Vermont Training Block
It’s hard to believe it has only been just over two weeks since the Düsseldorf World Cup. I’ve spent the majority of the past 14 days training at home in Vermont and trying to fine-tune the speed and strength needed to make it this winter. It’s a nice change to be training at home this time of year. In most cases, I leave the U.S. in November and don’t return back to the States until April. This year’s schedule is a little more forgiving, and with an entire week of races scheduled for Canada in January, I will spend more time at home than ever before. The only hard part will be trying to stay healthy during all the travel back a forth from Europe.
I felt fine the first few days back after my flight from Germany. Unfortunately I started coming down with something after my fourth day back. I have what most cross country skier’s possess and that’s sickness denial. It must be one of those things that we acquire over the years. But on that fourth day when I woke up feeling not-so-good, I pretty much did the worst possible thing I could have done: I went out and hammered out some sprint speed intervals fallowed by a hard strength session that evening. When I woke up the next day I could hardly swallow, my throat hurt so bad.
For me, staying in and not training is one of the hardest things to do as an athlete… Especially this time of year. You feel like the season is so close and there are only so many days to work out before it’s serious race time. It’s awful. The helpless feeling of not being able to do anything but sit there and get slower. Again, after being a cross-country skier for so many years, this antagonizing feeling of taking a day off could also be considered mildly insane.
As skiers, we hate the thought of taking a day off. But in reality, it can be the best thing for us. After all, it is mid-November, so if you’re not in shape yet and you haven’t put in the time over the summer…. You’re pretty much screwed. And sometime having a really easy week to help your body absorb the training in exactly what you need. This is what I had to keep telling myself while I couldn’t go out training for a few days.
Even though I was bummin’ on being sick, I was able to have a lot of fun on my time off in VT. I was able to hang out with all my buddies and do our normal redneck stuff. Watching football, grilling food, taking a good sauna, and driving VT back roads…. All the things I can’t do anywhere else but right here at home. One day after, I was feeling a little bit better. I did a four-hour roller ski/ run combo from my house in Shaftsbury all the way up to my Buddies’ house in Weston to hang out and watch the game.
I was forced out of my element for a few days, though, for the annual New York City USSA Ski Ball. This is a fundraising event that the U.S. Ski team puts on every year in downtown Manhattan. In some ways it’s kind just a fun get-together for all the trusties and sponsors of USSA. Now I don’t really belong in the city, and this is the one event a year that I put a suit on for, but it was still a really good night. I’m always stoked to get the opportunity to show folks what XC ski racing is really like. There was a good group of athletes from Alpine and Snowboarding there too, so it was awesome to see everybody and hang out for the night in the big city.
I am back home now with only a few more days to train before we head over to Finland for the next few stops on the XC World Cup. My next sprint race will be in Kuusamo, Finland, at the end of the month, and then it’s off to Davos, Switzerland, and Rybinsk, Russia. Once we start traveling I will have a lot more interesting things to write about so keep checking back.