Replacing Cycling With Kayaking

– I have improved considerably in the hills and have no problems hanging on. Now I need to focus more on strength and speed, says Jorgen Aukland.

Speed is important even for the long distance skiers. Vasaloppet is 90-kilometers and everything is decided in the last 20-kilometers, and it’s this part of the race Aukland now is focusing on.

– I’m in the lead group with 20-k to go. Now I need the strength to stay in front until the end. The last 20-kilometers of the most prestige filled ski race besides Worlds and Olympics is completely flat, and that’s where double-pole strength is important. Jorgen has in addition to all the double poling on rollerskis and regular strength training chosen to focus even more on upperbody training.

– I’m cutting out biking and will kayak more. I view kayaking more as a part of the strength training

Many of the hard workouts will also be designed toward improving the finish after having raced a long race.

Some distance sessions will include 10- 15 minutes of “push” after two hours

Aukland is despite this not planning lot of hard training this summer.

– It will be lots of training, but not a lot of hard training, says Norway’s best longdistance skier

– We need to be in shape from the middle of January and in March. It’s easy to pick it up too early. I might have been in shape a little too early last season, says Aukland.

He was on the podium in all the long distance races he raced last season, except for Vasaloppet where he ended up in 8th place.