U.S.L.D. Nats

By Colin Rodgers We have been cranking out the last few races of the season up here in Fairbanks, AK. The 5/10k Cl was held on Tuesday evening and the Sk Team Sprint was Wednesday. The races have been held at Birch Hill ski area on great skiing conditions. There is tons of snow up here by Fairbanks standards and it seems like mid winter conditions despite the long warming days. The Fischer/ Craft Athletes that are here include Dave Chamberlain, Brayton Osgood, Nicole DeYong and myself (Colin). We have not had a spectacular start to the week as a team, but there is still a lot of racing yet to come including the 15/30k Duathon tonight and the 30/50k Mass Start Cl on Sunday. Results for the races can be found at ussadistancenationals.org. Following is a brief recap of results for the first 2 days: 5k Cl: 1st Kristina Strandberg 2nd Morgan Smyth 3rd Becca Rorabaugh 11th Nicole DeYong 10k Cl: 1st James Southam 2nd Stefan Kuhn (Canada) 3rd Graham Nishikawa (Canada) 17th Colin Rodgers 19th Brayton Osgood 27th Dave Chamberlain Skate Team Sprint 1st Morgan Smyth/ Liz Stephen 2nd Caitlin Compton/ Maria Stuber 3rd Kristina Strandberg/ Kristina Trygstad-Saari 6th Nicole DeYong/ Morgan Arritola 1st Chris Cook/ Torin Koos 2nd Garrott Kuzzy/ Leif Zimmerman 3rd Anders Haugen/ Lars Flora 5th Michael Sinnott/ Colin Rodgers 8th Brayton Osgood/ Dave Chamberlain

Going To Battle

By Colin Rodgers Several years ago when I was training at the Maine Winter Sports Center, my coach at the time, Jens Johansson, thought one of the best things he could do for us as ski racers was expose us to the next level of skiing. He had a friend from Sweden who is a very successful marathon skier on the World Loppet circuit and Jens convinced him to come and train with us for a few months one summer. The athlete’s name is Jerry Ahrlin. Jerry, who was already a great racer in Sweden was just finding his true niche in the ski world- long distance marathon racing. That summer, he showed our crew at the MWSC what world class training and technique was all about. (Jerry then went on to win the overall FIS Marathon Cup in 2007 and has since then finished second). It was so great training with him that summer that I asked if I could maybe train more with him later that fall. He of course said yes, and that the best way to do that would be to meet him and his club team from Ostersund, Sweden at their fall training camp in Ramsau, Austria. I thought about what a great opportunity that would be and went for it. There in Austria awaited a great few weeks of my development as a skier. Training at the same time on the glacier, trails and roads around Ramsau were some of the best club teams from Sweden and Norway, as well as World Cup teams from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Czech and Russia. I was training along side the athletes that I had for so long watched on Olympic and World Championship videos. I no longer needed to imagine how they skied in real life; I just needed to try to follow them for a few kilometers. It was sic. Coaching the Ostersund Ski Club at the time was a pretty big name- Magnar Dalen. It was awesome to meet Magnar and hear little bits of his training advice. For those of you who don’t know who Magnar is – he was a very competitive Norwegian Biathlete and then, post athletic carrier, went on to become a wax tech for the Norwegian ski team. He has since become one of the world best waxers and coaches. He coached the Swedish National Team while Per Elofsson was racing and now coaches the very successful Finnish Ski Team. He also has his own very expensive and elite wax line- Ski Wax Magnar. Magnar helped me out a lot on that trip by generously including me in the club’s training routine and finding me an inexpensive place to stay. Since then, I have only seen Magnar at the few World Cup races I have qualified for in Canada the past few years. We always exchange a hello. This January I was cooling down in between the rounds of the classic sprint and he saw that I had qualified in 30th position just barely squeaking into the rounds for the first time. He was excited for me, congratulated me and said, “So, are you ready to go to battle?” I said that I was and kept moving on in my warm down. I did not think too much about what he had said until after I had finished my race, getting quickly knocked out after the first round. When I thought about it though, he was right on, and I realized that racing at the World Cup level is like going to battle. You have the best athletes from each nation physically testing themselves against one another on the race course. There are not punches thrown to the face and swords swung, but there is an all out fight to the line. Hearts beating with adrenaline, bodies moving as fast and as hard as they can trying to clear lactate so they can continue charging on for a few more meters. When racing at the World Cup, the racer has to bring everything they have, both body and mind to their performance. If not, they will find themselves crushed on the result list with name after name pummeling them down the page because they did not fight for those last few seconds when they had the chance to out on the race course. There is no sympathy, and no false reality where people can think they are in better form than they are. You are testing yourself on the ultimate stage and if you are in the back you need to work harder to get yourself up to the front. If you do not, you will find yourself struggling and becoming over shadowed by those that are progressing forward as they dig a bit deeper. I knew all of this when I decided that I was going to go to Scandinavia to race. I knew that I was taking a big step and that I would probably be towards the back, but I also knew I was going to prepare as well as I could to put myself in the best possible position to battle for my pride. So my plan was this- I was going to leave for Europe as soon as I could to get as much time as possible to prepare for my races. I have a good friend from Norway, Borre Naess who skis on their national team, who said I could come and stay with him and we could do some training together prior to the races in Lathi. This was a huge help because it gave me a few extra days to adjust to European time and because we are close friends. He always motivates me to push my ability and that was going to be good for me going into my first weekend of racing. I was then going to fly to Lahti to meet up with the USST and lay down a solid result. Part of the plan worked great- My travel to Norway went smoothly. I adjusted to the time reasonably well, but was sleeping a ton- 11 hours a night plus a nap during the day. It was amazing how much sleep I needed before my body felt good. Borre and I got in some really easy skiing the first few days around his home in Norway (sweet single lane classic tracks that we groomed ourselves on his farm)! It was fun to be back visiting the area that I lived in 9 years ago. I did one threshold workout after I had been there for 3 days- 3X6 min pushing into L4 on the last effort. I felt good striding, but weak double poling. I then did one strength workout to stimulate the muscles in my upperbody and headed over to FIN. The day after travel I was tired even though it was a short flight. I took the morning easy, just did a jog, and put off my hard intensity workout until later in the afternoon. USST coach Matt Whitcomb helped me a ton with my afternoon session. He gave me some technique advice as I skied around the sprint course and took video. I felt surprisingly strong after taking the morning super easy and it gave me extra confidence going into the weekend. From hear on out it was just easy prep work for the upcoming races. I like to do a lot of easy jogging to help the legs feel fresh and some speeds the day before. The part of the plan that did not go so well was the first weekend of racing- skate sprint Sat, 15k skate Sun. I felt confident that I could lay down some real solid performances. My body was feeling better than I thought it was going to and I was itching to dig. I knew that qualifying for the sprint was going to be really tough, but I thought I could be close since the course in Lahti is fast. I had a great warm up and thought I laid down a decent effort. I knew I did not ski some of the transitions at world class caliber, but my V2 felt powerful the whole way and I had a good kick to the line. I finished 15 seconds out of first. It is one thing to feel awful and know you gave away a lot of time on the course, but another to feel pretty strong and still be that far back. I was definitely a bit disappointed. It was an awakening that my standard for a decent effort was not nearly where it needed to be. It was good for me to realize and I tried to move forward. Sunday was the 15k skate. I was more nervous for this race than any other World Cup start on the trip, mostly because my results in distance skiing have not been there this year. I did not really earn a distance World Cup start for these races, but I had scored a sub 60 point FIS distance race at the Telemark SuperTours. This gave me the opportunity to start a World Cup distance race if the chance arose. All of a sudden the option was there because the US had a few extra start spots and I figured I had to go for it. I knew more than anything it would be a good workout and I would have the chance to ski around the world’s best skaters. All I could hope for was to put forth my best effort and try to learn from some fast guys. In the end, the race was a representative effort of where my distance skiing stands right now. It was not an awful race for me. It probably would have put me around 5 to 10 in a domestic SuperTour and that is honestly where I have been skating this year. It was eye opening to see how smooth high speed is on skating skis! The few really fast guys that went by me were not jamming the tempo; they were gliding. That is where the true speed is made. My first weekend in Lahti, I learned that I have a lot to work on in my skating. I knew this before I arrived, but I really knew it after I left. The final stop on the Scandinavian tour was Trondheim, NOR. I had spent one night in Trondheim awhile back, but had never skied there before. Granasen is Trondheim’s famous Norwegian race venue and the sight of Bjorn Daehlie’s “perfect race”. He said following his 10k classic performance there at the1997 World Championships that he could not have skied any better. That says a lot coming from a multiple time Olympic and World Champion. He sets the bar pretty high! To say the least, I was fired up to be racing on some trails that were rich with XC history. The race was scheduled for Thursday and I knew it was my last shot at a good effort while on the trip. However, it has been classic sprinting that I have been feeling strongest in and the race my coach, Travis Jones, and I were really targeting. My biggest challenge going into the race was to not do too much. I had to back off of my intensity schedule going into the races in order to get a good fresh feeling in my legs. This meant skipping the hard workout I had planned for Tuesday and moving it to Wednesday afternoon. I knew I needed to do some sort of classic sprint effort if I was going to perform well on Thursday, but I also felt I was not ready to do the planned workout on Tuesday after traveling Monday. By waiting until Wednesday I allowed my legs to bring a little more punch to the workout and still “wake up” the body before the race. It was also important not to do too much the day before. Tearing your muscles in a hard workout prior to a sprint effort can hinder your potential for a fast qualifier the next day. It really is a delicate balance that is very individual. Anyway, the workout I did (1X sprint course at 90%, 3X each 3rd of sprint course at 95%, 5X 10 sec starts) left me feeling strong and confident that I had found some good timing in my skiing. Now I just needed to stay fresh and relax. Race day was exciting! I did not start until 2:45 PM and although it was raining down in Trondheim, it was snowing big wet flakes at 0° C at the race venue. We also only had 25 minutes to test skis on the course. This created a tight window for narrowing down the race ski selection. Lots of people were on Zeros, but my klister skis just seemed faster. Even though the snow was falling steadily, the track was glazing fast due to traffic on the course. Sometimes I am shaky about what skis to pick, but for some reason on that day I just new what the right decision was going to be for me, and I trusted it. I went with an older pair of 202 Fischer klister skis with a LJ03 grind. There is nothing fancy about the ski, but it always seems to be right in there. By the time I was done testing I was soaked, but really warmed up. I felt like my body was already in a good place so I did not want to overdo it. I just went back to the athlete trailer, changed into some dry clothes and spun on the bike until it was time to start. I did some light stretching to stay loose and then ran down to the pen. Chris Grover was in the starting corral and I gave him my clothes bag. At this point there was not much else to do. I was nervous, but my body felt good and my strategy was none at all. I went as fast as I could. I have been working on skiing bigger and taking in more ground with each stride and double pole. This is what I was thinking about during the race and also carrying speed through the transitions. Before I knew it I was hammering a big double pole down the finishing stretch. It felt good, but the weekend before had felt pretty good too so I was hesitant to know how to feel. I found out that I was only 8 seconds out and no matter where that put me I was pleased. It was definitely the closest I had ever been to the “Big Boys” before. I battled on the world’s stage and was within a fighting distance. It was the best I have ever done, but it left me wanting more- got to keep chasing the dream!

Quick Update

 

By Nicole De Yong

The past couple of weeks have definitely been a bit challenging. I am currently in Collingwood, Ontario for Canadian Nationals. Along with little snow and marginal racing conditions, I acquired a cold the day I arrived in Collingwood. The combination of being on the brink of sickness, traveling all day, getting little sleep, and skiing in pouring, resulted in a disappointing week of simply waiting for my symptoms to go away.

Today is day 9 and I’ve completed one out of three races. I sat the first two races out hoping to feel better. After waking up without a sore throat yesterday, I decided I was on the mend and raced the classic sprint. While I definitely did not feel 100%, I used yesterday’s race as a good “wakeup” workout for my body. I was pleased with my 11^th place finish, despite being sick the entire week.

I had hopes of racing the 30k race tomorrow, but my body is still fighting off sickness and I am hoping for complete health before I travel to Anchorage on Monday. U.S. Long-Distance Nationals is coming up on March 24^th in Fairbanks, AK and I am now focusing on good results there. Those races will wrap-up the 2009 season.

I will keep you posted from Alaska!