Welcome: here we go

Welcome to my blog place, "Ski Training Central"!!

We've all got our personal quests and goals. I've been pursuing skiing sports for over 30 years now. Mostly cross country and more recently ski mountaineering racing. You can't help but pick up a few things along the way. This blog is to share some of my experiences and what knowledge I've gleaned.

After 25+ years of shooting for xc success I felt it was time to expand my horizons. In 2001 I started doing triathlons, including ironmans. It was amazing how my skiing improved, even though I wasn't doing specific off season training anymore. Seeing competition and my body from a whole new light easily transferred into better skiing. I'd never done 5 hour skis before, but workouts this long were common place in tri training. I learned new things in nutrition, particularly in race and in training nutrition that equated to better performance. My mental approach also changed. Among the helpful new strategies was to be more focused and "in the moment". As I did this and learned to quiet my mind, tune in to what was going on, I found that the hours during racing and training flew by and were really enjoyable.

Now I'm delving into another new horizon that's got me really pumped up. It's the new (new for North America) sport of ski mountaineering. I'm in a totally steep learning curve and one of the reasons for this blog is to record what I learn for other newbie racers. My friends call me the "toy boy" and it's true...I'm a total gear head. The down side is I'm not rich, so I'm always looking for ways to gear up on a tight budget. I'll have some future posts on how to make stuff and where I found places to get stuff.

I'm also very actively involved in coaching, so future blogs will incorporate technical stuff for athletes and coaches. My current coaching involves our local clubs youth programs, but I've coached in 2 Olympics, coached High School skiing in MN for several years, done some volunteer coaching for one of Canada's devo. nat'l teams and done various clinics for past sponsors Atomic and Karhu.

Check back soon!!