by GRP Skier, Jack Young

Recently, most of GRP snow made the transatlantic voyage to Oberhof, Germany to train at the indoor “ski hall” and get in some valuable on-snow hours. Cross-country skiing as a sport depends on cold weather, but for most skiers, most of the training volume occurs on pavement using rollerskis with the addition of a heavy dose of cross training (running, cycling, swimming, etc…). Although skiers can train quite well using rollerskis, they are far from a perfect substitute for the real thing. This is why getting to train on snow during the summer months can make a huge difference once the snow starts falling. I’m not going to spend too much time explaining just how important this on snow time is because frankly, I don’t really know how much it moves the needle. Therefore, I’ll use the simplest reasoning possible to explain why getting on snow in the summer is necessary: the more time an athlete can spend practicing their sport - our sport being skiing not rollerskiing - the better that athlete will get.

Before I get into what my main focuses for this camp were, perhaps a description of the terrain we were working with in the ski hall would be helpful. It wasn’t glamorous, and it was far from exciting, but the ~1.1k indoor strip of snow included two out and backs with short climbs and a ~600m loop with a larger hill that I think would be categorized as a “B” climb. The snow conditions themselves were close to ideal. Because they warm the place on Sunday, regroom on Monday and open again on Tuesday, the ski hall was in pristine condition with ripping fast corduroy and bullet-proof classic tracks on Tuesday and Wednesday. Later in the week, the snow became a bit sugary, but all things considered, the track held together well, and I was pleased with the snow conditions for every session. Long story short: it was firm and fast.

The name of the game for the 10-day block of training we did in Oberhof was quality intensity sessions. As the winter approaches, we will continue to decrease volume and ramp up intensity, but after a hard summer of long hours, this camp was our first taste for the year of being rested enough to execute a lot of intense session in a short period of time. I’ll include the precise details of the training I did in Oberhof at the bottom of this page in case anyone is interested in the specifics of what an on-snow intensity block looks like in practice for me.

The Transition to Snow

Every year that I have competitively cross-country skied up until now, I have had to make the transition from rollerskis to skiing on snow sometime in November. The transition seems to get easier every year, but even last year, my on-snow technique at the beginning of the winter was not as good as it was the previous spring at the end of the race season. However, this summer, I had two opportunities to get on snow in the summer. The first was more volume oriented and took place on Eagle Glacier in Alaska (I wrote a blog about my time there for the Enjoy Winter Skipost), and the second was the intensity block in Oberhof that is the subject of this post. I am hoping that getting these two weeks in on snow, one in mid-July and the other in late August, will be a difference maker for the start of the season this year. Ideally, these two camps interspersed in the summer will not only prevent the degradation of my on-snow technique but will allow me to hit the ground running with better technique at the start of this race season than I had at the end of this previous year.

So, if there is such a big difference between technique work on snow versus on pavement, what did I focus on during the camp in Oberhof? The short answer is that I focused on getting and keeping my hips forward in both skate and classic, but I think we can dive a little bit deeper than that.

Skate Focus: Keeping the center of gravity moving forward as opposed to dropping down through the pushing motion of my V2

Relative to other cross-country skiers, I have always had stronger legs. I’ve always thought this is one of the reasons that my best discipline is skate sprinting. However, having stronger legs allows me to get away with sitting back while V2ing up steeper hills. Sitting back has always felt “right”, and I’ve managed to go pretty fast while doing it, but it is also inefficient and could be a way I’m bleeding time and energy on long V2 climbs in both sprints and distance races.

I like this position:

But when I start pushing off my back leg I sink down too far instead of driving my entire body (including my hips) forward:

I think I made up some ground on this during camp, but I still have some work to do.

Striding Focus: Long, efficient run/shuffle

Since my main focus for improvement this year is classic sprint qualifiers, my focus for classic skiing during this camp was the kinds of technique I will use during qualifiers. For striding, this generally means running outside of the tracks or shuffling inside the tracks. I can run pretty well, but I am not very efficient when I do, so the focus for speed workouts during this camp was finding a somewhat efficient shuffle that I could break out on a hill like the finisher in Ruka. I was quite happy with the progress I made, and I think all I need to focus on at this point is keeping that technique as long and relaxed as possible while going all-out.

Double Pole Focus: Shortening the back end of the poling motion to allow for my body to get and stay more forward

Double Poling has always been the weakest part of my skiing. I don’t really know what exactly the reason is, but I do know that my lower body has always been stronger proportionally to my upper body. However, there of course are a few things technically that are holding me back, and I really tried to zero in on those things during camp. My number one focus was shortening the back end of my poling motion to get more out of the front of it. When I get tired double poling, I leave my arms behind me and then end up planting my poles long after I have already started crunching (a lot of wasted power up top). This screenshot from the finish in Les Rousses is a good example of what I need to stop doing:

Alternatively, I am focusing on stopping my hands as early as possible, so that I can throw my weight forward and actually have the poles perpendicular to the snow while I am at my tallest. Here are two body positions I am proud of achieving during a speed workout:

Application of Technique

Working on technique at low speeds or during short race-paced pickups is all well and good, but it doesn’t prepare you to actually ski well in a race scenario. We did a lot of controlled L3 and some shorter bits at sprint qualifier pace during this camp. These were great opportunities to refine technique because the intervals themselves weren’t all that hard. However, to eventually make a lasting change in technique, you have to be able to do it when you are hurting. Doing a few real sprint qualifiers and then a 10k time trial at the end of camp really allowed me to check if I was making progress from the technique sessions we had been doing all week. In those higher intensity situations, I wasn’t looking perfect, but I’m happy to say that I think we made some positive changes.

Training Plan

Saturday
AM: 2:00 easy skate ski with 12x10 seconds speeds
PM: 1:15 easy classic ski with 6x10 second speeds

Sunday
AM: 2:00 classic with 30 minutes continuous L3 then 4x45 seconds striding at sprint qualifier pace then 4x30 seconds double poling at sprint qualifier pace
PM: off

Monday
AM: off
PM: off

Tuesday
AM: 2:15 skate with 30 min continuous L3 then some shorter speeds
PM: jog

Wednesday
AM: 2:00 classic. 4x sprint qualifier classic with 15’ rest between.
PM: 1:15 easy skate

Thursday
AM: 2:00 classic
PM: 1:00 skate

Friday
AM: 2:00 classic with 6x50” sprint qualifier pace
PM: off

Saturday
AM: 2:00 skate. 10k Skate TT
PM: 1:30 easy classic

Sunday
AM: 2:30 L1->L2 classic

Training Thoughts from Oberhof

GRP in Lake Placid: USBA Training Camp Edition