A staple on the Australian national team for the last 10 years, Esther Bottomley wants to crack the top 30 in a World Cup this season, and she'll go for it in her first World Cup of the year in Québec this weekend.
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Plus, two different studies look at how different types of muscle used in various athletic activities might inform training. In the first, static stretching is worse for cycling than running; in the second, think about small-muscle strength exercises.
If you live and train at high altitude, one of your biggest concerns probably centers on how to log sufficient intensity work without becoming overly tired. Colorado University Head Coach Bruce Cranmer talks about how to make the best of training at elevation.
Entering his third straight season with the Canadian Para-Nordic World Cup Team, Erik Carleton has already made some big decisions this year. Among them, he had to choose whether to race the Alberta Cross Country World Cup in Canmore or go for gold at the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) World Cup opener in Vuokatti, Finland. It must be tough to be Carleton, a competitive-nordic racer who doubles as a Para-Nordic guide for Brian McKeever, arguably the...
GRP Rowers Strap On Their Skis
phil.grisdelaNovember 18, 2012
With the end of the fall rowing season upon us and Thanksgiving just around the corner, it’s time for the rowers to put up their oars and try their hand at skiing. In the words of Coach Roock: “Your rowing future depends on this, no pressure.” Temperatures have started dropping to the point where the [...]
“Doping is Such a Shame Here”: Why Skiing’s Next Positive Test Won’t Come from Scandinavia
Chelsea LittleNovember 7, 2012
STOCKHOLM, Sweden – Imagine if Charlotte Kalla or Marcus Hellner were caught this season with a positive test for EPO, or maybe a bag of blood in a hotel room. Or what if Ole Einar Bjørndalen showed up with HGH, or Petter Northug with steroids? If you can’t imagine any of these things, it’s because of a cultural change in Scandinavia in the last two or three decades that is the result largely of the...
Gaiazova on Her ‘180-Degree Turn’ with Training, Team
Alex KochonNovember 6, 2012
There’s Dasha2: It Takes More.’ If you talk to the 2010 Olympian, that’s exactly how she’s approached this season. After largely individualized plan while complying with national-team standards. In doing so, she chose to train with Louis Bouchard, the World Cup men’s assistant coach and head of the Pierre-Harvey Training Centre (CNEPH) in Mont Sainte-Anne. That required a cross-country move and parting ways with Rocky Mountain Racers and its coach, John Jacques. She also signed...
There are few things in skiing more important than knowing physical limits of one’s own body. Just ask Patrick Weaver, head coach of the 2012 NCAA Champions at the University of Vermont. “More often than not, we find when we get to a race people don’t know how to listen to their body and go out at the right pace,” he said. “The common mistake is they go out too hard and then the second...
Transition to Ski Strength!
Jeremy BlazarOctober 31, 2012
Last week we crushed it on the rolling hills of western Maine. This week we are doing some focus on ski specific strength. Tuesday we introduced a new circuit that we’re hoping will boost balance, agility, mobility and strength. Med balls, box...More »
This week, World Cup cross-country skiers across North America are checking their lists, checking them twice, loading up on supplies and then cutting their luggage in half to prepare for a long season over in Europe. The Canadian national team is headed over to Sweden next Wednesday on Nov. 7, about 2 ½ weeks before the World Cup opens in Gällivare, Sweden. Meanwhile, several U.S. Ski Team members are flying to Finland within the next...
Zimmermann Takes Training to Peru with Inca Runners
Alex KochonOctober 30, 2012
When Peru’s first Winter Olympian asks you to help him out, you say yes. At least that’s how Leif Zimmermann reacted last year. The two were acquaintances when Roberto Carcelén, a Peruvian cross-country skier who made the Vancouver Games at the age of 39, told Zimmermann – a Bridger Ski Foundation (BSF) skier and 2006 Olympian – about his Inca Runners company. Still racing the occasional SuperTour, NorAm and national championship at the age of...
There’s only so much warming up one can do on a 1.8-kilometer course with more than 70 other people using it. That’s why Chandra Crawford spent part of her 45-minute prep before the WinSport Frozen Thunder Classic at the Canmore Nordic Centre dancing with Jessie Diggins. While the first unofficial race of the season and certainly the largest sprint in North America so far tested both Canadian and U.S. national team skiers, it also brought...
This Month in Journals: Does Compartment Syndrome Diagnosis Method Lead to Unnecessary Surgeries?
Chelsea LittleOctober 26, 2012
FasterSkier is starting a once-a-month series looking at new research in the field of sports science. Periodically, we’ll flip through some of the world’s best peer-reviewed medical journals and summarize, in plain English, studies that we think will be of interest to skiers. Here’s our second installment; you can check out the first in a recent paper in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports. “The pathophysiology of the condition is poorly understood,...
Here's a clip of Caitlin and Brian skiing at Washington Pass, here in the the Methow Valley.Caitlin sent this note:Hi Mark,Yesterday was the earliest on snow skiing for me in 5 years. It was awesome!!! Dave Ford set some tracks around the Washing Pas...
The U.S. Nordic Combined Ski Team strives for a lot of things – medals, depth, continued improvement – but flying under the radar isn’t one of them. Anyone who followed the team and one if its racers, Taylor Fletcher, for the past 10 days in Europe could tell you that. The younger of two brothers on the team, Taylor, 22, ran around in a full-body Captain America costume throughout the trip from Oct. 15-25, which...
Thirty-six men in the Spray Drag running race didn’t end up chasing Devon Kershaw up Spray Lakes Road in Canmore, Alberta, on Saturday, but they had one heck of a battle from the start. According to American Sylvan Ellefson (Ski & Snowboard Club Vail/Team HomeGrown), the pace was fast for a bunch of nordic skiers early on. “Any road runner could have pulled away, but it was a quick pace,” he wrote in an email....
Canada’s Frozen Thunder Offers Goods to All
Alex KochonOctober 20, 2012
Before the sun rises in Canmore, Alberta, those near the ski trails can probably hear the sounds of striding and skating along hard-packed snow this time of year. That’s likely accompanied by voices, chit-chatting as skiers compete 1.8-kilometer loops around the Canmore Nordic Centre before trail passes go on sale at 9 a.m. They’re not exactly renegades, night owls or extreme enthusiasts. For the most part, these individuals belong to clubs – some of which...
The symptoms started at a July training camp with Central Cross Country (CXC) in northern Wisconsin. The runner-up from last year’s SuperTour series, Jennie Bender, 24, wasn’t feeling well. For two to three days at a time, she’d experience bouts of nausea. Then her neck felt sore, along with her jaw and teeth. One night, she tossed and turned with cold chills, and feared that she’d wake up a leper. The next day, she pushed...
Rhetoric Aside, a Less Publicized Goal in WADA Ban of Asthma Medications: Healthy Athletes
Chelsea LittleOctober 19, 2012
This is the second of two pieces looking at the use of bronchodilating drugs to treat asthma in athletes – and their changing place on WADA’s prohibited list. available as PDF), the authors write that “Vigorous physical exercise can be followed by transient clinical signs and symptoms similar to an asthma attack and are due to post-exercise bronchoconstriction (i.e., a narrowing of the airways). Clinical symptoms include coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, excessive mucus...
Testing, One Two Three
Audrey ManganOctober 18, 2012
The U.S. Ski Team’s cross-country athletes finished their final round of pre-season testing last week in Park City, Utah. Athlete blogs currently abound with documentation of skiers pushing themselves to the point of falling off the treadmill in order to collect data on how much they’ve each progressed since their last test. The importance an athlete attaches to his or her test results varies by individual, but in the lab and in training they can...