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The Top Ten Signs of Spring in Northern New England Compared to many other sports, cross-country skiing requires considerable attention to the weather and a general sensitivity to changes in the seasons. For example, knowing when winter is over can be crucially important. This awareness allows you to: Add “structure” to your race skis with a few last-minute “spring denial” workouts on dirty, wet, melting trails with several pieces of snow showing through the rocks;...

Just the train from Milan up to Germany was a ten-hour ride. But the views were excellent. The big Italian valleys are patterned with row after row of grape vines some thin as a finger others thick as trees. The air is heavy, a near permanent haze that is humid and sticky and which lays a misty veil over everything. Italy is old and new, run down and newly painted. A hotel room can lack...

This early season block was the results-highlight of our year. Trond and the waxers drove all over Europe (from Italy to Norway to northern Finland and back) on roads slick enough to rival the Fairbanks — Salcha commute while the athletes flew from race site to race site. The racers, coaches and waxers basically kicked ass scoring our best world cup results so far and putting Kris in the World Cup red group. The rest...

Editor's Note: We received a lot of great feedback on Pete Vordenberg's New Koch series that we ran last April. Now Pete has generously offered to do it all for us again. This is Part One in Pete Vordenberg's US Ski Team 2003-2004 Year In Review. Part One has a ton of great information about how the US Ski Team trains, particularly in the spring and summer months. I have always wanted to be an...

August. New Zealand. Still an hour or two out of Auckland and high over the pre-dawn South Pacific there is nothing but blue. Blue unpolluted by other color, and every tone and hue of it too. From the edge-of-space dark-blue in the high west, fading all the way down to the pale-blue horizon where it meets the deep-blue sea far, far below. Thirteen hours cramped in this winged-tube of air-born aluminum hurling through all that...

This is part three in the “Road to Recovery' series. It has been many weeks since part two, and for that I apologize. But in a way, this is good news for me. After all, the fact that I have been too busy skiing to sit down and write part three means that my fractured collarbone must be healing well. That is true, but I am getting ahead of myself. Lets back up a bit…...

Frode Estil, Olympic and World Cross-Country Champion, warns ambitious young skiers against dropping their education in favor of sports. Even though there may be good money to make in Cross-Country, Frode Estil (31) is in no doubt when claiming: Cross-Country skiers should combine their skiing with education. – As a skier you have plenty of time to combine skiing and education. There is quite a risk in dropping out of school for a sport where...

Editor: Dave Knoop is one of our Fasterskier training partners, and is famous in our group for his adventurous, high-speed, and “bonkable” outings. I drove up to the Strawberry Reservoir area a little late on a Sunday am, about 10 am in the morning only to find it a well preserved winter wonderland everything still frozen and white as far as the eye could see even the reservoir looked mid winter frozen. Meanwhile a few...

Norwegian Cross-Country World Cup Sprint stars Jens Arne Svartedal and HÃ¥vard Bjerkeli are among the favorites in the upcoming Norwegian 50 km National Championship. However, a 50 km race is not enough for them, they now have decided to ski the 90 km back home to Lillehammer after the long-distance race. But why? – asks langrenn.com. – As long as we ski far, let’s ski very far, jokes Jens Arne. But seriously, this is about...

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Caitlin Cassidy is a member of the Durango, Colorado Nordic Ski Team This past year I have gone through a physical and mental change in my skiing abilities. In the physical aspect, before this change I was puny, and now, I’m ripped; I have built strength and improved my technique these past nine months. The mental change was what sparked the physical change; I had a change in my goals as a skier. Before, my...

Sweden’s Oscar Svard, Daniel Tynell and Henrik Eriksson can brag about something no currently active Norwegian top skiers can be proud of — they have all won the World largest and most prestigious ski marathon, the 90 kilometer long classic style Swedish Vasaloppet. Here is a recent interview from Swedish Skidsport.com. Not afraid of the Norwegians From Skidsport.com Oscar Svard is back on the ski tracks. He is not afraid after seeing all the pre-race...

Havard Bjerkeli was very impressive while winning the World Cup sprint classic in Drammen. He is now considering focusing entirely on the sprint events ” I tried to race regular races in addition to sprints before Christmas. That didn’t pan out well, and I have for that reason done mostly sprint races after Christmas,” explains the sprint winner from Drammen. “The recipe after Christmas has been to prioritize important races and skip certain other races,...

Skjeldal following his 6th place in Holmenkollen: Kristen Skjeldal was the best Norwegian with his 6th place in the 50-kilometer freestyle individual start in Saturday’s World Cup race in Holmenkollen (Oslo), Norway. Skjeldal was left out of the National team this season. He was skiing as fast as the two fastest, Sommerfeldt and Valbusa in several sections of the course. [Norway's] best distance skater is of the opinion that Norwegians need to show more guts...

Interview with the Norwegian Sprint Coach Ulf Morten Aune