Trond Lays it Out

[ ]
Along with the interview of Trond, I encourage all to read Dick
(Richard) Taylor's book "No Pain, No Gain?," which can be bought
directly from him (Gould Academy) or at Akers:
http://www.akers-ski.com/Merchant2/m...ct_Cod e=7810.
Jeff, this is the book that you should have published.

My goal isn't to publish technical/advisory books on skiing or coaching
or other activities per se. But something different from the usual,
more inclusive.

I would like to check out that book sometime, though. If I liked it I
could stock it and help sell it. I just get swamped. (I'm putting out a
3rd ed of the recumbent book in a couple weeks.)

As regards the US team's coaching situation, there are different ways
of looking at it. You're obviously not a fan. Teams always have
opponents. I personally like the team's new approach to media and the
web and the new levels of discussion and openness. Maybe it was
inevitable with the advent of the web, but it seems like this US team
has embraced it. I also like how they were up front about various
gambles they took in training and technique.

I don't see it as fawning but as being fans of a team we like and as
being willing to listen. I doubt if anyone agrees with it all, but
that's not the point.

XC doesn't have the PR background that mainstream sports has. It's been
a smallworld scene of tiny resources. The resources are still tiny (the
racers are acting as reporters! The coach is a photographer and
webster!) but they've willingly left the enclosure of a small world. At
the same time they haven't gotten the perks/funding that often are part
of sports-exposure.

I think that for the skiers and coaches to learn more PR skills, as
they're doing, can help the team in the end. Sure it takes time and
might be a dilution of training, but getting funding requires PR and if
it's not forthcoming: ya gotta DO IT YOURSELF. The US team today now
makes its own media. This is also part of the gamble. It's rare that
athletes/coaches have to do this---or choose to attempt it---it's also
rare that they have the talent to do it. I think it's cool and I hope
that all their gambles pay off.

--JP

schreef in bericht
ups.com...

I see the typical COMMUTES as being downtime. These could be turned
into training in MOST cases (I know there are many long drives, etc,
but MOST aren't). Converting a motor-commute into human-power seems so
healthy and conducive to a good, big training base that it would likely
even be worth moving one's home to make this suitable.
Commuting is perfect. It's saved my off-season more than once. Long commutes
twice a week, shorter one daily. Nothing to start a day than riding your
bike to work. My prime teenage school commuting was just 6km single way,
sometimes a detour to visit friends, but unknowingly that really must have
giving me the basis for a post-teen sports career. I'm a slacker in many
ways, so I tend to run late. Morning commutes automatically become time
trials.
Still, where-ever I go, I try to take my bike. Often it ends up a time trial
of some sort. I aim for a given average and will work to make it. Tail wind
days are forced upon record attempts. No matter the week's schedule, good
wind means I'll be giving it my all to set a new record.
In cycling there was a hype to train less the past years. Many of my friends
are fitting in more recovery in there thaining schedule, and seem to be
doing even better than in mre"disciplined" days. Teh few races I won or
scored above my regular level, were often in times of very little training,
and lots of relaxing. Enjoying my sport.

The kinds of hours referred to here seem unreal to me. I only manage those
on MTB vacations where I ride in the mountains every single day. No work or
family to worry about, cooked meals, hotel rooms, hanging with friends.

I'd be interested to know whom of the recognized worlds best does the fewest
work, and what his/her training schedule looks like. I don't believe more is
always better. A well-balanced 10hr week should be more effective than a
20hr blind fury one. Then again, after a week of extremely intensive
training I do make giants leaps forwards. But 52 of those for years on
end...I think I'd not live to be very old that way.
And one athlete will require/cope with more hours than the other, and come
to the same results.

I thought Trond had a number of good points. So often I've seen skiers
going back and forth with the coaches giving advice. This would be fine
if the skiers then trained at times besides practice, but I doubt much
additional training actually occurs. Obviously, the number of hours is
not the goal, but if you're able to train pretty smart, train a lot or
hours, recover well, and you have 800+ hrs per year, you're probably
going to do well. I seem to remember Pete V saying he trained 2 hrs in
the morning and 2 hrs in the afternoon.

Jay Wenner

The kinds of hours referred to here seem unreal to me. I only manage those
on MTB vacations where I ride in the mountains every single day. No work or
family to worry about, cooked meals, hotel rooms, hanging with friends.

I'd be interested to know whom of the recognized worlds best does the fewest
work, and what his/her training schedule looks like. I don't believe more is
always better. A well-balanced 10hr week should be more effective than a
20hr blind fury one. Then again, after a week of extremely intensive
training I do make giants leaps forwards. But 52 of those for years on
end...I think I'd not live to be very old that way.
And one athlete will require/cope with more hours than the other, and come
to the same results.

I trained about 400 hours this year, and I am pretty sure I was beating
guys training a lot more than me. The key for me is quality of
training. I don't have a ton of free time between working and going
to school for electrical engineering, but it is hugely important to me
to get 2 quality interval sessions in during the late summer and fall.
I recall reading some place that Thomas Alsgaard only needed around 500
hours to reach international success, but he is the exception.
Also, when counting hours you have to compare apples to apples. A 3
hour road bike is no where near the same as a 3 hour run. When I do
bike training (which is not very often at all), I count easy road
biking at 50% of running or roller skiing. This is because on a bike,
your weight is being held up by the seat. I guess I would consider
running as the gold standard.
I have only been training seriously for the last 2 summers, but
hopefully I'll be able to bump my hours by 100 this year and come
into next years ski season fitter and lighter than other seasons. This
year's Birkie I was 176, next year I want to be back down to my
freshman weight of 163.

mliebsch

I think Trond says it well when he compares Marit's training hours to
Toby Fred's. Each person needs different hours to race effectively. Did
I read somewhere that Kristen Stiera (sp?) is over 1000 hours per year?
I know from personal experience that I need lots of hours of training
to race fast. This has been hard as I too have been working to get my
engineering degree (one month to go!!!!) and fitting in training time
has been difficult. Training by commuting has been my saving grace.
Rollerskiing through downtown Calgary with a backpack full of books can
be interesting to say the least.

CK

Nathan has a post about, among other things Tyler Hamilton on the FSx
website (http://www.xcskiracing.com) and I can't help mention
something a friend of mine said about Hamilton about 8 years ago.
Tyler was back in Massachusetts in the winter and was doing bike
training. A lot. Like six hours a day almost every day in winter on
the bike. And my friend kept mumbling to himself "Tyler went riding
with me and kept riding. He rode six hours. He's riding six hours a
day. He keeps riding..."

JFT

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Matt wrote:
I trained about 400 hours this year...

Counting cycling as half, I trained about 290 hrs last year.

Jay Wenner

On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:23:16 -0500, John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

Nathan has a post about, among other things Tyler Hamilton on the FSx
website (http://www.xcskiracing.com) and I can't help mention
something a friend of mine said about Hamilton about 8 years ago.
Tyler was back in Massachusetts in the winter and was doing bike
training. A lot. Like six hours a day almost every day in winter on
the bike. And my friend kept mumbling to himself "Tyler went riding
with me and kept riding. He rode six hours. He's riding six hours a
day. He keeps riding..."

I just talked to a woman today who's daughter trains 30 hours per week: in
dance. The article is correct that in other sports kids will accept the
work. I know as a high school coach it is partly a challenge to find a
balance between kids just starting out who could never spend a fraction of
the time needed and those who are really ready for an elite course.

Gene, man you sound pretty grumpy. And I've known you to wax on about
technique now and then.

Thanks for your serious response, Jeff. It deserves one in reply,
although I won't claim it's entirely symmetrical to yours.

First, the views expressed in the post were mine and in no way
Trond's, which is plain enough from his third interview and should have
not been otherwise in mine. Yet, it's hard to miss the obvious
contradiction between what Trond says in the quote about disunity in the
ranks of U.S. coaches and his failure to note that he hired and now
promotes the person who more than anyone else in recent years polarized
U.S. coaching ranks, with the "new skate" campaign. While there's
obviously a lot more to skiing and its development than that, I'm not
aware that this difference, which raises a number of fundamental
issues, has been overcome.

Here's briefly what I see happened over the years (and forms the
basis of the curt view expressed):

-- in roughly 1999 the Subaru team, or whichever one of them Pete was
leading, comes out with a front page article in Master Skier introducing
the 'new skate' approach under Pete's byline. The first article
generates more articles and exchanges and Pete and the team use it to
market camps, classes and lessons and themselves around the country;

-- 2002 Pete comes out with an autobiography (published by you), which
of course is widely marketed and read. Some public praise. In my
opinion, the author doesn't have anything to say and effectively admits
as much at the end, which is too bad because there are some things in
his experience to learn from (perhaps more in the negative, but those
count too). He doesn't seem mature enough yet to explore them, which
leaves the book like a self-marketing tool for his career. It does
reveal his turning off to school learning at 13 or so, and the family
penchant for story telling (father) and super car sales
(grandfather?);

-- Pete gets chosen for USST asst coach by Trond;

-- New skate debate continues abreast with strong current of disdain
for the views of more studied and experienced coaches and for
scientific methodology and biomechanics from its proponents, including
a ski team member(s). The whole thing has the flavor of of cliquism
and implicit flag-waving;

-- The "new U.S. Ski Team" is formed and the marketing machine starts,
with Team Today later created to raise money and support (I
contribute). Great things are projected, building on the good results
in 2002 with a podium at the 2006 Olympics. Although results in the
meantime still miss much more than showing promise, critics and
skeptics are silenced or move into background (and hope for the best);

-- 2006 head coach resigns post-Olympics, admitting failure in terms of
result goals, while blasting the country's whole approach to training of
young skiers, blasting the training attitudes of the vast majority of
elite skiers, blasting the country's coaches, blasting chat group
critics, strongly backing Pete, and generally giving off a major whiff
of sour grapes, except that his criticism of training has a big ring of
truth - and negative implications for the current batch of young adult
skiers. One wonders where's he been with it the past four years, when
he was a position to force the discussion publicly.

-- Post Olympics 2006, Team Today in effect admits it's really more a
team tomorrow, and Pete V appointed head coach in formal announcement.
Met with almost complete silence.


Jeff, what I don't like is the dynamic that's gone on and the style of
leadership and thinking that comes from it; I've got no beef with
the team. I think that dynamic has undermined some of the good things
the USST leadership has been trying to do to develop ski racing in the
U.S. Of course, you can tell from Dell T's post that there's a price
for such "negative" thinking (hell, I've said nothing compared to the
former coach!). My inclincation is to root for athletes I take to from
most anywhere, yet I can get excited like the next person when watching
Kris Freeman in the first leg of the World Champs in 2003. It's too bad
that he hasn't been able to build on it. I hope that's only a "yet."

What I like about Dick Taylor's book is that it challenges a wide
range of readers (parents, coaches, skiers) to think, to read, to
visualize, to experiment, and to look at things new and anew. It's a
wise book. That's a relative rarity in any sport, let alone recently in
cross-country skiing, which is in part probably why it's so little
known or found in shops (I don't know if he made a tour, altho he
at least used to do clinics). We'd have a country of much better coaches
and teachers and skiers if the spirit and kinds of approaches found
in there were better understood.

Gene


wrote:

[ ]
Along with the interview of Trond, I encourage all to read Dick
(Richard) Taylor's book "No Pain, No Gain?," which can be bought
directly from him (Gould Academy) or at Akers:
http://www.akers-ski.com/Merchant2/m...ct_Cod e=7810.
Jeff, this is the book that you should have published.

My goal isn't to publish technical/advisory books on skiing or
coaching or other activities per se. But something different from the
usual, more inclusive.

I would like to check out that book sometime, though. If I liked it I
could stock it and help sell it. I just get swamped. (I'm putting out
a 3rd ed of the recumbent book in a couple weeks.)

As regards the US team's coaching situation, there are different ways
of looking at it. You're obviously not a fan. Teams always have
opponents. I personally like the team's new approach to media and the
web and the new levels of discussion and openness. Maybe it was
inevitable with the advent of the web, but it seems like this US team
has embraced it. I also like how they were up front about various
gambles they took in training and technique.

I don't see it as fawning but as being fans of a team we like and as
being willing to listen. I doubt if anyone agrees with it all, but
that's not the point.

XC doesn't have the PR background that mainstream sports has. It's
been a smallworld scene of tiny resources. The resources are still
tiny (the racers are acting as reporters! The coach is a photographer
and webster!) but they've willingly left the enclosure of a small
world. At the same time they haven't gotten the perks/funding that
often are part of sports-exposure.

I think that for the skiers and coaches to learn more PR skills, as
they're doing, can help the team in the end. Sure it takes time and
might be a dilution of training, but getting funding requires PR and
if it's not forthcoming: ya gotta DO IT YOURSELF. The US team today
now makes its own media. This is also part of the gamble. It's rare
that athletes/coaches have to do this---or choose to attempt
it---it's also rare that they have the talent to do it. I think it's
cool and I hope that all their gambles pay off.

--JP

"I trained about 400 hours this year."
Using your math, I am at about 520 ytd. which includes a major byrn-out
that I believe was caused by high intensity training very early in the
year and not so much the hours. People's bodies react differently to
training and mine definitely does not react well to high intensity.

"I am pretty sure I was beating guys training a lot more than me."
Probably more of an indication that if you trained more you could even
ski faster, which should worry people.

163...
Don't worry so much about the absolute weight, just the type of
weight...

byrnes-out

PS you want an internship or not?