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Archive for October, 2008

Samling Torsby

Friday, October 24th, 2008

I’m back in Lillehammer now after spending a week in Torsby, Sweden with Team Statkraft at a training camp (samling). During our time there we took advantage of the ski-tunnel and the great outdoor biathlon facilities. The weather seemed to cooperate too. It was a little cold at times to feel comfortable on rollerskis, but that’s just fine seeing as winter is right around the corner.

During our first morning, we arrived at the ski tunnel about ten minutes before it opened to join the fifty others lining up to get in. As one would imagine, this time of year is a very busy time for the tunnel. An incentive to arriving early is that those first on the tracks would enjoy the best skiing for the day, because after about two hours the snow in the 1.2 km tunnel would get a bit soft.

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Posted in Norway, Training | 7 Comments »

Snø, Staking, og Sverige

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

Last Sunday I woke up to a foggy morning, but I couldn’t see any of the snow (snø) that was predicted, only heavy frost. A little disappointed I strapped on the rollerskis and went out for my first ever “staking” (double-pole) interval session. Sure double-poling isn’t anything new, but this interval session wasn’t focused on classic skiing. Rather, we used skate skis and skate poles to isolate the specific muscles used in skating. The Norwegians make a definite distinction between this kind of “staking” I just described and classic double-poling. In my opinion it is a kind of specific upper-body strength training for skate skiing.

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Posted in Norway, Training | 1 Comment »

En ny begynnelse

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

The seasons are changing here in Norway and that brings only one thing to mind: snow. Believe it or not, this weekend it’s probably going so snow here in Lillehammer, and, if that happens, it will be the earliest I’ve seen snow in the fall. As the title of this post suggests (“a new beginning”), now marks a time of change in the seasons, but also, and conveniently, marks the beginning of my blog on FasterSkier.

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Posted in Norway, Transitions | 1 Comment »