“We have recently hypothesized that the optimal approach to altitude training would be to acclimatize to altitude, but train as close to sea level as possible thereby maximizing running speed and maintaining aerobic fitness,” Drs. Jim Stray-Gundersen and Benjamin Levine wrote in a landmark 1992 paper in the International Journal of Sports Medicine. The pair, who then worked at the University of Texas, were trying to answer the question of whether altitude training was truly...
Press Release T2 FOUNDATION/U.S. SKI TEAM ATHLETES ANDY NEWELL AND JESSIE DIGGINS TALK SKIING, FITNESS AND OLYMPICS WITH YMCA SUMMER CAMP KIDS IN BROOKLYN Brooklyn, New York – As the world gears for the summer Olympic games in London, T2 Foundation and U.S. Ski Team members Jessie Diggins and Andy Newell met with YMCA campers to talk about what it takes to be a world-class athlete, the importance of fitness and the meaning of team spirit, while...
Drew Goldsack laughs when he thinks about his elementary school days in Alberta, when Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers would come to class and proclaim that they hadn’t drawn their gun in 30 years. A couple of decades later, Goldsack, who crashed in a NorAm sprint final, suffering a concussion and shoulder injury. With his rotator cuff still plaguing him this spring, Goldsack decided to reevaluate his career. He hadn’t really considered retiring until then,...
Maybe it was the transition to full-time racing or the fact that Zoe Roy was competing in her home nation last season. It could’ve been the back-and-fourth flights across the U.S/Canadian border, or one team’s hospitality that helped Roy reach new heights on the NorAm circuit. Whatever it was, she wasn’t fighting it. After spending some 20 years in Bend, Ore., Roy, who turned 25 on Sunday, is moving to Canmore, Alberta. Starting Aug. 1,...
SHAFTSBURY, Vt. – Andy Newell had been home in southern Vermont for just about a week – and he hadn’t had a ton of free time between
It’s easy to get caught up in busy work. Torin Koos has plenty between taking two summer courses toward his master’s at Westminster College, fitting in workouts and writing features for a ski website he and seven others took over June 1. The three-time Olympian has website-usability tests to prepare for, professional and technical writing work to do. His site, his blog, Koos reflected on two notable races at Norwegian nationals in March. First, he...
Most days of the week, Alex Harvey hits the road to Québec City, where he works out with the Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre, undergoes physio treatments and studies law at Laval University. The drive along route 440 from Mont Sainte-Anne (MSA) to Québec’s capital is about 45 kilometers and lined with views worth pulling over for. Just outside the city, there’s Montmorency Falls, the province’s largest waterfall and 30 meters (98 feet) higher than Niagara...
BEND, Ore. – The U.S. and Canadian national teams are here in Bend to get on snow, and they seem to be loving it. But what about skiers who are already located in the Oregon Cascades? On several days, local high school athletes have also made the drive up to Mount Bachelor to ski and soak in the atmosphere at North America’s own version of the Dachstein glacier. Unlike senior World Cup athletes, most juniors...
BEND, Ore. – Jessie Diggins had a big year in 2012. After thoroughly dominating the domestic racing scene in the fall and early winter, the CXC and U.S. Ski Team athlete headed to Europe, where she immediately made a splash on the World Cup. In her first race there, in Milan, she finished 18th in the freestyle sprint, then followed it up with a second-place finish in the team sprint with Kikkan Randall. Diggins went...
When Carolyn and Santi Ocariz clicked into their rollerskis slightly more than two months ago, neither really knew what they were in for. The Wisconsin couple heard plenty of stories about the places they’d travel through. They took to heart the warnings about crazy drivers, snakes and treacherous temperatures while crossing America’s heartland. It might not be hot when they left, but it could get brutal, and the elements could change 180 degrees by the...
That last ski of the season might not have set well this year. You weren’t exactly ready. Some places enjoyed sufficient snow dumpings this winter, but on the whole, it just wasn’t enough. It ended too soon. Certain parts of the country aren’t quite in summer mode yet. Snow has been known to make April appearances, and some ski towns recently saw a late-season blast of the white stuff. But in Hayward, Wis., home of...
With the Atlantic Ocean to their left and the Pacific Ocean more than 3,000 miles to their right, Carolyn and Santiago Ocariz started striding toward the latter, one at a time across the United States. The newlyweds from Wisconsin weren’t entirely sure where they were going, or the reaction they’d receive while rollerskiing across states like Alabama and Mississippi, but they had a tentative route and plenty of inspiration to keep them going. Every mile...
When the phone rang and Alana Thomas answered to hear the voice of Tom Holland, Cross Country Canada’s high-performance director, she had a sense of what was coming. The 23-year-old Nakkertok racer, who lives and trains in Ottawa, had been waiting for a similar call since she started skiing competitively more than seven years ago. With a considerably better-than-average start to her season this year, Thomas knew this might be her best chance to earn...
If you are prepared for this and you weather it, it does indeed build character. However, this is not where you want to be. If you are not prepared, chances are the ship could go down with all hands. This sort of grim scenario doesn’t play out often on a shorter trip, and the tastes of it serve only to prepare you better for a longer trip next time. For the first trip, take the...
“Give a Man a Fish and Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man to Fish and Feed Him for a Life Time.” The common metric for the amount of cross-country ski training done in a year is the total number of hours spent training in the different intensity zones. One of the more vicious hazards of becoming pre-occupied with hours put in is missing or ignoring the hours NOT put in. These are...
This article is the third profile in the ‘Where Are They Now’ series, made possible through the generous support of Fischer Sports. Learn more about their products at www.fischersports.com. here) PITTSFIELD, Vt. — The “XC1” license plate on the Subaru wagon should have been a dead giveaway. Instead, it took a minute to be sure the man walking across the general-store parking lot was Mike Gallagher, one of the pivotal players who put U.S. nordic...
This article is the second installment of the ‘Where Are They Now’ series, made possible through the generous support of Fischer Sports. Learn more about their products at Swenson after winning the first Kismet Cliff Run, a five-mile trail race in North Conway, N.H., in September 2009. Photo courtesy of Kismet Rock Foundation. Driving home from work to his apartment in downtown Portsmouth, the 41-year-old Swenson spoke on the phone about how he ended up...
Note: This is the third profile in a series about working out with high-performance athletes. The idea is to shed light on the daily routine of someone dedicated to training and share a regular Joe’s story of trying to keep up. LONDONDERRY, Vt. — As I pulled my vehicle up alongside Skyler Davis’ black Subaru in a grocery store parking lot, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had seen him once before at this year’s...
Pete Phillips is currently the head coach of Burke Mountain Academy. Phillips has decades of experience coaching juniors at many of the top clubs in the country. In addition to his scholastic coaching duties, Philips leads annual spring trips to Norway and Sweden. Sensible goals are powerful motivating factors for any serious athlete. They are tools in the kit. To get the most use from goals they need to become a conscious part of training,...
This is the seventh and final installment of a seven part series in which the U.S. Ski Team’s Noah Hoffman recounts his 2010-2011 season. With the 2012 season just around the corner, the series comes to its conclusion with a SuperTour Finals, and a spring rest. 5/11/2011 I had an extremely eventful end to the race season with some really good and some disappointing results. In addition, I’ve had an incredible, whirlwind spring. I’ve spent...