Editor's Note: Fred Griffin is the New England Nordic Ski Association (NENSA) Executive Director. This article originally appeared on I hear it from both sides. I hear it from coaches frustrated working with athletes of varying ages in middle school/high school programs, or from Bill Koch Youth Ski League (BKL) Leaders in despair over dealing with the even wider BKL age group, 4 — 13. “Some want to race. Others just want to socialize. What...
The last of the snow is melting off your ski trails. Skiers around the country are putting the storage wax on their skis while simultaneously eying the rising mercury of their thermometers. As the warm spring days beckon us outside, too many skiers step out their front door and into a trap. The “spring-time trap” has hit most of us in our training at one time or another. Feeling fit from a year of training,...
To Register: http://www.fasterskier.com/training.php?id=1013 To get an idea of what we do at a FasterSkier.com camp, read this article from last year's June Camp:
The Norwegian men’s team announced a (closer) working relationship with the former ski stars Bjorn Daehlie, Vegard Ulvang and Thomas Alsgaard when they presented their plans for the upcoming season a few weeks ago. The famous skiers have been recruited to aid their skiers with training guidance and motivation ahead of next season.
Frode Estil (Norway), the 2002 Olympic Pursuit Champion (tied with Thomas Alsgaard) is happy with this past season’s results. He is now planning on listening to the biathlon skiers in order to make him a better skater next season. Estil did pretty well skating to tied Alsgaard for Olympic Gold
The month of April is usually the recovery month for most high level skiers. May is when the same skiers officially start their preparation toward the upcoming season. Skidsport.com of Sweden announced on May 2 that “the season started yesterdayâ€, while sprint World Cup winner Marit Bjorgen was quoted in Norwegian newspaper VG on May 1, saying: “we are now resuming full normal training. My goal is sprint gold and sprint relay gold in Oberstdorf...
The Norwegian Women’s coach Svein Tore Samdal and the national team women have agreed to continue with the extreme periodization (of intervals) in the training program. The program will now be even more specialized and focused than last year. We feel this is a good way for us to do things, says coach Samdal. Sprint Queen Marit Bjorgen was also second in the overall World Cup Samdal admits that some of the skiers were very...
Deciding to continue ski racing after college was not easy. Years of training, thousands of dollars invested courtesy of my parents, and busy weekends from December to March—these are the sacrifices necessary of a promising junior skier. In May, I’ll be graduating from Middlebury College with a B.S. in neuroscience at which point I will begin my “professional†ski career. Since I will be forced to take a part-time job, I have never won prize...
University of Utah skiers Ben and Daniel Sonntag sent us some great pictures from a crust skiing adventure in the Wasatch Mountains above Park City on May 2. Ben says: Me, Ben(jamin) and my brother, Daniel are skied for the U of Utah since January. We are originally from Germany. Today ( May, 2nd) we enjoyed a great day of crust skiing around Park City. We did a 4 hour tour, which started with a...
Norwegian newspaper VG reports: The Swedish cross country skiing star Per Elofsson was (again) named to the Swedish elite team.  He is counting on racing some competitions next season, but the 2006 Olympics in Torino is his big goal. The Swedish XC star was predicted to be the next cross country king after Bjorn Daehlie, but things have not gone his way. The 2002 Olympics was a “disasterâ€, he won the pursuit (surprisingly) at the...
The Norwegian long distance cross country team is moving ahead toward next season with more resources, better financial conditions and new popularity. The popularity of long distance cross-country skiing increased significantly in Norway last season. Anders Aukland’s popularity has almost reached hero status following his victories in the “live on television†Marcialonga and Vasaloppet races. “Some of the races in the marathon cup will be used as qualification races for the next races. This makes...
About three years ago, members of the xcottawa.ca racing team made a trip to the Chic Choc Mountains, in the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec for some spring skiing. We piled 5 people and all our gear into a rusty old car and kept our fingers crossed for the 12 hr. drive from Ottawa. Interestingly enough, the transmission that replaced the one we managed to ruin on that trip, belonging to my parents’ 1990 Mercury wagon,...
The Norwegian cross country ski teams are bringing in the “heavyweights.†National heros Vegard Ulvang, Thomas Alsgaard, Bjorn Daehlie and Bente Skari are going to help Norway's top skiers in the hunt for gold.  There are three important championship seasons (Worlds – 2005, Olympics – 2006 and Worlds again in 2007) coming up and the Norwegian coaches want these heroes to help in tezching a “winning attitudeâ€. Key ideas are how to prepare, how to...
National Cross Country Ski Education Foundation Announces Formation of North American Ski Gymnasium School Year Program to start August 2004, skiers live and train at the Solleftea Ski Gymnasium in Sweden The National Cross-Country Ski Education Foundation (NCCSEF) has formed a partnership with Solleftea Ski Gymnasium in Sweden to bring six cross-country skiers to Sweden to live and train for the school year. Pete Phillips will be the program director of the North American Ski...
One of the current hot topics in our national US Cross-Country world is the detail of skating techniques. Technique is an important part of what can also be called work economy in any sport, and work economy is one of three elements that will distinguish great racers from good racers. The other two elements are the skiers maximal aerobic capacity (VO2 max) and Lactate Threshold (LT or AT) — both of which are much more...
April 19 I have spent the entire last week trying to recover from a cold. I don’t recall the last time I was unable to train for a week because of the common cold. I should feel fortunate that I didn’t contract a case of full-blown flu. On Easter morning my scheduled workout was a 5 mile race pace run. This is like a race, but I’m the only runner at the race, so it’s...
While most people have put away their skis and taken out their bikes and running shoes, here in Alaska we still have some great skiing. Even in town Anchorage we had great skiing up until this week. Nice views! Tearing up the downhill Notice the skier in the lower right Perfect tracks on April 23! Prince William Sound is another thing you might see on a crust ski. For even more great Alaska crust ski...
Lahti is a party town. This town goes out at midnight every day of the week. There is shouting and revelry on the snowy streets at 4am. There is bar after bar on every block, and they are inevitably full, and loud and smoky. Can it be like this all the time, or is it only for the World Cup weekend and other big events? Something tells me in Lahti it is all the time....
Ah yes, spring in the Midwest; glorious days filled with high winds, cloudy skies and rain on a fairly consistent basis, not to mention, temperatures ranging from 30 — 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Waiting for the onslaught of hot, humid summer days, spring here in the Chicago suburbs is a great time to do a little cross-training and relax. Â Sipping coffee on the day after Easter I read Torbjorn’s account of how he spent his...
The youngest member of the Norwegian National Team, Espen Harald Bjerke was not able to live up to and reach his own expectations this season. He is disappointed by his performance and how he raced, but will make changes and is promising that he will “prove something†next season.