The symptoms started at a July training camp with Central Cross Country (CXC) in northern Wisconsin. The runner-up from last year’s SuperTour series, Jennie Bender, 24, wasn’t feeling well. For two to three days at a time, she’d experience bouts of nausea. Then her neck felt sore, along with her jaw and teeth. One night, she tossed and turned with cold chills, and feared that she’d wake up a leper. The next day, she pushed...
It’s almost September, and let’s be honest, you’re in great shape. Or you’re almost there. Just a little longer distances, some slightly harder efforts and bam! You suddenly feel a tickle in your throat. Your head’s pounding, your legs are shot and your heart races when you start working out. You’re having trouble sleeping and this head cold is something you hadn’t bargained for. What gives? Probably overtraining. “Pish-posh,” you think. “I’m not an elite...
“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...
Once you complete a workout, the cells in your body are at the most receptive to accept refueling. Make sure you take advantage of this window of opportunity to kick start the recovery process: eat a snack and rehydrate within 30 minutes of finishing your workout.
Bananas an hour prior to every race. Granola bars afterwards. Pasta the night before. As much as for any other aspect of the sport of cross-country skiing, there are dozens of beliefs, strategies, and misconceptions when it comes to food and nutrition. To clear a few of them up–but by no means all of them–we spoke with recently-appointed U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) Sports Dietician Adam Korzun. A native of Alabama, Korzun has worked...