Ole Einar just keeps going!

This guy is amazing!  Two weeks after getting back from Bangkok, where he received the award for best male athlete of the 2014 Olympics, he wins the first race of the season.  This wasn't just some preseason warm up, it included many of the best biathlon athletes in the world.
What makes the biathlon unique is the combination of shooting and skiing.  If you miss a target you have to ski farther (a 150m penalty loop per missed target, or a time penalty).  You can see how this would make for an exciting race where positions can shift quite dramatically after each shooting round.  Ski toques off to Ole Einar again!

The easy Loppet training plan - phase 1

I am a decent recreational skier.  I ski for fun (and to keep somewhat fit) and hopefully can reach some milestones from time to time.  My training program takes into account available time, how I feel that day, the weather...in other words it is flexible.
A 5k run with variable intensity (alternatively a hilly 8k when at the cottage) followed by some stretching and strength exercises 45 mins total.  I will try and do this 3 to 5 days per week, although if I miss a day (or two) I don't worry about it.  Leading up to the winter I can usually get a 15km roller-ski in at the weekend.  It would be good to add some intervals to this, but hills included in the run are a good proxy for this.  The fitness level this provides will get me through most Loppets with a smile on my face and no lasting after effects.  I will aim to add some science to this in future posts.
P.S. Never unconditionally believe a post with the words easy, Loppet and training in the same sentence!

Canadian Ski Marathon

This looks like a unique and fun event.  A 160km ski over 2 days between Lachute and Gatineau winding through the picturesque eastern Laurentians.  Almost the equivalent of skiing a Vasaloppet  two days in a row!  There is an overnight stop in Montebello.  It is billed as North America's oldest and longest Nordic ski tour.  You can ski sections, the whole thing or even carry your own gear and camp out overnight.  Always scheduled for the second weekend in February each year.
Canadian Ski Marathon website

Training - quality vs quantity

This is an ongoing debate, but quality is perhaps winning.  What about the 10,000 hour rule?  (You need to put in 10,000 hours in order to become expert at an activity - K. Anders Ericsson, later popularized by Malcolm Gladwell) - How does quality factor in to that study?  Overall, I take this as a good news story for us recreational skiers.  Yes, we all know you need to put in the work to truly master something, but we are all different in terms of  natural abilities and indeed aerobic capacity.  Either way, allows me to believe that if I do the right thing (vs pure volume) I will progress.
Norwegians on volume - Faster Skier article

The jaw dropping benefits of cross country skiing

So we cross country skiers are on the path to immortality (well at least closer to it than non-skiers!).  This article references a study from Scandinavia (where else?) that clearly supports the unique health benefits of cross country skiing.
Globe and Mail article

Early snow. Bodes well for a good ski season - or does it?

Early snow (seems very early!), freezing all week and more in the forecast here on the east coast.  An early taste of winter in the west.  Looks good.  A good snow year last year in North America yet poor in Europe.  Can anyone really predict?  This year, the Birkebeiner was cancelled on the morning of the race because of dangerously high winds in the mountains rather than lack of snow.  How often does that happen?  Serious enough that they are making contingency plans for this year.  Either way, just be ready!
Birkerbeiner announces contingency plan

Evaluating this "content marketing" experiment

This blog is really a "content marketing" experiment.  In quotation marks because I would deem that to be marketing jargon.  Also something that is very much in vogue right now.  Not that I am marketing any specific product, more referencing products that I use, like or may like.  To date, that has included roller skis, GPS watches, cars and a cross country skiing app.  I will get to other gear in future posts.  In any event, it is still useful to evaluate this exercise against the framework below.  How am I doing?

Ole Einar Bjørndalen recognised as best male athlete at 2014 Olympics

Now the most decorated winter Olympian ever, Bjørndalen won 2 Gold medals in Sochi.  He has a career total of 13 medals (8 gold, 4 silver and 1 bronze).  Worth noting that he won 2 golds this year at the age of 40.  Canadian hockey teams won both the team awards (men and women).  Hockey is to Canada what cross country skiing is to Norway what speed skating is to the Netherlands.  Best female athlete was speed skater Irene Wust, from the Netherlands, with 3 gold and 2 silver medals in Sochi.
Bjørndalen - Best male athlete at 2014 Olympics award (Faster Skier)

Technique, waxing and fitness - there's an app for that!

In this sport, how fast (and far) you go is dependent on:
 1. Technique, 2. Waxing, and 3. Fitness, in that order.  Most people have the impression that these are reversed.  Not so, assuming a base level of fitness.  The efficiencies required to go fast (and long) are very much driven by technique.  More so in classic than freestyle, which seems physically harder for the recreational skier but is easier to master.  It is also easier to wax for, as there is no grip wax component. One could always go with waxless skis for classic (and believe me, on some days this feels like the only option!), but this really compromises the glide component of the motion.  There is a great app complete with excellent video breakdowns of all components of technique for both classic and skating.  Demos are done by members of the Swiss national team.  Cross Country Skiing - Technique (produced by Bundesamt für Sport BASPO) available for IOS and Android.  Well worth $4.99.

Sprinting for 50 km!

What to make of a sport where the "sprint" distance is 1.5km, and the average speed of a skier can be quicker for a 50km race!  Cross-country skiers do generally have the highest VO2 max of any endurance athletes.  For comparison, the average speed for an Olympic level 100m runner is around 37 kph.  The average speed for the Olympic cross country skiing sprint champion in Sochi this year was around 26 kph (1.5 km in 3:28).  That is pretty quick.  Perhaps surprisingly, the average speeds for 15 km and 50 km races are slightly lower and slightly higher respectively (23 kph for the 15 km race and 28 kph for the 50 km race).  Average speed is dependent on the course, snow conditions and ski technique (classic vs. freestyle/skate).  However, for the 50 km average speed to be quicker than the sprint is a real eye opener.

Road trip car - Volvo V60 Polestar

This is definitely the car for the epic Loppet road trip, right down to the colour.  Looks, power, comfort and all wheel drive.  Love it!
Right on brand for the outdoor healthy Scandinavian living lifestyle!  Read more here:
Volvo V60 Polestar test drive

The price of a logo

The cost for Chevrolet to be on the front of Manchester United's shirt = £47 million per year for 10 years (£470 million commitment).  On the same shirt, Adidas recently signed a deal to replace Nike = £750 million over 10 years.  That is without a doubt the most valuable shirt in sport.  To have an American car brand on the front of this iconic shirt seems a little incongruous.  The marketer who made the deal has since been fired to further support this view of the deal.  For Adidas, expensive, but likely to pay back.
By way of contrast, the AltaGas sponsorship deal with the Canadian National Ski Team is valued at "over $1 million" spanning four years (2012-15). This includes prominent logo placement on team outfits and headgear.  As you can see from the pictures below, it is more difficult to stand out in the "higher density" logo world of cross-country skiing.

Early season training camps - Silverstar B.C.

For those who like to get an early start on the season, the best place to go is Silverstar near Vernon, BC.  Fantastic conditions from late November already.  Great scenery, and even downhill skiing at the same location.  Weekend and full week cross-country ski camps are available.  I had a great experience there.  For the shortest drive you can can fly in to Kelowna.  I took the scenic drive from Calgary with some ski stops on the way.  Link here:   Silverstar cross-country ski camps

The role of technology and waxing

What about technology?  Both from an equipment and waxing perspective it plays a significant role in the sport.  In cross-country skiing there are more variables to deal with than in most endurance sports, so more difficult to win consistently.  Waxing technicians need to understand the snow conditions in order create optimal grip and glide.  Elite skiers have a team of snow technicians and traveling labs to provide them with the best technology in this area.  Even then, they don't always get it right!  To make things more complicated, snow conditions can be quite different on various parts of a course.  This is daunting area for most of us, although the basic principles are simple.  Despite the technology and analysis that goes into waxing there is still an element of trial and error.  You strap your skis on and see if they work well.  So does that make it interesting, fun or frustrating?  All three of course.

Sports analogies

Sports analogies are common in business.  "Hitting a home run", "Throwing a Hail Mary", "being on a sticky wicket",  "Monday morning quarterback"... I could go on.  None I know of relate to cross-country skiing.  How about we create a few.  Maybe it will be like "going uphill without any grip wax", or should I "go back to the waxing tent" straight away.  What I am really looking for is the  "perfect grip and glide" of sporting analogies or is this "in the hands of the wax technicians".  More fun with this in the article here:
Some fun with sports analogies - article

Japanese single malt whisky and cross country skiing

Norway is the home (and birthplace) of cross-country skiing.  Scotland is the home of single malt whisky.  So when a champion is crowned from outside the region it is a shock.  This just happened in the case of single malt whisky.  A Japanese whisky (Yamazaki) was deemed, by a prominent expert, to be the best in the world.  In this category, "the best" is a subjective choice, but a wake up call nonetheless.  Arguably this is as good for the growth of the category as a non-Norwegian champion may be for cross-country skiing.
For the record, I still like Macallan, Lagavulin and Aardbeg...and Ole Einar Bjørndalen, but will definitely give this a try!
Daily Telegraph whisky article

TV audience figures

The Vasaloppet captures 73.9 percent of the television audience in Sweden the first Sunday morning in March.  That is quite staggering by North American standards.  The 2013 Cross Country World Cup season boasted an aggregate audience of 1.86 billion viewers over 1,135 hours of broadcast time.  With the Tour de France as a role model, the Swix Ski Classics was inaugurated in 2011.  There are now 32 professional ski teams that compete on this circuit and 200,000 euros in prize money. The series consists of six long-distance classic races: La Diagonela, Marcialonga, König Ludwig Lauf, Vasaloppet, Birkebeinerrennet, and the Årefjällsloppet. These races were broadcast last year in 50 countries with 20 million live viewers.  Decent numbers, although certainly not prime time viewing in North America.  (Source: Faster Skier/FIS)

Stars, money, and individual choice - Petter Northug

Scandinavia is the only region where there is enough money (including TV money) to create questions of individual vs team sponsorship/funding choices.  Of course, all athletes have some degree of choice within the context of a national team structure.  However, for most of the high profile events, athletes cannot participate outside this structure.  Worth noting here that if World Cup or Olympic events were reserved only for the best skiers (vs the best from each country), the bulk of the competitors would be made up of Norwegians, Swedes and Finns.
Here is an interesting article on the subject of individual choice relating to Petter Northug, the Norwegian star, and his desire to cash-in/make some income from his undeniable talent.
Petter Northug article from Faster Skier
Reportedly his deal with COOP, a direct competitor of an existing national team sponsor, is worth between $1.6 and $3.3 million (that is a wide range!).  While he may have demonstrated some character flaws, never a good thing from a sponsorship perspective, I don't think anyone can deny the right of an athlete to have some freedom of choice.  An athlete's career is relatively short.  Success brings with it questions and choices.

Out for a spin

Beautiful view of downtown Toronto today from the Leslie Street spit.
I am on V2's (for classic technique) and I have a Garmin Forerunner 405 to track my progress. There are a number of features that I don't use but it tracks pace, route and vertical (not convinced on accuracy of vertical measurement).  Never used a heart rate monitor, maybe time to try one for tracking low intensity vs high intensity (which do by feel right now).  A few pictures below of view, gear and Garmin Connect charts.

The world's most popular sports

There is no definitive ranking, as methodologies differ, and most are flawed in some way.  However, what is definitive is that football (soccer) is the most popular sport in the world.  Cricket ranks in the top 5 by virtue of its popularity on the Indian subcontinent.  By comparison, in one of the rankings, cross-country skiing is at 53 out of 80 sports ranked.  Link here:  World sports ranking
Understandably then, the world's most valuable sports franchises (Forbes) are established European football (soccer) clubs rounded out by the more storied Baseball and American Football franchises.