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#1
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Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier
I figure that trying to do well at 50k events just about doubles the
hours and effort and organization and risk of sickness/injury and wrinkles and haggardness and fatigue involved in XC racing. So why bother? The thrill of the big league has to be really important to someone to want to put up with that level of hassle. It seems like one can do pretty darn good, and have tons of fun, and ski and train as much as you like, however you like, with more variety, if one sticks to the 10-30k race length range. -- Jeff Potter **** *Out Your Backdoor * http://www.outyourbackdoor.com publisher of outdoor/indoor do-it-yourself culture... ...offering "small world" views on bikes, bows, books, movies... ...rare books on ski, bike, boat culture, plus a Gulf Coast thriller about smalltown smuggling ... more radical novels coming up! ...original downloadable music ... and articles galore! plus national "Off the Beaten Path" travel forums! HOLY SMOKES! |
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#2
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Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier
Jeff - you're absolutely right. Which is why we do it. With the short
races you don't get the animal bragging rights. Tim (Ain't it great to be able to refer to a 30k race as a "...short race"?!? yeeeHawww!) From: Jeff Potter Organization: Out Your Backdoor: publishing modern folkways Reply-To: AMcom Newsgroups: rec.skiing.nordic Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 12:19:12 -0400 Subject: Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier I figure that trying to do well at 50k events just about doubles the hours and effort and organization and risk of sickness/injury and wrinkles and haggardness and fatigue involved in XC racing. So why bother? The thrill of the big league has to be really important to someone to want to put up with that level of hassle. It seems like one can do pretty darn good, and have tons of fun, and ski and train as much as you like, however you like, with more variety, if one sticks to the 10-30k race length range. -- Jeff Potter **** *Out Your Backdoor * http://www.outyourbackdoor.com publisher of outdoor/indoor do-it-yourself culture... ...offering "small world" views on bikes, bows, books, movies... ...rare books on ski, bike, boat culture, plus a Gulf Coast thriller about smalltown smuggling ... more radical novels coming up! ...original downloadable music ... and articles galore! plus national "Off the Beaten Path" travel forums! HOLY SMOKES! |
#3
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Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier
On Mon, 15 Sep 2003, Tim Dudley wrote:
Jeff - you're absolutely right. Which is why we do it. With the short races you don't get the animal bragging rights. . . From: Jeff Potter can do pretty darn good, and have tons of fun, and ski and train as much as you like, however you like, with more variety, if one sticks to the 10-30k race length range. I agree with Jeff - at least for me. I used to do the 50-60K races, but very slowly. After working (for years) to learn how to ski faster, I found that I can't ski fast for more than 1.5-2 hours, given the hours of training that I do (and my physiology). When I've occasionally tried the "longer" races (like the first US Vasaloppet 42K classic), I bonked something terrible in the last part. I really enjoy doing the 10-30K races - I let my betters contest the longer ones, and do just fine in the shorter ones. An added benefit, like at the Birke, among others, is that I get to watch the big guys come in after I've rested and changed clothes. -Ken ************************************************** ********* Kenneth Salzberg Hamline University School of Law (651) 523-2354 1536 Hewitt Ave. Sisu Skier - 50K Club St. Paul, MN 55104 ************************************************** **************** |
#4
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Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier
I'm not a racer. I ski because I love everything about skiing, and it makes
me healthy and keeps me healthy. I ski only one race a year, and that doesn't happen every year. I have skied 50K races only 3 times - the first time only because I didn't have a clue how long 50km was! - and I never win my age group, but I also never finish last in my age group. I think that knowing that you can ski 50km in a reasonable time (4 to 5 hrs) is one of those very excellent things in life. (Actually, being able to finish a 50k race without hurting yourself is one of those amazing things.) When you watch the Olympic (or any other) coverage of the 50k, you understand intimately what's involved and what's going on, and you can say to yourself, "I've done that". We lose our perspective when we get into this. If you consider yourself with the great unwashed, you realize how special it is to be able to ski 50km. You are doing 8km more than a marathon, in the middle of winter, with sometimes pretty serious elevation changes, on skis, probably carrying something, and doing it in about the same time as the marathoners. That's pretty special. We often don't realize it here, because this newsgroup is full of excellent skiers who just sort of take that distance for granted. Bjørn Daelie talks about this in "The Hunt for Gold" in a section titled (in Tjørborn's book) "The Joy of Being In Shape": "...Most everyone understands ithat it is fun to stand on top of the victory podium. But it is also a fantastic feeling to feel that you are in good shape. I was reflecting on that when last July I rode my bike more than 300 kilometers to a cabin we had rented in Sweden...it was while I pushed hard throught he rolling hills on the way to the border that I realized how great this is. To be so strong and have the endurance to jump on a bike and pedal 300 kilometers at a decent pace..." Now, there's good shape, and then there's Daelie good shape (his "decent pace" was 300km in four hrs and ten minutes!) However, he's described how I feel: I know that I can, and have, skied 50km at a decent pace. And can do it again, with some work. Tim From: (Kenneth Salzberg) Organization: Hamline University Reply-To: Newsgroups: rec.skiing.nordic Date: 15 Sep 2003 12:06:49 -0700 Subject: Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier On Mon, 15 Sep 2003, Tim Dudley wrote: Jeff - you're absolutely right. Which is why we do it. With the short races you don't get the animal bragging rights. . . From: Jeff Potter can do pretty darn good, and have tons of fun, and ski and train as much as you like, however you like, with more variety, if one sticks to the 10-30k race length range. I agree with Jeff - at least for me. I used to do the 50-60K races, but very slowly. After working (for years) to learn how to ski faster, I found that I can't ski fast for more than 1.5-2 hours, given the hours of training that I do (and my physiology). When I've occasionally tried the "longer" races (like the first US Vasaloppet 42K classic), I bonked something terrible in the last part. I really enjoy doing the 10-30K races - I let my betters contest the longer ones, and do just fine in the shorter ones. An added benefit, like at the Birke, among others, is that I get to watch the big guys come in after I've rested and changed clothes. -Ken ************************************************** ********* Kenneth Salzberg Hamline University School of Law (651) 523-2354 1536 Hewitt Ave. Sisu Skier - 50K Club St. Paul, MN 55104 ************************************************** **************** |
#5
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Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier
Something's wrong here. That works out to about 45 mph AVS.
Fitzgerald? |
#6
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Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier
You're justifiably suspicious. I mis-read the passage. What he says is
that he biked 300km from his place to a cabin he had rented in Sweden, and his split to the Swedish border was 4hr and 10 minutes. So we don't know how far he biked in 4hr 10. I still think he makes a good point, even if he doesn't bike as fast as I had indicated. (It did seem like a "...decent pace.") Tim From: "Fitzgerald" Organization: Comcast Online Newsgroups: rec.skiing.nordic Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 21:48:38 GMT Subject: Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier Something's wrong here. That works out to about 45 mph AVS. Fitzgerald? |
#7
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Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier
If you take it from my perspective- a non competator, or one who competes to
triumph over self, anything less than 50 km is not so important in terms as an "event". After falling away from competition, and then re-entering the competetion world I realized it made no sense for me to drive 200 miles to ski 50 minutes and come in in the lower top third. Why bother? I could stay home and ski all day and not have to drive or get weirded out by skiing when muddling through an already stressful day to day life. So then the goal became fitness, fun, and the challange of distance, and taking in new experiences. Citizen marathon skiing was the means to achieve those goals for me. Completion with dignity! XC ski racing is an ultimate competion IMO. Only boxing comes close as far as I'm concerned. (And that's a brutal sport that leaves you poor and dumb.) I think it would be more uncomfortable for me to ski a 15 to 30 km all out effort than a 50 to 75 km Marathon at a bit under LT. I suspect though, at the WC level, the per Km. rate for a 50 km. doesn't fall that far off the 15 km. pace, and I'd think that blood labs would indicate that 2 hours of full out racing is about the max before rate and stride length takes a plunge downward. Tough to knowbecause 50 km is the maximum length ofrace against the clock distances isn't it? Anthing longer is head to head competition with strategy, and likely some slower speeds involved due to strategy. Didn't Daehlie get into some kind of toxic blood problem at Nagano Olympics due to his 50 KM effort? Gary Jacobson Rosendale, NY |
#8
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Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Dudley" To: "Multiple recipients of list NORDIC-SKI" Sent: Monday, September 15, 2003 2:49 PM Subject: Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier If you consider yourself with the great unwashed, you realize how special it is to be able to ski 50km. You are doing 8km more than a marathon, in the middle of winter, with sometimes pretty serious elevation changes, on skis, probably carrying something, and doing it in about the same time as the marathoners. That's pretty special. We often don't realize it here, because this newsgroup is full of excellent skiers who just sort of take that distance for granted. Good point. I had a similar thought this summer whilst trail running with the KongsBerger training group. Here was a bunch of 40 and 50 year men and women that can run in the woods for 3 hours straight and tell jokes during the run. How fine it is to be a part of that! Erik Brooks, Seattle |
#9
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Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier
Doing 50k's as a daylong event of distinction does seem very cool. And
surely not as hard on a body as training and racing one for top results. It's a wonderful distance and if skied moderately is reasonable to do: still one should prep for it with several 4-hour other outings. I just don't have that kind of time. If I made that kind of time---always nice to spend so many hours outside, it would be a family/work/life/errands stress. And even just cruising a 50k actually does tap you out pretty good. I see Peter's point about shorter races being hard on the body due to the intensity. When I was racing 50's I do recall backing off somewhat, not digging as deep, to go the distance. Yet we would usually fly thru the finishes of the shorter events before their winners would come along. And I recall my splits basically being the same as my times for those shorter events. There is a sense that when really racing 50k's that you're going just as hard as a 10k only for 5 times as long. It's kinda like there's just one speed: all out. But it does seem to have slightly different expressions. ---It just takes tons more time to train to that 50k level and it wears you down more to accomplish it. Both of which I remember and which I won't get sucked into again even though I'm nowhere near that anymore. I just find that getting ready for and achieving midpack results in shorter events is a fun, fit, lark in comparison---pleasant on all the systems. I do like the daylong touring, though! This sport sure does have a lot to offer, eh? As for being fit, when you're ready for 50k it really does seem like the world is your oyster. Biking, canoeing, all come easy. Other distance ski races are no problem (I never found that I lost my speediness for 10ks). Yet! You do get sick and injured lots more often when at your gungho marathon level. And I found that I did have some limits on my all-round fitness: it's not such great training for pushing a car out of the snowbank or for wrestling/selfdefense. --The puller muskles are strong but the pushers aren't so hot. You get a bit lopsided. But really for lifeskills it's pretty good: the raking, shoveling, hoeing, sawing muskles are fine. -- Jeff Potter **** *Out Your Backdoor * http://www.outyourbackdoor.com publisher of outdoor/indoor do-it-yourself culture... ...offering "small world" views on bikes, bows, books, movies... ...rare books on ski, bike, boat culture, plus a Gulf Coast thriller about smalltown smuggling ... more radical novels coming up! ...original downloadable music ... and articles galore! plus national "Off the Beaten Path" travel forums! HOLY SMOKES! |
#10
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Stay away from 50k and XC is lots easier
If you want to do well, training for 50 k's takes marginally more time
than training for 10 k's. Either way, you need base/endurance, speed, tempo, easy days, strength, etc. The only big difference is that the long days (maybe one a week) need to be longer. For the weekend warrier who has limited amount of time to train, I would agree that it is easier to get to a point of being able to "race" a 10k than a 50k. The key to racing long is being able to get one long workout in about once a week - 2-3 hours on the skis should suffice to get you to a point of being able to ski a 50k race. But, heck, going for a 2-3 hour ski is an awefully nice way to spend a weekend morning! 10k's and 50k's are definitely not done at the same intensity. 10k races are much more intense, from the get-go. The fun part of the 50k is that there is a fair amount of time spent in relative comfort, cruising along (fast, yes, pushing, yes, but still not all-out). There is much more time to enjoy the race as it develops. If you think 50k races are brutal, chances are you are starting too fast and blowing up. Applying 10k race pace to 50k race distance is a sure way to do that! As for race pace, I've often thought that 50 k races are done at surprisingly close pace to 10k's. In running, I do about 5:30's for 10k, 6:00 for marathon = about 9% slow-down. I doubt the slow-down is near as much for skiing (maybe 1 minute per 10k = 3%). Bottom line, I really enjoy 50k races and think it's a fabulous distance. So, I am not going to "stay away from 50k" ... I guess I'm not interested in making XC "lots easier". Cheers, Brian In article , Jeff Potter wrote: Doing 50k's as a daylong event of distinction does seem very cool. And surely not as hard on a body as training and racing one for top results. It's a wonderful distance and if skied moderately is reasonable to do: still one should prep for it with several 4-hour other outings. I just don't have that kind of time. If I made that kind of time---always nice to spend so many hours outside, it would be a family/work/life/errands stress. And even just cruising a 50k actually does tap you out pretty good. I see Peter's point about shorter races being hard on the body due to the intensity. When I was racing 50's I do recall backing off somewhat, not digging as deep, to go the distance. Yet we would usually fly thru the finishes of the shorter events before their winners would come along. And I recall my splits basically being the same as my times for those shorter events. There is a sense that when really racing 50k's that you're going just as hard as a 10k only for 5 times as long. It's kinda like there's just one speed: all out. But it does seem to have slightly different expressions. ---It just takes tons more time to train to that 50k level and it wears you down more to accomplish it. Both of which I remember and which I won't get sucked into again even though I'm nowhere near that anymore. I just find that getting ready for and achieving midpack results in shorter events is a fun, fit, lark in comparison---pleasant on all the systems. I do like the daylong touring, though! This sport sure does have a lot to offer, eh? As for being fit, when you're ready for 50k it really does seem like the world is your oyster. Biking, canoeing, all come easy. Other distance ski races are no problem (I never found that I lost my speediness for 10ks). Yet! You do get sick and injured lots more often when at your gungho marathon level. And I found that I did have some limits on my all-round fitness: it's not such great training for pushing a car out of the snowbank or for wrestling/selfdefense. --The puller muskles are strong but the pushers aren't so hot. You get a bit lopsided. But really for lifeskills it's pretty good: the raking, shoveling, hoeing, sawing muskles are fine. -- Jeff Potter **** *Out Your Backdoor * http://www.outyourbackdoor.com publisher of outdoor/indoor do-it-yourself culture... ...offering "small world" views on bikes, bows, books, movies... ...rare books on ski, bike, boat culture, plus a Gulf Coast thriller about smalltown smuggling ... more radical novels coming up! ...original downloadable music ... and articles galore! plus national "Off the Beaten Path" travel forums! HOLY SMOKES! |
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