Colin Rodgers is a 2004 Middlebury College graduate and a former captain of the Nordic Ski Team. Having skied full time since college, Rodgers is now a threat in any national race and has participated in many events throughout the country. He now makes Sun Valley home and skis for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF), the newly established Fischer/Craft Team and Alpina Sports.
, but somehow missing the big picture which is really pretty simple – going as fast as you can on a certain day from point A to point B somewhere out in the woods. This just means getting into good shape. That I realized is pretty simple – it means training hard, but allowing your body to recover and absorb that training. I have done a lot of specificity over the years and I have tried a lot of different training methods. None have really taken me to where I know I can be. This year I am just trying to keep it simple – going out there and making my heart pump a lot of blood – mostly easy, a few times a week hard, and know racing season does not start until the end of Nov/ beginning of Dec, and that I don’t need to be really fast until January. I know that if I don’t try to do too much I will do pretty well.</p>
<p>That being said I want to race really fast in Houghton this winter (US Nationals), make the nations group so I can represent the US in Canmore, Alberta and go even faster at the World Cups the third week of January. After that we will just see how the season pans out. I know that we will be racing at the 2008 Canadian National Championships in March at the 2010 Olympic Venue. I look forward to racing fast on those trails then, and even more so in the future. </p>
<p><b>Any advice to college skiers? </b></p>
<p>Sure – know that from the get go, trying to be a competitive athlete in college is hard. If it is not, you are not taking advantage of all of your opportunities. You have to learn to do a lot, and more than anything you need to manage your time. Just like outside of school you need to prioritize skiing if you want to be successful. There is a lot of time to use towards training if you want to take advantage of it. Doing well in school and in skiing is possible – you just have to decide if you want to make it happen. </p>
<p><b>Throughout your time, what’s been your favorite venue to compete at,<br />
and why? </b></p>
<p>Man, I have raced at a lot of really cool places, and trained at a lot of places where I wish I could have raced. Some of my favorite all time venues include Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Mt. St. Anne, Quebec, and Oak Hill in Hanover. If I had to pick just one set of race trails to top them all though I would have to go with Giant’s Ridge on a good snow year in Burrrrwabik, Minnesota. I won Junior Nationals on the Silver Trail when I was a J2 and that was pretty cool. The way you can carry your momentum on those race trails – the Gold, Silver, Bronze and Cedar – is a cool feeling. Too bad they don’t hold races there anymore.</p>
<p><b>Things you can’t live without on the road? </b></p>
<p>People always give me a hard time, but I always bring my sleeping bag. You never know when you are going to have to crash somewhere on the floor, or in some dive of a hotel. </p>
<p><b>Skiing heroes?</b></p>
<p>I like all of the old school guys- Braa, Mikkelsplass, Savjalov, Wassberg, Mieto, Svan and of course Koch. Vegard Ulvang I admire too, not only because he was a bad-ass ski racer, but also because of how involved he still is in the sport. Currently, I look up to the all-arounders who kill it in both sprint and distance – Odd-Bjorn, Svartedal, Hetland, Ronning. </p>
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www.middleburyskiing.org.
Andrew Gardner is the Head Coach of the Middlebury Nordic Ski Team.
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