Gene Goldenfeld wrote:
There was a recent study that shows that readers mistake the tone of
50% of emails. To wit, Joseph, I think you better read again: the word
or idea of irrelevance of LT in x-c skiing, relative or absolute, was
not used by Seiler. His point was that it doesn't set the speed limit
for elite/WC x-c athletes, as it does in other sports. But note that he
is not talking about you or me. His one reference to one existant study
of the latter group notes that lactate levels of untrained competitors
were not measured during the race.

Certainly the term "skiers who were untrained for racing" is not very
specific, but to me that means recreational skiers who just ski without
a very hi level of exertion, and thus are not used to the burn. I
wouldn't expect them to push it like someone who does race. Even
someone who races slowly at a hobby level probably tolerates a high
concentration of lactic acid, just as the elite losers in the test,
when compared to non-racer types who don't know how to suffer! I guess
the info in the article isn't directly applicable to normal people like
myself, but to me the article was half-full, not half empty. ;-)

That said, I guess irrelevance is too specific a word. I was thinking
about how my potential performance on skis differs from my performance
on a bike. All of the bike events I care about take me 6+ hours to
complete, and thus are very much governed by my LT, and glycogen
stores. While it seems ski events are generally much, much shorter, and
less dependent on LT, perhaps taking more advantage of my anaerobic
stomp/muscle style more than cycling does.

That said, another article on his site about Norwegian endurance
training methods - http://home.hia.no/~stephens/skiing.htm - proposes a
training method that deemphasizes level 4 in favor of 1 and 5 (L5=10%
of all training). Other recent documents from the Norwegian Olympic
Committee (distributed thru fasterskier.com's sub) suggest that this is
not the accepted approach or breakdown of training zones anymore.

Gene

Based on recent results, I don't know how much stock to put into
Norwegian training methods! ;-) At this point I have no training
method. I just ski hard all the time, unless I am out with my kids,
which means zone 1. But now that I am thinking about my performance, I
will start thinking about some sort of program. But interestingly the 1
and 5 with a focus on always doing some 5 and cutting back on the 1 if
necessary is more or less what I do, but I could add some more
structured zone 1. (ok, maybe it's zone 4, but I try for 5!)

Actually tomorrow I have an apointment to have my LT, VO2max, and power
profile measured on my bike. I plan to crunch some numbers with the
results (mostly for fun) to see how I stack up, in partipular in the
ml/min/kg^2/3 sense. Does anyone know of a similar source of info for
XC as this for cycling:

http://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/...profile_v4.gif

Knowing that elite skiers have a certain value and that untrained
people have another gives a range, but where are the intermediate lines
drawn?

Joseph