Training

The second year senior skier (22) was prior to last season one of many young and talented Cross-Country skiers in Norway. Noone raised their eyebrows at his 23rd place in the Junior World Championships two years ago. His first season as a senior skier was uneventful as well. Everything seemed as usual with his 27th place at the National season opener in Norway last November. But then something started to happen! U-23 at Soldier Hollow...

World Championship medallist Tore Ruud Hofstad is focusing on being better at what he is best at – skating. Hofstad is therefore training specifically for skating towards next season, and will let classical technique training suffer a bit.

After many seasons with several breaks in training due to illness and injuries, Ella Gjœmle is finally healthy and ready to train with her teammates on the Norwegian National Team. Illness and injuries have expectedly affected her prior training, but Ella now looks forward to the future. Prior to last season she decided to have her tonsils removed, which dramatically reduced her normal number of infections. Staying healthy and injury free should make a big...

Our two daughters, ages 8 and 12, participated at former NBA six-time All-star Lou Hudson's basketball camp in Park City last week. Hudson’s message in his opening speech was very clear: “I’m not here to make you star basket ball players, but if you want to reach your potential and become good some day, work on fundamentals and drills.

Elite skiers and ambitious juniors have rollerskied for more than one month already in their preparations for the upcoming season, while many masters are just getting going. Rollerskiing is the most specific and the best way of preparing for the upcoming season’s races. It’s also a great and fun way of adding variety to you endurance training and the only way of improving your technique in the summer and fall. So while we suggest rollerskiing,...

My good friend David Belz, a top 200 Birkie skier from Switzerland likes to refer to things as “alte schule” which in Swiss-German means “old school”. Nothing could be more “old school” than riding a bike with only one speed. Think back to the carefree days of your youth. Screaming down the street as an 8 year old on your Schwinn Sting Ray; never in oxygen debt, pedaling as hard and as fast as you...

One of the interesting aspects of training with the xcottawa.ca racing team is that because a significant portion of the team works regular office hours during the day, sometimes, if you want to train together it has to be either very early or relatively late. On most of the other teams I have been part of teammates were usually students or basically full-time athletes. In either case, training at those easy to get ready for...

Fasterskier.com recently posted an article about Norwegian distance skier Odd-Bjorn Hjelmeset that wants to win “The Double” – the sprint and the 50 kilometer at next year’s Worlds in Oberstdorf, Germany. World-class sprinter Jens Arne Svartedal captured third place in the overall World Cup last season has the very same dream and goals. Svartedal had a very good season last winter. He has always been World-class in the classic style sprint, but took a big...

Germany’s Evi Sachenbacher struggled getting motivated after last season, and looked for more personal coaching than the German National Team was able to give her – her answer was the coach of the Swedish Biathlon Team. Sachenbacher ended up eleventh overall in last season’s World Cup, with a couple of top-3 finishes in individual competitions. At the end of the season her motivation came to a low-point, and she chose to switch coach. Her new...