Moonlight and Moose; Fairbanks Training Camp with the U.S.
Ski Team
Awakening to the familiar chime of my alarm clock I am set to
begin another day of training in Fairbanks, Alaska. � I swear
I just closed my eyes and went to sleep five minutes ago! �
This is my first thought of the day. A quick check of my watch
confirmed that it was indeed six a.m. and time to get going.
After checking my morning heart rate it�s straight to the coffee
maker. Next to stir is my teammate, Justin Wadsworth. Blurry
eyed and groggy he too is eager for that first cup of coffee.
Finally, our trainer, Christer Skog, who is still suffering
from jet lag, makes his way to the kitchen of our hotel suite.
Outside it is still dark and will be for several more hours
but that is to be expected at this latitude during October.
It seems a long way to travel from California just to ski
for nine days but there are many benefits in this early season
ski camp. The biggest benefit for me is more mental than physical.
After training close to five hundred hours since May, most
of which was dryland training; I was ready for a change.
My goal in Fairbanks is pretty simple; ski a lot. In the
nine days that I will be skiing I will combine six days of
distance skiing with three days of high-intensity interval
training. A typical distance day involves four to five hours
of skiing, usually divided in to two workouts. Some days I
will ski less and add a strength training session. The distance
covered on these days usually ranges from forty to sixty five
kilometers depending on the snow conditions.
On my three high intensity days I will still ski for four
hours but the morning session will be much harder than on
distance days. A typical interval workout involves doing a
set time of fast skiing followed by a period of recovery time
where I will continue to ski easy. During this camp I will
do two sessions of 10x3 minutes with two minutes rest between
each interval and one session of 4x5 minutes with three minutes
recovery time between each hard interval. If that doesn�t
sound all that fun just imagine my trainer, Christer, waiting
at the top of the hill after my last interval to take a blood
sample for analysis. As soon as the last interval is complete
I must quickly take off my glove so Christer can poke my finger
with a small pin. He then puts a sample of my blood into a
portable lactate analyzer to check the build up of lactic
acid, the stuff that makes your muscles burn and ache, in
my blood during the intervals. I think deep down inside Christer
enjoys seeing me cringe as he is about to poke me with the
needle.
By correlating blood lactate levels with heart rate we can
determine how good of shape I am in. An unusual lactate reading
could mean I am either over trained or I have not done enough
high-intensity training depending on the result. Fortunately
my lactate levels have been right were we want them for this
time of year as a result of my summer training.
Enough about training. What else goes on in Fairbanks? Unfortunately
the answer is not much. Every year Justin, Christer, Scott
Loomis, and I talk about going to a local bar for their open
mike night to perform. The problem with this idea is that
by eight o�clock we are all too tired from training to do
anything but stare blankly at the television. It is probably
good that we never make it to the open mike night because
we haven�t played music together for quite a while and the
odds of us all remembering the few songs we know are slim.
Even though we never make it to the open mike night it doesn�t
stop us from constantly talking about the new songs we want
to learn or about our future as rock stars. It will be interesting
for people seeing us on VH-1�s Before They Were Rock Stars
to realize that we were once a bunch of healthy cross-country
skiers. Our passion for music has reached humorous proportions
at times. The day after buying my dream guitar in Sweden I
raced a World Cup and used my new guitar as motivation. I
told Christer before the race that the only race information
I wanted to hear as I skied past him was that the faster I
skied the sooner I could play my new guitar. It worked; I
had a great race that day!
So apart from our delusional rock star fantasies we pretty
much eat, sleep, and ski. One workout blends into the next,
as I become familiar with every inch of the trail system at
Birch Hill Ski Center. Apart from the occasional moose encounter,
which breaks up the monotony of training, I spend most of
my skiing time focusing on the upcoming season or the workout
at hand. Factory Team skier, Phil Bowen had a chance meeting
this past spring with guitar legend Eddie Van Halen. Phil
asked him if he was enjoying his vacation (they were at the
Boulder Dam outside of Las Vegas). Van Halen stated that he
had been around the world twelve times, touring with his band,
and hadn�t seen a thing so he was really enjoying his vacation
with his family. I liked this comment, not only because I
wish I was a guitar legend, but because it describes the life
of a professional skier also. Even though I am training in
a beautiful place like Fairbanks all I get the opportunity
to see are the ski tracks and the hotel room. Regardless of
the lack of time and motivation for sightseeing, being in
Fairbanks is a great opportunity for North American skiers
to train on our home turf. It has become a popular early season
destination for the US and Canadian National Teams as well
as other top national level racers like the Subaru Factory
Team. The community is great and people here love to ski.
So as I head out on the tracks before the sun has risen the
moon is my only source of light. I am glad that I am skiing
in Fairbanks. The early morning skiing is tranquil and serene.
The tracks are freshly groomed and the temperature perfect
for easy waxing. Justin, Christer and I have the trails to
ourselves, now if we can only avoid running into a moose!
Train smart and have fun,
Marcus Nash
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Marcus Nash is a