Fasterskier.com has featured Norwegian skate specialist Tore Rud Hofstad a number of times. He was second in the 15 kilometer skate World Cup at Beitostolen, Norway and 14th in the 30 kilometer skate mass-start in Toblach.
He got sick after that race (in Toblach) and did not train for six days. He is now training again and hopes to fight for a podium finish in Ramsau this weekend.
Hofstad skipped the races in Davos last weekend. That was however a part of the original plan as well, and would have happened regardless of being sick or not.
“The plan was to go home after Toblach to get in a good training period. That did not happened so I need to make that up at some point in January”, says Hofstad.
Hofstad had a cold, with two days with fever, chest conjunction and mucus. It’s now mostly gone and he felt fine during easy distance training last Saturday and Sunday. He now believes that he can perform at a high level already in this upcoming weekend’s race in Ramsau, Austria where he is selected to race the 10-kilometer skate race. He is not planning on skiing the Pursuit/Skiathlon race due to the recent cold.
“It’s hard to predict how I might race. It’s never ideal to get sick, but I hope to ski well regardless. Some athletes might peak after illness and others might struggle. It’s always hard to know in which direction you will go”.
What are your own expectations?
“It’s difficult to say. I might ski fast enough to reach the podium or I might be so sluggish that scoring points (placing top 30) might be tough. It’s going to be exciting to see”, says Hofstad.
Hofstad is planning on doing one interval session towards the weekend. The rest of the training will be easy. He is usually doing some short intervals the day before the race. That’s his usual training pattern. He is still bothered by some mucus and hopes to get rid of that before the weekend’s race.
