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We aren’t doctors, and we try not to play one on the internet. But if we find health information that we feel affects cross-country skiers as a group, we do our best to pass it along.
What Weird Heart Rate Monitor Numbers Mean (or Don’t) About Arrhythmias
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What Weird Heart Rate Monitor Numbers Mean (or Don’t) About Arrhythmias

Chelsea LittleNovember 3, 2017

Athletes engaging in big volumes of endurance exercise are at some increased risk of heart problems – compared to those who do moderate exercise. The level of that risk is under debate. At the same time, recreational athletes using heart rate monitors during their training will sometimes see numbers go up as high as 220 or 225 beats per minute (bpm). Such racing heartbeats are called tachycardia, and some of the possible underlying causes can...

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Going It Alone, with Help from Friends: Social Support and Exercise Behavior in Birkie Racers
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Going It Alone, with Help from Friends: Social Support and Exercise Behavior in Birkie Racers

Chelsea LittleOctober 19, 2017

Part I of this interview discussed findings about general health and exercise habits of American Birkebeiner participants compared to the general public. You can catch up on that piece said at the time. Researchers Paul Anderson and Ralph Bovard received survey responses from more than 5,000 people who had participated in the American Birkebeiner, a cross-country ski marathon held every year in Wisconsin. While the survey asked about exercise, general health status, and behavior, it...

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Birkie Health Survey Underscores Link Between Exercise and Healthy Behavior
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Birkie Health Survey Underscores Link Between Exercise and Healthy Behavior

Chelsea LittleOctober 16, 2017

Back in 2014, Paul Anderson and his colleague, Ralph Bovard, set out to study the health habits of cross-country skiers by surveying those who participated in the American Birkebeiner (“the Birkie”), a cross-country ski marathon in Wisconsin. “We wanted to understand and characterize the role of social support for exercise among Birkie skiers,” Anderson explained in an email this month. “Dr. Bovard and myself are both Birkie skiers and we have both experienced how the...

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Wednesday Workout: Mindfulness with Heidi Widmer
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Wednesday Workout: Mindfulness with Heidi Widmer

FasterSkierSeptember 6, 2017

Swiss-Canadian skier Heidi Widmer found herself on a tough stretch of road, she recently ended up taking several weeks off training. “When I had a concussion (both in the fall of 2010 and again in 2013), I listened to mindfulness videos on YouTube,” Widmer wrote in an email. “Those were stressful and uncertain times for me, because I didn’t know what was causing my symptoms nor how to get better. The videos helped guide a...

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We’re Not Invincible: More Heart Arrhythmias in Endurance Athletes (Book Review)
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We’re Not Invincible: More Heart Arrhythmias in Endurance Athletes (Book Review)

Chelsea LittleJuly 27, 2017

When I heard that there was a new book coming out about heart arrhythmias in endurance athletes, I was interested. Several years ago, I read some of the research papers that the book’s authors refer to. One was a cohort study on participants in the Vasaloppet, the 90-kilometer ski marathon in Sweden. Those researchers found that skiers who competed in more Vasaloppets had more heart arrhythmias – as did those who finished the race the...

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Kristen Bourne on Recovering from Mono and Making NCAAs
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Kristen Bourne on Recovering from Mono and Making NCAAs

Gabby NaranjaMay 18, 2017

Two-and-half months into her summer training last year, Kristen Bourne woke up in a cold sweat. Her temperature read higher than normal and no amount of lozenges could soothe her sore throat. The Central Collegiate Ski Association (CSSA) Distance Championships and also qualified for NCAA Skiing Championships. There in Jackson, N.H., she finished 17th in the 5 k classic and was the top NMU woman in the 15 k freestyle mass start two days later, placing 13th and 

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An Open Letter About Depression in Competition
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An Open Letter About Depression in Competition

FasterSkierDecember 28, 2016

If you follow U.S. skiing closely, you’ve probably heard of Paul Everett. After three years on US Biathlon’s development team, Everett, 20, is currently a Montana State University sophomore and member of the Bridger Ski Foundation in Bozeman, Mont. He is studying exercise science and psychology, and wrote the following letter for an assignment. It’s about depression and anxiety in athletes, “more specifically ski racing about what it is like for those competing with these disorders and...

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Hoffman Checks in En Route to Denver, Blogs About Broken Fibula
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Hoffman Checks in En Route to Denver, Blogs About Broken Fibula

BrainspiralDecember 1, 2014

Never fail, on Monday afternoon during a flight from Frankfurt to Denver, Noah Hoffman blogged. And not just any quick update, almost a whopping 2,000 words. The U.S. Ski Team’s top male distance skier got online to explain exactly what happened Sunday in Kuusamo, Finland, where he fell hard with slightly less than 2 kilometers to go in the first World Cup distance race of the season.

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