FasterSkier is pleased to announce the addition of two new blogs – Burke Mountain Academy and Patrick Stinson. The FasterSkier blogs have been a great success since we launched Andy Newell's in early December. Since then we have added seven additional blogs, bringing first hand reporting from World Cup events in Europe, regional marathons, World Junior and U23 Championships, as well as insight to the lives of some of the top ski racers in this country. We are continuing to expand the blogs to include a wider range of abilities and approaches to the sport.
Burke Mountain Academy is a ski school in northern Vermont. The athletes who will be posting bring a variety of perspectives to cross-country skiing – ranging from some of the fastest juniors in New England, to those who have recently taken to the sport.
The intro to the Burke blog reads –
“Burke Mountain Academy’s Nordic Team is signing onto the FasterSkier Blog Squad, and is looking forward to sharing experiences and ideas with skiers from all over the ski world. Burke Mountain is located in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom and provides an opportunity to train for Nordic or Alpine skiing, and to continue with high level secondary academics. At Burke the Athletic and Academic programs mesh and cooperate. Goals of Burke’s Nordic program are to help athletes to an understanding of a lot of the “whys†of training, and to develop training intelligence and independence. Our Nordic team is small, but busy. We travel a lot and are eager to share trips and camps with other teams. We are developing a post grad program for focused skiers looking to put in a training year after high school, and before or during the college experience. We’ll do our best to keep you up to date on our doings, and look forward to hearing from you.”
You can visit the Burke Mountain Academy FasterSkier blog at http://blogs.fasterskier.com, including profiles on all the athletes and coaches on the About page.
Patrick Stinson comes to the sport from a very different angle – as someone who has embarked on competitive training a little later, he is in the “no-man's-land” of ski racing in your mid to late 20's. There is not much in the way of support and coaching for skiers who have not progressed to the elite level by this time of their life, but that hasn't stopped Patrick from “living the dream.”
Writes Patrick in his intro:
“Hello Nordic skiers! I’m Patrick Stinson, and starting with my first track race in high school I have been recreationally involved with endurance sports for about 10 years. I attended three colleges, have lived in three countries, and continue to train, write music, travel and make money now and again by writing music software. I love cross country skiing for it’s dynamic and health-oriented nature, and find learning technique and how to use it both meditative and gratifying. I’m really excited to have a place to post my adventures and training experiences here on FasterSkier.com. Skiing fast is all about living well and maintaining a high level of coolness in your life, so I will be writing about Nordic skiing, backcountry skiing, mountain running, camping, traveling, all with a training and racing lifestyle twist because that’s how it should be. I’ll get as stoked as I can about everything we do in daily life, from a long ski all the way to the ever-critical pull-ups on a crowded subway. I hope you like it!”
You can visit Patrick's FasterSkier blog at http://blogs.fasterskier.com/patrickstinson
Patrick also wrote an excellent article for FasterSkier this fall about taking a year off to train for cross-country skiing and travel.
Read the article:
Skiing is Still Awesome: A citizen racer's essay
And of course don't forget to check out all the other FasterSkier blogs. Reid Pletcher has two detailed race reports from World Juniors up on the Sun Valley blog – including the harrowing story of arriving on the starting line for his sprint heat without his bib – the stuff of race anxiety dreams – and an account of his comeback in the mass start event.
http://blogs.fasterskier.com/svsef
Ben True brings lots of photos and a full recap of the U23/World Junior Championships and Kikkan Randall reports from Drammen and the last World Cup sprint race of the season.
