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Canmore, Alberta – Are you looking for a unique holiday gift idea this year? If yes, then offer the gift of health, wellness and fun by signing up a girl friend to the 2011 Fast and Female Women’s New Year Fit-Fest to be held on Sunday, January 16, 2011 at Canmore’s (AB) Athletic Evolution Gym. “Last year’s event was a tremendous success,” said Chandra Crawford, Fast and Female Founder, President and 2006 Olympic gold medallist. “We...

Happy Thanksgiving from the Nordic Opening in Kuusamo

November 24, 2010 Who says the sun doesn’t shine in the winter in northern Finland? Ahvo and Ritva Taipale are on the road to Kuusamo again for the Nordic Opening! The drive up to Kuusamo was one of the most scenic ever. We probably could have taken a few hundred post card pictures. The sun was shining, the sky was spotted with some wispy looking purple, white and pink clouds and the trees are covered...

Sprint Showdown Faces of the Day

Thanksgiving day featured the first double sprint qualifier in SuperTour history.  As is usually the case in West Yellowstone at this time of year, the races featured large fields – over 200 athletes took part in the class and skate sprint events. Cold temperatures and tough courses made for a challenging day and some memorable expressions…

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First World Cup race is in the books and I can definitely say that I got the full experience! Leaving the stadium-#7 on the left side.  Photo thanks to Pete Vordenberg The original plan was for Kikkan to scramble and then tag off to me but on Saturday afternoon, the coaches decided to flip the order sending [...]

The Norwegians and Swedes both travel to the races with giant tractor trailer trucks for their own wax cabins.  They park in adjacent spots just to amp up the rivalry.  But unfortunately for the Swedes, I think the Norwegians are winning.  At least with the paint job… Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  We had turkey for dinner a [...]

The FasterSkier Blog Giveaway!

If you’ve ever placed 1,347th in the American Birkebeiner and felt you deserved as much attention and credit for your achievement as Kris Freeman does for a fourth place at World Championships, we’ve got a contest for you. Yes, we’ve got a way that you can be mentioned in the same breath as Andy Newell, Kikkan Randall, James Southam. And you don’t even have to break any anti-doping rules to do it. Nope—we’re not raffling...

SuperTour Sprint Showdown Course Preview

The SuperTour Sprint Showdown in West Yellowstone kicks off the North American Continental Cup racing season on Thanksgiving day. Two separate races, classic and freestyle sprint “qualifiers”, use nearly identical courses, starting in the biathlon stadium, and finishing out on the Deja View loop, for a point-to-point route. Men and women will race the same newly homologated courses, with the classic sprint clocking in at a hair over 1.6km and the skate a bit shorter...

How the Bold Handle the Cold

The thermometer is stuck on -5F, the wind is blowing, and the schedule calls for a six-and-a-half hour shift. But people don’t flock to West Yellowstone over Thanksgiving just to ride the water slide at the Day’s Inn or have a go at a beginning pilates class.  They are here to ski, and to ski on the latest and greatest equipment. Representatives for all the major ski gear companies set up shop as part of...

Cambridge Sports Union has completed its on-line survey examining the prevalence of chronic  exertional compartment  syndrome (CECS) within the competitive nordic ski community in North America. The purpose of the survey was to gauge the extent of CECS among cross-country skiers, and to collect data that contributes  to understanding the etiology of CECS. Fifty coaches responded to the survey, representing roughly 1,500 athletes. The teams represented include  youth and regional clubs, the U.S. and Canadian...

pFall has always been my least favorite time of year. It’s dark, cold, bad conditions for just about anything, and we’re supposed to be putting in a lot of hours. Not a good combination. This November has proved no different. I haven’t had my heart in my training lately so that is not helping either. I’ve been more in the mood to ‘nest’ in this weather than get out and train and hadn’t trained in a couple days. Dave came to my rescue today and got me out the door. We decided to try the U of M golf course since we figured it’d still have snow. Well, it had snow, sort of. It was more ice than snow, but we ventured out anyway. There is a fair amount of terrain there that we had to navigate in addition to bare spots and ruts so finding a good area to ski was tricky. Conversation was difficult above the noise of us scraping along but some snippets were… Angie to Dave, “Look, another fool!” as we spotted another skier, who wasn’t out long. Dave to Angie, “Come on!” in the tone you’d use to coax a puppy along. We finally picked our way to the north and east sides of the course and found some fairways that had decent coverage, few ruts, and were gradual enough that we could get up and down them reasonably well. Even so, it was rather comical to see each other hobbling and skittering along. I think my heart rate topped out at 110 since it was so hard to move around. All that said, I actually began to enjoy myself. It was a nice sunny day, I enjoyed the company, and I was even getting the hang of the ice at the end. I was thinking how it was good practice in case we have to race in conditions like we did at Pepsi last year. So it wasn’t so futile after all. (I’m still praying for a few inches of fresh snow rather than more freezing rain tomorrow though.)/p div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1572647974447867713-2391469453985667342?l=vakavaraceteam.blogspot.com' alt='' //div

MWSC Prepares for USBA Trials in Canmore

We are entering our final week in Canmore, the first two have been filled with ski care, getting use to skiing on snow again, and preparing for USBA Trials races. The first week was very warm, and a mix of roller skiing, running and some skiing by the end of the week. The Canmore Nordic Center does an amazing job of making snow once the weather cooperates and gives cold temps. In the matter of...

Morrisville, VT – Both skiers and non-skiers alike succeeded in the 2nd Annual SkiErg World Sprints; Christopher McLaughlin, who uses the SkiErg at home for fitness, set a new men’s world- record time of 3:01.9, while CXC Team Vertical Limit member Jennie Bender won the women’s event in 3:51.6. McLaughlin, 39, started rowing and skiing after years of lifting, work and running hurt his knees. The Concept2 Indoor Rower and SkiErg provided him with a...