2010 May

img src="http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l333iadLU81qzt3xbo1_500.jpg"/br/br/pFast Female, Maine 2010 (photo: NENSA)/p

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pp class="MsoNormal"Fast Female uses female athletes as role models to promote a fun and healthy lifestyle, fueling both the base and pinnacle of skiing.em  – Eileen Carey, MWSC director/em/p p class="MsoNormal"!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-- !--[endif]--/p p class="MsoNormal"It doesn’t speak extremely well of women’s skiing advocacy in the US when the best thing pushing progress is a Canadian-based program, though it does demonstrate the power of Fast Female.span  /spanFast Female is the brainchild of Chandra Crawford, best known for her stunning gold medal performance in the 2006 Olympic sprint.span  /spanIn the US, the Fast Female program has been adopted most successfully by Kikkan Randall, who, unlike most women was well-supported both athletically and culturally through her developing years as a skiers.span  /spanTo understand what and why fast female is important, a quick inventory of women’s skiing in the US is in order:/p p class="MsoNormal"span            /spanThere is no shortage of talented women in the sport in this country.span  /spanA quick look at the nominees for the Johnny5 reveal a large collection of skiers coaches pushing the status quo, from Montana State’s Grethe Hagensen to the work of Pepa Milocheva at the Craftsbury program.span  /spanFrom Holly Brooks and Kikkan Randall’s impressive 2010 respective performances on the national and international stages to Eileen Carey’s direction of four thousand events at the Maine Winter Sports Center in March of 2010.span  /spanSuccess, however, is overshadowed by a lack of depth and sustained power in women’s skiing.span  /spanComparing the top 100 men in cross country rankings, USSA points stop at 107 and are generally spread evenly across the range of points.span  /spanOn the women’s side, the 100supth/sup ranking woman in the USSA registers points of 142 with very few women scoring below 100pts./p p class="MsoNormal"span            /spanCoaching ranks similarly: only in college, where the competitive landscape lends credibility to women’s skiing since men and women are scored together and evenly in pursuit of an event win, are there a decent number of program directors.span  /spanThose numbers do remain a minority percentage but relative to the junior and elite ranks, they are monumental.span   /spanCoaching across all ranks remains an apprentice position. Despite the recent and on going efforts made by the USSA to develop a coaching education program.span  /spanCoaches gain positions by working under other coaches and there are few women who move up in the ranks to direct programs.span  /spanThere has never been a full-time female coach on the US Ski Team./p p class="MsoNormal"span            /spanNowhere is the gender divide more apparent and painful than in the travails of the women’s ski jumping team.span  /spanTheir well-chronicled hardships to gain Olympic status through the IOC, smacks of old-world misogyny.span  /spanAs recently as 2005, then-FIS president and member of the IOC, Gian Franco Kasper, said he didn’t think women should ski jump because the sport “seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.”span  /span(Time Magazine, February 11, 2010) span /span/p p class="MsoNormal"          One has to wonder what the medical concerns might be.  Was Gian concerned there might be ovaries lining the outrun?!/p p class="MsoNormal"span            /spanspan /spanThe numbers tell the story: with less access to the top of the sport as coaches, with fewer women succeeding on the world stage, and, in the case of jumping, literally no possibility at Olympic competition, there are fewer chances to empower women to be successful./p p class="MsoNormal"The crux of the problem facing men’s women’s skiing is metaphorically best summed up by the skiing parent of two young children, twins,span  /spana boy and a girl, who describes them both at age four.span  /span“Once we went to visit family at a near-by farm.span  /spanWe lost track of time and foundspan  /span(the girl) playing quietly near the garden.span  /spanIn the meantime, (the boy) had found a hammer and knocked out all of the windows in a near-by garage, laughing and breaking the glass.”span  /spanIn the skiing world, the trick is to clear away the broken glass.span  /spanTo get women into the sport, the environment needs to be as it is for men, more coaches of your gender available to you, more opportunities to ski just with your gender, more marketing, more products, more events focused on your gender./p p class="MsoNormal"Enter Fast Female./p p class="MsoNormal"span            /spanThere have been three large Fast Female events on US Soil, the first two at the 2009 and 2010 US National Championships in Anchorage, the most recent at the distance national championships in Maine this spring.span   /spanOver one-hundred women joined and were mentored by elite female coaches and athletes.span  /spanThe girls went home at the end of the day happy, connected with many of the top athletes, and secured with a great introduction to Nordic skiing.span  /spanAs a youth introduction, it clears the way for women to try ski sport unencumbered by the status quo.span  /span/p p class="MsoNormal"span            /spanThere is a myopic focus on toughness, skiing emharder/emspan than the next racer and the long and serious road to skiing success in the US.span  /spanPhrases like “talent-identification” and “direct-coaching sessions” are this year’s new paths to our would be success.span   /spanBefore skiers can get to the toughest parts of racing they have to be people who ski.span  /spanFor women, Fast and Female is grooming a smoother trail for that to happen. /span/p !--EndFragment--/p

Dennis hooked us up with some paddle boards for a bit of cross training yesterday afternoon.  I hear it is warm out in the Midwest right now but I dressed for paddling the same as I dress for skiing in the middle of winter.

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pp class="MsoNormal"In terms of actually moving things FORWARD - advancing the cause - Nat might be my ONLY pick. The Johnny 1.span  /span– emZach Caldwell/em/p p class="MsoNormal"em!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-- !--[endif]--/em/p p class="MsoNormal"em!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-- !--[endif]--/em/p p class="MsoNormal"Three years ago, the best one could do in procuring ski information was to be at an event and hope the important parts of the day happened in front of you.span  /spanWeb information was focused on Norwegian gossip, product placement or the type of generic, canned coverage that gets churned out by collegiate sports information directors, small-town newspapers and the unfilled spaces in the back of sports magazines.span  /spanAs recently as last year, there was very little American ski journalism, most of it practiced by Paul Robbins, and only in the wake of World Championship larger events.span  /spanBlogs and interviews were high journalism before Nat and fittingly where he got his start.span  /spanHe quickly moved passed the status quo.span  /spanIt was once written on this website that Nat is the most entertaining not fast skier ever to type, but since then he’s moved beyond that.span  /spanNow, Nat Herz is the only legitimate journalist covering skiing and as such makes his contribution stand out even more significantly than his employer, emFasterskier/emspan.span   /span/spanemFasterskier/emspan is part of the ski community, and makes a valuable contribution. But it doesn’t rise above the fray as an entity - in fact it pretty much reflects the fray in all its gory detail, and has come to characterize and embody everything that is wrong with the community, mostly by virtue of making no attempt to verify identities or demand accountability for the often outrageous comments for which it provides a soapbox.span  /spanAs recently as yesterday (May 25supth/sup, 2010), a commenter going only by the name /spanemGreater North/emspan, felt compelled to postulate that /spanemother nations are far ahead of us far earlier because they are not afraid to push their athletes earlier/emspan in response to one of Nat’s articles about USST skier, Liz Stephen. (Yet another nugget of ham fisted idiocy to help skiing along.)span  /spanShort sighted comments seem most myopic when they follow well research, well-informed writing on American skiing.span  /spanIn doing this work, Nat single-handedly legitimizes the sport and the people working in it by virtue of the even handed journalistic treatment that he provides. He approaches his work professionally - a standard of expectation that we should all hold ourselves to and a standard that if left to percolate could combat the collective inferiority complex that permeates skiing.span  /spanNat writes about skiing and doesn’t apologize for it. He pushes forward with even expectation and focus that is rare throughout the rest of skiing.span  /spanWhen fellow Johnny5 nominee Simi Hamilton was interviewed by Nat following his qualification at the U23 championships, the Coloradoan was more professional and formal than previously seen on the bandwith of Fasterskier.span  /spanFor that interview, in addition to the skiing expectations on Sim as an athlete, the expectation on him as an ambassador was pushed up.span  /spanThis is the most important work Nat is doing.span  /spanThe largest impediment to great cross country results in the US isn’t a lack of training and focus.span  /spanIt isn’t a lack of passion or drive. (More on this as we work through other nominees.)span  /spanRather, it is the nearly insurmountable cultural block that keeps skiers from /spanembelieving /emspanthat winning races is possible.span  /spanIt is the New York Yankee-like dominance of the European nations.span  /spanTo beat this, the skiing country will have to rise above smarm and criticism (founding principles here at JohnnyKlister.com) and become more pro.span  /spanFortunately we have a great model in Nat Herz and his willingness to shed light into the darkest parts of our sport. /span/p !--EndFragment--/p

I've been using a new product to help quantify my recovery. RestWise is a completely revolutionary idea and incredibly useful for athletes. Check out a recent interview I did with them on their blog:divbr /diva href="http://www.restwise.com/blog/"htt...

img src="http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l3184gTVlV1qzt3xbo1_400.jpg"/br/br/

img src="http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l31840bSNf1qzt3xbo1_500.jpg"/br/br/pThe Johnny Klister team hard at work selecting the 2010 Johnny5 winners./p

pp class="MsoNormal"The nominations this year were more serious this year than last. (A few drunken emails late at night coming out of the Intermountain region as an exception.) This prompts this warning: JohnnyKlister.com is dickish, elitist and self-indulgent, a website started for a few people to mock and celebrate ski racing.span  /spanIt continues to exist as a bit of online catharsis from the skiing severity of places like SkiTrax and the Masterskier.span  /spanAs a website, this is a hobby, not serious journalism.span  /spanIt is a lark.span  /spanThe winners of the Johnny5 are picked by a handful of people, pictured above, and reflect the zeitgeist of those with their hands deep in the waxbox.span  /spanIf you don’t agree, start a website, update it everyday with absurd crap and make your own prize-less award.span  /spanThat said, the nominations are more uplifting than they are upsetting.span  /spanThere are many, many people who love skiing deeply and want it to succeed.span  /spanMore than the petty anger that seems to follow (and perhaps be intentionally sired by) every Fasterskier article, we’re a skiing country of optimists that can push forward with an earnest purpose and occasionally take time to laugh at the absurdities of our sport.span  /spanThanks to anyone who nominated anyone.  The first winner goes up today at 1:00pm EST./p !--EndFragment--/p

Skiing in Bend has been great.  Very focused workouts, good things are being done.  I did get the camera out for one picture at the start of our ski.

"Wilderness rowing is far more than sport to me; it has been a conduit to knowing and trusting myself. It is my way of being, of thinking, of seeing. My rowing has taken me north and pushed me to explore my own horizons. In the process, rowing has evolved from something I do to some way that I am." -- Jill Fredston in her book, "Rowing to Latitude".For me, cross-country skiing has been the