never push all out in any other activity.

What do you do to pass the time when you are on the road at races and training
camps?
I like to get out, see the area and enjoy myself.

What were your best or most memorable races last season?
Probably my best races of the season were the US Masters races in Anchorage.
In spite of trying conditions, lack of snow, and strong winds in the mountains,
I felt I was able to ski my best, and follow my race plans, no matter what the
other competitors did.

How do you deal with bad races?
Bad races are those I didn't ski well. I will have a good idea why I didn't
perform well and then have plenty to work on. Those races give me valuable lessons
and teach me that there is still a lot to learn about skiing.

What are your racing goals for the upcoming season?
I hope to get in shape a little earlier than usual, since Sandy and I are planning
to go to the Masters in Marquette in January. It will be fun to
see our old ski friends from the Midwest again. I have adjusted my goals a bit
since I will be the oldest in my age group this coming season. I just want to
ski well this season.

How do you feel about the changes in the international race formats over
the past few years?
I can understand the need for crowd appeal, but some of formats (skiathlom)
seem awkward. I am not used to being timed in how fast I can change equipment.
But that complaint was also heard twenty years ago when triathlons became popular.
I don't mind the new formats, as long as there are skiers on the snow.

What changes will you be making to your training plan for this year?
I have roller-skied more this off-season than I have in the past. I have also
added another long, slow run per week.

Do you have a favorite interval or hard workout?
In the off-season we train on Wednesday evenings on Tiger Mountain, outside
Seattle. There we have a 2+ mile trail to the top, with a 2500 foot vertical.
My favorite workout is a series of ladder intervals we call 2-2-2-2. Two minutes
easy (HR <130), 2 minutes medium (HR <150), 2 minutes hard (HR 165+),
2 minutes rest, then repeat to the top. We have time for about 4 or 5 sets of
these before we get to the top.

What was your most memorable workout(s) last year?
Probably one of the Tiger Mountain interval sessions. We do a variety of workouts,
with the rest intervals getting shorter as the snow season nears.

Can you give us a single piece of advice for aspiring Junior skiers?
Stay away from the long races. Until you are at least 20, race distances of
no more that 15km. I see so many young skiers in their teen who are
training and racing 30k races and even marathons. Since skiing is so dependent
on efficient technique, they don't give your bodies a chance to
zero in on good technique, especially when you are tired. If you race long races,
you will spend most of your time in the race with poor technique. That poor
technique is also what the body learns. In shorter races it is more likely that
you will spend most of the time in the race using good technique. That is what
you need to program into the permanent memory.