I hope things are going well out there in the ski world! On my end the season has just started, but for most of you there is still a waiting period. As soon as we get snow the first races will be here before you know it. Personally I am glad to be through with September and October — the two heaviest months of the year. A lot of hard training was laid down in...
Send your best “Fall Training” photo to FasterSkier.com and you could win a limited edition FasterSkier ski cap as well as one of several ski-related accessories from Fischer…not to mention the fame and glory of winning! Thanks to Fischer (
The US Continental Cup Team has been in Park City for over a week now. For many of the CC Team athletes this camp serves as an acclimatization camp before the Super Tour races kick off in West Yellowstone, MT. Since most of the races this fall will be at altitude we took advantage of the elevation in Park City to start the acclimatization early. Some key steps to adjusting to altitude: 1. Intensity –...
For a cross-country skier, there is nothing worse than the anxiety of waiting for that first snow to fall. The angst grows as deep as a bridled race horse waiting for the gates to open. All that we want to do is glide! Is it too much to ask that the weather reciprocate our enthusiasm? My options are limited compared to previous years. In my final semester of college, I don’t have the luxury of...
Editor’s Note: While Sportbladet and Kalla claim this to be a “radical†new form of training, intensity block methods, pioneered by Norweigan Jan Helgerud, have been in use in various forms for some years. Canadian Beckie Scott used this type of training on her way to second place overall in the World Cup in 2006. Swedish newspaper Sportbladet reports on the training of Charlotte Kalla. Hard training is going to take Kalla to the top:...
** Editors note: This will be a twice-monthly column highlighting our ski coaches from around the country… including elite coaches, college coaches, high school coaches, volunteer coaches, and learn-to-ski coaches. This is an effort to sample a diverse group of coaches and recognize the people who are the backbone of today’s skiers. If you would like to nominate a coach for an interview, please email rob@fasterskier.com. Please give coach’s name, email, and a several paragraph...
The CXC Team joined in on the US Ski Team for the October camp at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, New York. Other Olympic Development programs and a handful of top junior athletes also participated in the camp, making this camp a unique opportunity to train with other top skiers prior to the ski season. Training volumes and training load is presently high, so our goal is to limit travel, focus on individual...
If your team or club does epic and creative workouts like this, we want to hear about it! Email us at 1st leg Classic Roll Team heading out on the bike leg Mali Noyes breaking trail for Mike Matteson Reid Pletcher bringing it home.
Johan Kjœlstad felt like his form was so good after the recent stair workout he did in Livigno (site of a recent Norwegian Sprint national team camp) that he wants to try it prior to the Düsseldorf sprint. “I’m planning to do some stair training on Friday. I’m doing this in order to get some spenst in the legs and because it worked well in Livigno,†says Johan Kjœlstad to langrenn.com. Half Length Kjœlstad isn’t...
Editor’s Notes: Øystein encourages his readers to submit questions. If any FasterSkier.com readers have questions, email them to
Burke Mountain Academy’s Nordic squad is settling back into the routine of school after returning from ten days of training and the season’s first race in Torsby and Mora, Sweden. Burke’s schedule is laid out in blocks of academic time interspersed with periods of training time that are long enough to take advantage of training opportunities in other parts of the country or the world. The Fortum Tunnel in Torsby had been getting great reviews...
Go up another 2,000 feet and this is what folks have been doing the last two weeks at Hatcher Pass, Alaska. Not too shabby for October skiing!
Skiers loaded up and drove one hour north of Anchorage this past week to get some early season skiing in one of the most scenic places around… Hatcher Pass, Alaska. People have been training on race skis on the groomed tracks. Special thanks goes out to APUNSC assistant coach Holly Brooks and Mike Matteson for the photos. …..and the money shot.
Jackson Hole athletes Willie and Eliot Neal, as well as Jackson Hole high school coach Walt Berling took a day trip to Grand Targhee Ski Resort to classic rollerski up the road, which climbs a substantial amount at a steady grade (from 6440 ft to about 8000 ft). The weather was perfect until the very end, and the temperature was warm. What was not anticipated though was the amount of snow that would be on...
The Bright Side Bryn Knight I spent the last week at home in Whitehorse, Yukon. The smiles (and upside-down smiles) I saw from both athletes and coaches at Yukon Ski Team training sessions got me thinking about the part attitude can play in sport and life. I’m not sure who first taught me the importance of staying positive – it could have been any one of the enthusiastic Yukon coaches. Whichever one he or she...
The Italian Biathlon Team tested this training method at Stelvio Pass (ital. Passo dello Stelvio). Located in Italy, the Stelvio Pass is at 2,757 meters, and is the second highest paved mountain pass in the Alps. In preparation for the Olympics in Vancouver, Biathlon head coach Paolo Riva thought to try something different at Stelvio Pass. For the past two weeks, the Italian biathletes lived on the mountain at 2700m, but trained in the valley...
Before leaving for Europe, Andy Newell sent us two technique videos from the recently completed USST camp in Lake Placid, NY. You can see some of the best athletes in the world in action! Classic Skate
Athletes from the Callaghan Valley Training Center, a new Canadian National Athlete Development Center are submitting weekly reports to FasterSkier.com. The writings bring personal perspectives on training, skiing, and life in general. This will be an ongoing series so check back for more reports from these young athletes! The first several pieces are from earlier in the fall. For the past 3 months a small group of very talented cross country skiers and a world...
The USST members were not the only ones showing their preseason muscle recently in Lake Placid. Many juniors from the New England region did not hesitate to hop in and rub shoulders with the big guns. NENSA capitalized on the opportunity to schedule a fall camp that coincided with USST training camp so their skiers could put some hours in alongside (or maybe a little behind) the top skiers in the country. Among the junior...
Here's some photos of skiing Friday in Fairbanks Alaska. Sunny skies and 30-degree weather greeted skiers at Birch Hill in Fairbanks Friday. Snow is thin, but over 10k of trails have been rolled and the skiing is pretty nice. Both UAF and the FXC junior program as well as a few other local enthusiasts were out taking advantage of the early season conditions. The attached shots are of the FXC group during their workout focused...