HomeCategory

Resources

How-to-type articles, technique videos and more
Gear West: Transition to Summer Training

For most, the ski season as come to an end. This usually results in one of two different mindsets: 1) Excitement for dry-land training and spring/summer or 2) Bitterness that the snow is gone and a complete and utter lack of motivation to begin training for next season. On the motivation front, experienceing a very wet/cold spring makes getting out the door less enjoyable. But on the flip side, spring is theperfect time for unstructured...

The New Season: Hours and Juniors

For many Nordic skiers, April marks the end of the season and May starts the new one. With some variation, the Nordic year is made up of 13 four-week-long periods. Each period has a different training emphasis and within each, training rhythms weave through the choices of intensities, training methods and forms, and time spent. April to May and May to June are a transition period; a time for relaxation, the return to dry land...

Ski and Tea Women Jump Into Spring, Offer Training Tips

That last ski of the season might not have set well this year. You weren’t exactly ready. Some places enjoyed sufficient snow dumpings this winter, but on the whole, it just wasn’t enough. It ended too soon. Certain parts of the country aren’t quite in summer mode yet. Snow has been known to make April appearances, and some ski towns recently saw a late-season blast of the white stuff. But in Hayward, Wis., home of...

I received an email recently from a reader who pointed out to me that Marit Bjørgen completed the 30k classic mass start in Oslo this season in 1:26:09.8, last year at World Championships Therese Johaug did the same course, mass start, skating in only 1:23:45.1, which is only a difference of about 2.8%. Surely, skating [...] Related posts:

  1. A Look At Skier Speeds
  2. Do The Japanese Prefer Classic Skiing?
  3. Drammen 10/15km Classic Recap

Carolyn & Santi Ocariz Rollerski Across U.S. for Others

With the Atlantic Ocean to their left and the Pacific Ocean more than 3,000 miles to their right, Carolyn and Santiago Ocariz started striding toward the latter, one at a time across the United States. The newlyweds from Wisconsin weren’t entirely sure where they were going, or the reaction they’d receive while rollerskiing across states like Alabama and Mississippi, but they had a tentative route and plenty of inspiration to keep them going. Every mile...

When the phone rang and Alana Thomas answered to hear the voice of Tom Holland, Cross Country Canada’s high-performance director, she had a sense of what was coming. The 23-year-old Nakkertok racer, who lives and trains in Ottawa, had been waiting for a similar call since she started skiing competitively more than seven years ago. With a considerably better-than-average start to her season this year, Thomas knew this might be her best chance to earn...

Now in Green, Stuber and Cook Settling into Vermont

BENNINGTON, Vt. – Inside an organic lunch spot in downtown Bennington, two Wisconsin natives glanced at an oversized chalkboard filled with sandwich options. A moment later, they turned to each other to confirm they had made up their minds. Maria Stuber and Bryan Cook hadn’t lived in the area long, yet they already figured out the basics. Bennington,  southern Vermont’s largest city, wasn’t huge, but it had more going on than the hamlet of North...

The Post-Grad Trip to Scandinavia

If you are prepared for this and you weather it, it does indeed build character. However, this is not where you want to be. If you are not prepared, chances are the ship could go down with all hands. This sort of grim scenario doesn’t play out often on a shorter trip, and the tastes of it serve only to prepare you better for a longer trip next time. For the first trip, take the...

  For this Pro Workout series, we went for something a little different, as previous installments pretty much have intervals and over-distance covered. This time, we asked Matt Gelso (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation) to run us through his pre-race routine—as crucial a part of race day as the main event itself.  When race morning rolls around, it is important to know what you need to do in order to maximize your effort on the...

Recovery and Juniors

“Give a Man a Fish and Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man to Fish and Feed Him for a Life Time.”   The common metric for the amount of cross-country ski training done in a year is the total number of hours spent training in the different intensity zones. One of the more vicious hazards of becoming pre-occupied with hours put in is missing or ignoring the hours NOT put in. These are...

Quick (Pro) Workout: Double-Pole Strength Training

Note: This is the first of  a “quick workout” series, which will break down one ski-specific exercise at a time in a how-to format. We start with Canadian national team member Perianne Jones, who demonstrated a double-pole technique in her hometown fitness center.) *** If you woke up this morning hoping to see several inches of white stuff and instead met a blanket of balmy air, you’re not alone. Skiers around the world are scratching...

Where Are They Now: Mike Gallagher (with Audio)

This article is the third profile in the ‘Where Are They Now’ series, made possible through the generous support of Fischer Sports. Learn more about their products at www.fischersports.com. here) PITTSFIELD, Vt. — The “XC1” license plate on the Subaru wagon should have been a dead giveaway. Instead, it took a minute to be sure the man walking across the general-store parking lot was Mike Gallagher, one of the pivotal players who put U.S. nordic...

Pro Workout: Race Prep Time Trial With Noah Hoffman

At this time of year, Noah Hoffman is focused on one thing; getting as ready as he possibly can for the first races of the season. FasterSkier caught up with the USST B-team member, who has been training in the ski tunnel in Torsby, Sweden in preparation for the start of the World Cup season on November 19th and 20th in Sjusjøen, Norway. Hoffman set up the time trial so he’d have to treat the entire day...

Where Are They Now: Carl Swenson

This article is the second installment of the ‘Where Are They Now’ series, made possible through the generous support of Fischer Sports.  Learn more about their products at  Swenson after winning the first Kismet Cliff Run, a five-mile trail race in North Conway, N.H., in September 2009. Photo courtesy of Kismet Rock Foundation. Driving home from work to his apartment in downtown Portsmouth, the 41-year-old Swenson spoke on the phone about how he ended up...

Its hard to imagine how different our experience in Muonio, Finland has been since we were here last year. Normally cold snowy weather has been replaced by warm temperatures and steady rain. Despite the unseasonable weather, the grooming staff at Olos has done well to provide great skiing for the numerous national and club skiers [...]

Its hard to imagine how different our experience in Muonio, Finland has been since we were here last year. Normally cold snowy weather has been replaced by warm temperatures and steady rain. Despite the unseasonable weather, the grooming staff at Olos has done well to provide great skiing for the numerous national and club skiers [...]

Its hard to imagine how different our experience in Muonio, Finland has been since we were here last year. Normally cold snowy weather has been replaced by warm temperatures and steady rain. Despite the unseasonable weather, the grooming staff at Olos has done well to provide great skiing for the numerous national and club skiers [...]

Its hard to imagine how different our experience in Muonio, Finland has been since we were here last year. Normally cold snowy weather has been replaced by warm temperatures and steady rain. Despite the unseasonable weather, the grooming staff at Olos has done well to provide great skiing for the numerous national and club skiers [...]