Wednesday Workout – FasterSkier

Developing Single-Leg Stability for Improved Glide

Rachel PerkinsDecember 11, 2020

If you’ve found your way here, you are likely familiar with the three tenets of cross country skiing: push off, weight transfer, and glide. Whether it’s diagonal stride in the track or V2 on the corduroy, your ability to experience a complete weight transfer, ride a flat ski, and carry momentum is heavily dependent on the stability of your standing leg. Why is developing that balance and stability a challenge? For those who choose...

Resources Strength Training Workouts

Wednesday Workout: Strong From Home with Carolyn Parker of the Ripple Effect Training Center

Rachel PerkinsApril 29, 2020

Like many mountain towns, Carbondale, Colorado is a magnet for athletes. The definition of that word is used broadly — though there are plenty, it is not just home to the uber endurance junkie. Within 30 miles, you can find world-class rivers for whitewater kayaking or fly fishing, five ski resorts, a variety of rock climbing and bouldering objectives, and miles of single track to be run, hiked, or ridden. With this unbelievable backyard, we...

Resources Training

Tara Geraghty-Moats on Finding Speed

Aleks TangenDecember 4, 2019

Tara Geraghty-Moats won the Nordic Combined Continental Cup in the previous season and is set to be a podium contender for the overall standings in this year’s cup as well. Now she finds herself in Lillehammer ready to jump in this weekend’s World Cup. FasterSkier met up with her to hear her thoughts on training, what it’s like to compete at her level and the future of nordic combined for women. Today, a Monday, she...

Community Interviews Para Nordic

Wednesday Workout: Structuring Training for Para Athletes Q&A with Martin Benes

Rachel PerkinsNovember 27, 2019

This insight into training para nordic athletes comes from Martin Benes, head coach of U.S. Para Nordic skiing. Benes joined U.S. Para Nordic in August 2018 after spending five years as the nordic ski director and head coach at Sugar Bowl Academy in Norden, CA. Benes responded via. email following a team training camp in Canmore, Alberta. FasterSkier: Before taking this job, did you have any background in or connections to para sports? What have...

Lifestyle Other Racing Resources Training Workouts

Wednesday Workout: Mitigating Risks in Mountain Running Races with David Norris and Jessica Yeaton

Rachel PerkinsAugust 21, 2019

Before we begin, if you have not heard of the course record holder. In 2016 he bested the time of world renowned mountain athlete Killian Jornet. Norris chose to sit out this year’s event due to the smoke-induced poor air quality. Norris also won the Cirque Series Alyeska race in 2017 and 2019 and took third in between. In 2018, Yeaton won the Cirque Series race and both members of the duo won Mount Marathon —...

Resources Strength Training Workouts

Wednesday Workout: Inside or Out, Improve Your Double Poling

FasterSkierJuly 17, 2019

We are trying to stay slightly ahead of the overuse injury and poor air quality curves. You may be midway through your summer training schedule and dealing with a bum ankle. Or you live in a place like much of the Western U.S. that has been or will be affected by poor air quality due to wildfires. Whatever the causation, skiers can find themselves in make-do mode. If the air quality index (AQI) is high...

Resources Training

Wednesday Workout: Evaluating the Training Year with Caitlin Patterson

Jason AlbertJune 5, 2019

This Wednesday Workout dives into one athlete’s approach to reviewing last season’s training and how to move forward. Newly minted U.S. Ski Team member and longtime Craftsbury Green Racing Project athlete Caitlin Patterson provides the details. *** Looking back on a year of training is an important part of planning the year ahead. My first step is to think broadly over the past year as a whole and to ask myself a series of...

Resources Training Workouts

Wednesday Workout: Summer Training for Junior Athletes Competing in Fall Cross Country

Rachel PerkinsMay 22, 2019

This Wednesday Workout comes to us from Matt Boobar who has been coaching the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) nordic team since 2007. In the fall, he also works with the cross country running and mountain bike programs, and leads cycling in the spring. Boobar has a B.S. in exercise science and has earned a USSA Level 200 certification. He has been the head coach of the New England Junior National Team eight times and was...

Nutrition Resources

Wednesday Workout: Informal On-The-Go and Recovery Food

FasterSkierMay 15, 2019

From the dawn of sports nutrition when PowerBars were ubiquitous to the DIY world of handcrafted nibbles for athletes on-the-go and recovering, sports nutrition has become an industry. For this Wednesday Workout, we wanted to revisit a few classic low cost and relatively simple items when it comes to nutrition. Without diving into the deep science, the basics are well agreed upon: you’ll need some protein, carbohydrates, and some ingredients to make it all palatable....

News Resources Training

Wednesday Workout: Review the Training with Jessica Yeaton

FasterSkierMay 1, 2019

May 1. Start of a new training cycle for some. In this Wednesday Workout, we checked in with Jessica Yeaton. Yeaton resides in Anchorage, Alaska where she trains with APU and has represented Australia on the World Cup, World Championships, and the Olympics. She earned two U.S. National Championship podiums in Craftsbury, Vermont last season. She placed second in the 10-kilometer classic and third in the 20 k mass start freestyle. A sixth place...

Resources Training Workouts

Wednesday Workout: How One Skier Keeps Marathon Race Fit in Portland, Ore.

FasterSkierMarch 27, 2019

This Wednesday Workout comes to us from Harrison Harb; Portland, Oregon denizen. HH grew up racing bicycles and xc skis in Hopkinton, NH. He graduated from Stratton Mountain School in 07, and UNH in 2011. H has lived in Portland, Ore. since 2014 where he coaches cyclists and skiers while racing for XC Oregon on skis and River City Bicycles/Bike Law on the bike. *** Portland, Oregon: home of craft beer, mycological diversity, and...

Resources Workouts World Cup

Wednesday Workout: The Pressure is Off Approach to Your First World Cup

FasterSkierMarch 20, 2019

At eighteen-years-old, Gus Schumacher remains composed in what is a pressure cooker of endurance sport. There he was last week on his home tracks of Kincaid Park in Anchorage, AK., claiming four first place medals and providing locals a deep-well of pride. If in fact this young man is stressed before or during a race, it’d be hard to notice. And maybe part of that demeanor has to do with his preparedness. Schumacher is prepared. ...

Juniors Resources Training

Wednesday Workout: Guiding Junior Athletes With Adam St. Pierre

Rachel PerkinsMarch 13, 2019

This Wednesday Workout includes guidance from Boulder Nordic Junior Race Team (BNJRT) Head Coach Adam St. Pierre. After earning a BS in Physics and Biochemistry while skiing for Colby College in Maine, St Pierre earned a masters in Kinesiology and Exercise Science at the University of New Hampshire. While in graduate school, he was the assistant ski coach to Marty Hall at Bowdoin College and has since coached all age groups. His primary role at...

Juniors Nutrition Otepää

Wednesday Workout: Recovery and Nutrition on the Road During the U18 Nations’ Cup Trip

Rachel PerkinsFebruary 13, 2019

Kate Oldham is a U18 athlete from Carbondale, CO who skis for the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club. After strong results at US Nationals, Kate was selected as one of the six female U18 skiers to travel to Otepää, Estonia from January 20th – 30th to race in the Nations’ Cup races, where she competed in a field of about 40 junior athletes from Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Estonia. Kate finished 24th in the...

Resources Training Workouts

Wednesday Workout: Race Prep with UNM’s Kornelius Grov

Gretchen BurkholderFebruary 6, 2019

For this week’s Wednesday Workout, FasterSkier talked to University of New Mexico (UNM) racer Ben Berend about how his teammate, Kornelius Groev, the fastest skate skier on the

News Research Training Workouts

Wednesday Workout: Cold Weather Resource for Insiders and Outsiders

FasterSkierJanuary 30, 2019

If you find yourself this morning in a part of the world where it’s truly cold, we feel for you. If you get outside and ski today, say in the Midwest (we’re thinking of you Duluth), the snow might be sandpaper slow, but the upside, there will be no snow melt. The trail conditions will hold until the next banana belt puff of air blows through. Here at FasterSkier, we scanned the archives to bring...

Resources Technique Training

Wednesday Workout: Exploring Macro and Micro Terrain with Bernie Nelson

Jason AlbertJanuary 23, 2019

This Wednesday Workout comes from a true cross-country coaching whisperer: Bernie Nelson. First off, if you aren’t familiar with Bernie — she’s not a dude as the name might suggest. It’s Bernadette, but its Bernie on the name tag. Nelson grew up in Truckee, California as a cross-country ski racer and you’d have to ask her yourself, but she came into her own mentoring aspiring skiers. An informal or formal on-snow technique session with Nelson...

Resources Training Workouts

Wednesday Workout: What’s the Prescription for “Flooding” Legs?

Jason AlbertJanuary 16, 2019

2014 is when a relatively green Patrick O’Brien took charge of the Stratton Mountain School’s elite team, otherwise known as SMS T2. In a relatively short time, by way of juggling athletes, wax-teching, training plan writing, and life-living O’Brien has become a problem-solving resource. Jack of many trades, and very much an emerging master of elite level coaching, FasterSkier tossed a general question out to O’Brien for our Wednesday Workout series: what are some workouts...

Resources Training Workouts

Wednesday Workout: A Flashback to 2016 and Midweek Race Prep with the U.S. Ski Team

Aleks TangenDecember 19, 2018

We hear a lot about the details of a cross-country ski racer’s day on race day, but what about those four or five days in between? What do World Cup racers do then, in the middle of the week? FasterSkier Norwegian contributor Aleks Tangen ventured to Lillehammer back in late November 2016 to find out. *** LILLEHAMMER, Norway — FasterSkier spoke with Bjornsen, Jessie Diggins, Andy Newell and U.S. Ski Team Coach Matt Whitcomb to see how they...

Lifestyle Resources Training Workouts

Wednesday Workout: Getting Out With Kids in Tow

Rachel PerkinsDecember 12, 2018

This week’s workout comes from contributing reporter Rachel Perkins, a former USCSA National Champion turned dedicated citizen racer and now a new mom to a baby girl born in October. Here Rachel shares tips from her own experience as well as the wisdom of local chariot pulling veterans. This article is an introduction to an upcoming series highlighting the pregnancy and postpartum experiences of skiers including Kikkan Randall, Holly Brooks, and Caitlin Gregg as they...

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