Training Log Archive: biggins

Training day! A bunch of Norwegians stuck around, and two swiss guys, and then the three of us. Another foot or so of snow overnight, and most of the trails had been hit once with a snowmobile, but there was still a lot of fluff everywhere.

Morning session was a corridor map, with most legs having very restricted route choice, so often there was only one connecting trail visible for parts of the leg, which made it a bit like a line-o. My goal for this one was to not stop moving ever, especially at controls and tight turns and junctions, so I'd practice reading the map while skiing, even I had to slow down a bunch. It worked ok for the most part, though sometimes I had to slow down quite a bit.

Afternoon session was a line-o, which snaked all through the trails around the map. We had been talking to the groomer guys at lunch, who are also good skiers, about skiing technique and training and whatnot. So for this one I was trying some of the poling and skating techniques they'd mentioned. Most took a lot of strength (or really a normal amount, the arms are just tired), so I did the line-o as intervals, going about 5 minutes on, 30-60 seconds off (but not reading the map, just resting). This was enough to let me go hard for the 5 minutes, plus I was mostly leap-frogging Alex so I got to throw some elbows on the way by each time.