Diana....today was skate skiing. The intervals were one uphill TT for 17:43 (at around 5K run footrace intensity) and the other 30 minutes were split over 9 hills/false flat crests going super hard "1 skate" (not sure if you guys call it V1 or V2, but you are poling on each foot stride). Once you can balance well doing 1 skate, you can go pretty far. If you can double pole twice on each stride, then you've committed your entire weight and are gliding on a flat ski (fastest) and basically the speeds can approximate biking on fast snow. My downhill speeds on XC skis are pretty well the same as the bike on fast snow since the tuck is much lower and aero
Watch this video and you'll see the girls are motoring as fast as bikes (fast forward to 3:20 or so)...OK maybe not road bikes, but mountain biking:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMAKewF1voo and here is a men's sprint from the same world cup in finland...you can see the cycling style peleton tactics
http://www.youtube.com/...k5EM68Bw-vw&NR=1 Just like in running where all the elites are 120 lbs....here in XC skiing, they are all more like 6 foot+ and 160-180 lbs (pretty well like elite long course triathletes)
Anyway, this is a running thread....my run today was ZERO.
Bernie, sorry, we feel for ya, but the rules are the rules.....distance covered is distance covered. While snow is our enemy on some days on other days when the footing is good and there is no slip, it provides endless miles of minimal pounding compared to pavement (effectively endless trail) so it balances out.
Dev