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This is the second article in a mini-series that puts focus on the transition from junior to senior racer – often a difficult time in a young racers life. “There’s Hope.” Last year's Junior World Champion Chris Jespersen has beaten the seniors in the past. He is presently feeling good and hopes for a good season as first-year senior racer. “It’s going to be hard to compete with the seniors, but I’m looking forward to...

FasterSkier.com posted, on September 22nd, an article describing how the Norwegian Women’s National Team was getting ready for a dryland training camp where five days with high intensity training in five days was on the agenda. Interval training was the focus for the upcoming 14 days. The teams changing approach toward more and frequent interval sessions has been highly criticized by, among others, successful former Men’s Team coach at the 1992 and 1994 Olympics, Inge...

Please see our archives (in the right column) for last season’s (detailed) monthly postings in order to really understand what this column is about. We are trying to share some of our training ideas, how we experience workouts (good as well as bad ones), our goals and why we do what we do. Stories from some of our fall and winter workouts as well as race experiences will appear occasionally on FasterSkier.com We think it’s...

This is the first article in a mini-series that puts focus on the transition from junior to senior racer. This is often a difficult time in a young racer's life. You are used to racing your own age group and now you are suddenly up against the seasoned veterans, all the best skiers in your country, the whole “wolf pack.” These articles will describe how young Norwegians experience this transition, but the situation is the...

Norwegian National Team Skier Jens Arne Svartedal feels strong after good summer and fall training. He is aiming for the podium in regular World Cup races — not only in World Cup classic sprint races. “I avoided injuries and sickness this summer and am feeling stronger than in the past after steady and solid training.” And just that is promising. Svartedal took another step forward last year and proved that he is capable of more...

Last years World Champion in the continuous Pursuit/Skiathlon (10K classic + 10K skate), Sweden’s Per Elofsson experienced many problems both during last season and in the previous one. He skied many “below expectation” races last year despite the World Championship victory and the 2002 Olympics were very disappointing. “The goal is to be in shape after New Year's so the early World Cup results might be mixed.” Look for an upcoming interview with Elofsson on...

The Canadian Cross Country National Team ended their three week training camp in Park City, Utah on Sunday September 28th with a high volume week. A 7 hour long bike ride and a 6 hour hike were on the agenda for those who did the longest option on both long days. Each individual decided how long they wanted to make these days and a few of the guys did the entire bike ride. They started...

The Norwegian Men’s Head Coach Krister Sorgaard is expressing that the National team skiers are now starting a very important and decisive training period: “Errors at this time of year can “burn” the whole season. Olympic and World Championship medals have been lost during the fall in previous years.” The Norwegian men’s team returned from an on-snow altitude camp in Stelvio/Livignio two weeks ago and is departing for altitude again on October 8th – this...

2000-2001 Overall Sprint World Cup winner, Norwegian Morten Brors did not manage to muster enough motivation for sprint training. He is now a new member of the Norwegian long distance (Worldloppet) team. The former super-sprinter has always enjoyed racing long races: “That’s what I enjoy — long races are always exciting. I started doing long mass-start races when I was 16-years old. I always checked if it would work out to race the Swedish Vasaloppet...

This time of year, frequent requests from our readers for information on interval training are as predictable as “amen” in church. The race season is close and everyone wants to get into top race shape. Here are some ideas. Key rules: 1. Good and easy warm-up. Do a minimum of 20-30 minutes of easy distance, some stretching and a few short pick-ups before you start the session. 2. Always start with one easy “warm-up” interval....

The Norwegian Women’s XC National team members started their Kvitfjell, Norway dryland training camp on September 21st. Five days with high intensity training in five days (!) is on the agenda. Media training is also on the menu. Coach Svein Tore Samdal: “Interval training is in focus the next 14 days. This is a part of the National team’s new way of using training periodization — the heart will in periods be stressed more than usual...

Trond Nystad, the US Ski Team Head XC ski coach and his co-coaches are busy men these days – coaching, helping and administrating six National A-Team members, five Development team members and six additional ambitious “want to be World Cup skiers”. We caught up with Trond on September 19th following a two-hour morning skating rollerski workout up Mirror Lake Highway outside Park City: “Easy skiing in easy gradual uphill terrain was on the agenda. The...

The Canadian Cross Country Team is currently conducting their third annual September dryland training camp in Park City, Utah, USA (September 8th – 28th). FasterSkier met with National Team head coach Dave Wood “The team started coming here for dryland camps and races as preparation for the 2002 Winter Olympics. We liked the terrain, the high altitude living situation and possibilities to train at various lower elevations than the (great) Deer Valley housing accommodations at...

The second of FasterSkier’s annual three-camp series, designed to aid skiers at any level, was held September 11-14 in Park City, Utah. Snowy mountain-peaks made a great backdrop, and cool, sunny mornings and warm 75F afternoons made it an ideal fall-training environment. The Athletes Participation was up from the June camp and the “campers” included athletes from the middle of the pack age group skiers, women in the top 15 overall in last years Birkie,...

Team Intersport, lead by Worldloppet winner Jœrgen Aukland, meets for their first training camp of the year – with high training volume. The Norwegian National Long-Distance Team, or Team Intersport, was formed last year. The team follows the long-distance World Cup circuit around the World, and participates in all the big Worldloppet marathons. The team consists of four skiers, Rune Torseth, Anders Hallingstad, Jœrgen Aukland og Morten Brœrs and their team manager Lars Christian Aabol....

This article is for those of you that would like to improve your standing on the result sheets this winter, or for those of you that would like to “cream” your buddies Cross-Country skiing going up your favorite Canyon or any other groomed Cross-Country track this winter. If you haven’t already started your serious conditioning training by the time you read this article, you should not expect to see improved results until a bit later...

This two-part article will in summary attempt to identify the different strength training methods and the difference between them, as well as clarifying the recent trends in strength training for XC skiers at elite level. We also cover how young skiers and masters can use the new ideas in their training program. The first part of this article was posted on September 5th. Traditional General Circuit Training Choose 6-10 exercises that put together cover all...

SEPTEMBER TRAINING FOR GOOD ADULT SKIERS Hi again. We’re back with some training suggestions for the month of September. It’s now just over 2 months before the ski season may start. In some places we’re already seeing sub-freezing temperatures at night, but we’d still like to see a nice and warm September month suited for good dryland training. Many of you may be starting to feel the pressure of the upcoming racing season, but if...