Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing

Jan 4, 21 12:50

Post #1 of 22 (2894 views)

I'd lost complete track of time - year over year. Crazy travel in the winter for work, or for cycling somewhere for the last 3 - 4 years had meant almost no Nordic Skiing for me. In fact, my wife and I figured we skied ounce 2 winters ago, and not sure for the couple of winters before that - nothing at all in the past two winters!

So I have been reacquainting myself with the KING of aerobic and endurance sports - over the past few weeks. It's been awesome, but my best-ever-recent cycling fitness has only helped out a little bit. But other than a basic core routine and 20 - 30 push-ups a day, and a 30 - 40 min walks with the dog each morning - that's all I do these days.

It is FULL BODY. When I was doing high level triathlon training, the transition to Nordic Skiing - both Classic and Skate Techniques was much easier when you finally hit the snow. So far we have been for four 2-hour-ish sessions at our nearest Nordic Skiing place, and I've been hammered after each one - but in a good kind of way. I know, in the long run it will be good for me.

I do feel grateful that we can still do this, with most everything else shutdown do to COVID19. Also, thankful that I have all top level Skate and Classic gear - albeit 15+ years old now, as the Pandemic has taken almost all of my work and income away! No way new stuff would be in the cards, at all!

So . . . I'll be skiing a lot this winter and REALLY looking forward to it.

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Jan 4, 21 15:19

Post #2 of 22 (2861 views)

full body???? I guess if you use "sticks", dauhgter and I do not. I got out for 1st time in over 3 years last week. poles made it too challenging, ie tired the crap out of me quickly and was a crutch and only served to promote poor form(not getting weigh over skis) so ditched poles and worked on getting over ski.

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Jan 4, 21 16:07

Post #3 of 22 (2844 views)

Where have you been getting out?

This year has been an odd one for me, in that I've been skiing at some conservation areas near me for a change. I have only skied at well groomed resorts since I was a kid, so it's nice to get back out into more challenging terrain (challenging as in the trail is only 6 feet wide and you don't know what comes after the bottom of the next hill). I've skied Hardwood and Duntroon a couple of times this year but there's a lot to be said for skiing somewhere nearby, and different.

I just finished setting up my Concept2 ski erg too, which was my Christmas present to myself. Next winter will be epic!

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Durhamskier] [ In reply to ]

Jan 4, 21 16:13

Post #4 of 22 (2841 views)

Been to Hardwood Hills 4X in the last two weeks - amazing snow there. Could rough ski on my rock classic skis in the park at the end of the street now.

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Jan 4, 21 16:34

Post #5 of 22 (2827 views)

That's great to hear. This is my first full winter in a place where snow is a reality rather than a concept. I don't have any desire to ride outside in the cold so I've been looking into skate skiing. Hooray for another expensive hobby 😂

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Jan 4, 21 16:38

Post #6 of 22 (2820 views)

I've gotten away from resort skiing a bit this year and it's a good change, but I was at Hardwood on Sunday and it's always good grooming so it makes for a very consistent experience. Plus I get to bump into Jason Vurma and give him a hard time, so it's win-win. Hope to see you there soon!

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Durhamskier] [ In reply to ]

Jan 5, 21 8:02

Post #7 of 22 (2717 views)

Skiing with Jason on Thursday! :-)

General question to the group - how much higher is Max HR for XC Skiing vs Cycling?

I realized after my first few skis that the Max HR and Zones I had set out in the Polar Flow app were wrong.

Thanks.

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Jan 5, 21 8:04

Post #8 of 22 (2712 views)

Fleck wrote:

Skiing with Jason on Thursday! :-)

General question to the group - how much higher is Max HR for XC Skiing vs Cycling?

I realized after my first few skis that the Max HR and Zones I had set out in the Polar Flow app were wrong.

Thanks.

Stop looking at your HR Steve and just enjoy the suffering.

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [NordicSkier] [ In reply to ]

Jan 5, 21 8:44

Post #9 of 22 (2696 views)

NordicSkier wrote:

Fleck wrote:

Skiing with Jason on Thursday! :-)

General question to the group - how much higher is Max HR for XC Skiing vs Cycling?

I realized after my first few skis that the Max HR and Zones I had set out in the Polar Flow app were wrong.

Thanks.

Stop looking at your HR Steve and just enjoy the suffering.

I would think max HR for bike, run, XC ski should all be the same once you have proficiency in all three sports. Cycling you just have less muscles making oxygen demands, but once you are able to use all your cycling muscles to suck every mL of blood your heart can put out, its pretty close. This would be a good question for Michael Woods. In any case, XC skiing allows even non proficient people to send their heart rate through the roof since it used the most muscles and is weight bearing. My guess is my max HR on a standing hill climb, a 1 mile run race, or an XC ski 4 min steep hill climb, a 200 fly in swimming are all identical

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]

Jan 5, 21 9:23

Post #10 of 22 (2685 views)

devashish_paul wrote:

My guess is my max HR on a standing hill climb, a 1 mile run race, or an XC ski 4 min steep hill climb, a 200 fly in swimming are all identical

I agree that your max HR should be the same, but I think there is some variance when it comes to proficiency.

If you aren't comfortable on a bike, you can't push it to your max. Same with skiing. In terms of physiology it would be identical, but in terms of execution I think there's a small amount of wiggle room.

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Durhamskier] [ In reply to ]

Jan 5, 21 11:25

Post #11 of 22 (2647 views)

Durhamskier wrote:

devashish_paul wrote:

My guess is my max HR on a standing hill climb, a 1 mile run race, or an XC ski 4 min steep hill climb, a 200 fly in swimming are all identical

I agree that your max HR should be the same, but I think there is some variance when it comes to proficiency.

If you aren't comfortable on a bike, you can't push it to your max. Same with skiing. In terms of physiology it would be identical, but in terms of execution I think there's a small amount of wiggle room.

Just to add to this, right now given some physical limitations in running, I actually cannot move my legs fast enough and apply enough power to get close to my max heart rate running on a flat. I would need a mild uphill (4 percent would take care of it). Likewise on skis. In theory a flat sprint I should be able to get to max heart rate, but I have technical limitations but I would just need an equivalent 3-5% grade in a flat out sprint and get there. I would really be interested to know my heart rate right at the finish line of a 200 butterfly. I am certain this is the highest heart rate I have consistently achieved in the last 5 years, but I could be completely wrong and it could be the lowest of all sports since i am horizontal and non weight bearing. But it certain feels the hardest of anything that I can do at my current age (55)

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [NordicSkier] [ In reply to ]

Jan 6, 21 9:45

Post #12 of 22 (2549 views)

Stop looking at your HR Steve and just enjoy the suffering.

Thank you.

It's funny - back when I took all of this WAY more seriously - was racing Triathlon and even the odd Nordic Skiing Race, at a higher level, I paid no attention to any of that. Never started using a HRM until I was more or less done with triathlon in the late 1990's. To paraphrase the famous Nike line - We Just Did It!

. . and even now, I don't really care that much, but now I do have the Polar strapped to the wrist to record, some data - GPS and HR, and I do take a bit of a passive interest in it all!

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Jan 7, 21 10:50

Post #13 of 22 (2493 views)

my max hr for skating is higher than for any other sport.. not good enough at classic technique, to get HR up to max. So I mostly ski classic these days ;-)
going to be an odd season, will have to use the car for a warming hut..

Max HR in sequence, x-c skate ski > run > swim > bike > x-c classic
of course this is 'max' not the real maximum, here it means only what I see on HRM or counting..

Last edited by: doug in co: Jan 7, 21 10:57

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]

Jan 8, 21 10:39

Post #14 of 22 (2438 views)

I would think max HR for bike, run, XC ski should all be the same once you have proficiency in all three sports.

Dev,

I checked in with one of the top Sports Physiologists in the world on this and he said that Max HR and resulting zones, should be higher for XC-Skiing. In the 5 - 10 BPM range. This will be individual, and as you noted at the end of your sentence, based a lot of efficiency in skiing. Which for me right now is low - because I've not skied much in the last few years. So for sure, Max HR will be higher skiing.

I did tweak my Max HR slightly - putting it up by 6 BPM from my Max for cycling and adjusting the zones accordingly based on Polar's formula for that. Then on a 2 hour Classic Ski yesterday, based on my Perceived Exertion (PE), my HR was relatively speaking Zone-wise about the same for a similar effort if I was riding for the same duration - High Zone-2, with some spiking up into High Zone 3 for efforts going up hill.

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [doug in co] [ In reply to ]

Jan 8, 21 17:11

Post #15 of 22 (2410 views)

my max hr for skating is higher than for any other sport.. not good enough at classic technique, to get HR up to max. So I mostly ski classic these days ;-)
going to be an odd season, will have to use the car for a warming hut..

There is a good bet that my highest ever HR I ever recorded was in a Skating XC Ski race back in the early 1990's. It was a 30km race and there was this wall of a climb with 1km to go, and I was locked in a battle with this other guy for a top-10 spot in the race. We had been going back and forth for the last few kms and He had slightly faster skis/wax than I did, so I knew this last little climb was my chance to gap him and get a bit of a lead before we hit the final run into the finish - which was slightly downhill. I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest as I came over the top of this climb!

Same for us at all the XC Ski areas in Ontario - we are essentially skiing from the car in the parking lot. No access to the lodges.

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Jan 8, 21 20:40

Post #16 of 22 (2390 views)

Quit walking the dog and put them in a harness. Skijouring is the e-biking of Nordic skiing and a total blast! We have an 85 pound mutt who loves it. She’s a sprinter but is happy to plod along for 10 miles too if there are snacks. But get her sprinting and holy cow is it fun!

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Moonrocket] [ In reply to ]

Jan 19, 21 12:05

Post #17 of 22 (2247 views)

Quit walking the dog and put them in a harness. Skijouring is the e-biking of Nordic skiing and a total blast! We have an 85 pound mutt who loves it. She’s a sprinter but is happy to plod along for 10 miles too if there are snacks. But get her sprinting and holy cow is it fun!

Fun times!

Skiing update: I have ramped quickly up to a 3hr Classic Ski (34km) and 3Hr Skate Ski (44km) in the last 10 days. The 3 hours of skating took more out of me at about the same level of exertion. What was extraordinary is that while I was DEEPLY fatigued after both - the bounce back after about 24 - 48 hrs was impressive. With the exception of my hip flexors and adductors after the long Classic Ski - I had forgot when done right and at a higher level, these leg muscles REALLY get a workout.

Interesting side note - regular followers know that I have a wonky lower back (herniated disc L4-L5). I thought the skiing was going to really be a problem for the lower back - and it has been kind of achy, but it's been a good kind of achy. I think all the balancing required for higher level skiing - be it Classic or Skate - you REALLY have to commit to the one leg - back and forth, has really helped with strengthen those deep core stabilizing muscles like the multifidis that are almost impossible to isolate and strengthen other wise.

Also that long Classic ski reintroduced me to the joys (seriously) of a perfectly waxed ski using klister wax. When you nail it and get it right, it is truly awesome! Phenomenal kick and glide!

Building up to 50k for both Classic and Skating in a couple of weeks!

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Jan 20, 21 6:14

Post #18 of 22 (2164 views)

Steve, congrats! Most of my skate skis are 20km and classic barely 10km a few times. Right now I am at 200km since Jan 2 (first ski). So I think I am ready to do some slighly longer one. The conditions here have been shitty with barely enough coverage (classic was generally down to rocks/pavement). We finally got enough that there are classic tracks now. I am also doing 100/100 so generally running 10km per day, so I suppose I can take a few days off running and extend the skis now. I think I will do the virtual Gatineau Loppet 25km and 50km skate events and 25km classic as something to work back up to. Not sure about the 50km classic as it is harder on my disc.

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Jan 20, 21 6:36

Post #19 of 22 (2158 views)

Fleck wrote:

I would think max HR for bike, run, XC ski should all be the same once you have proficiency in all three sports.

Dev,

I checked in with one of the top Sports Physiologists in the world on this and he said that Max HR and resulting zones, should be higher for XC-Skiing. In the 5 - 10 BPM range. This will be individual, and as you noted at the end of your sentence, based a lot of efficiency in skiing. Which for me right now is low - because I've not skied much in the last few years. So for sure, Max HR will be higher skiing.

I did tweak my Max HR slightly - putting it up by 6 BPM from my Max for cycling and adjusting the zones accordingly based on Polar's formula for that. Then on a 2 hour Classic Ski yesterday, based on my Perceived Exertion (PE), my HR was relatively speaking Zone-wise about the same for a similar effort if I was riding for the same duration - High Zone-2, with some spiking up into High Zone 3 for efforts going up hill.

I would think it's higher for any quadrupedal foot-borne activity, compared to cycling for example.

"The person on top of the mountain didn't fall there." - unkown

also rule 5

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Jan 21, 21 11:39

Post #20 of 22 (2084 views)

Fleck wrote:

I checked in with one of the top Sports Physiologists in the world on this and he said that Max HR and resulting zones, should be higher for XC-Skiing. In the 5 - 10 BPM range. This will be individual, and as you noted at the end of your sentence, based a lot of efficiency in skiing. Which for me right now is low - because I've not skied much in the last few years. So for sure, Max HR will be higher skiing.

interesting..
skied with my son and his girlfriend, she is a NCAA swimmer and had a smart watch, saw 199bpm for max ;-)
I was at 146, being old and on classic skis..

also saw four bull moose hanging out together, eating aspen bark..

"It is a good feeling for old men who have begun to fear failure, any sort of failure, to set a schedule for exercise and stick to it. If an aging man can run a distance of three miles, for instance, he knows that whatever his other failures may be, he is not completely wasted away." Romain Gary, SI interview

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Jan 21, 21 16:52

Post #21 of 22 (2035 views)

HR. Yes I often wore my Garmin with HR at the Boulder Mountain Tour in Sun Valley. I don't know if was the elevation (7000 feet) or the effort, but probably both. I was shocked to see I was holding at 172, which is about 5-10 BPM higher for bike / run efforts. Def the longest highest I've ever sustained. (as formerly fit and much younger female than today). I'd be lucky to break 160 now without going into cardiac arrest.

As I like to say, when you working so hard you give zero f(*&%s about the snotsickle congealing and freezing down your nose, foaming mouth and chin, you know its a good effort.

Re: Reacquainting Myself w/ Nordic Skiing [hbog12] [ In reply to ]

Jan 27, 21 13:45

Post #22 of 22 (1956 views)

HR. Yes I often wore my Garmin with HR at the Boulder Mountain Tour in Sun Valley. I don't know if was the elevation (7000 feet) or the effort, but probably both. I was shocked to see I was holding at 172, which is about 5-10 BPM higher for bike / run efforts. Def the longest highest I've ever sustained. (as formerly fit and much younger female than today). I'd be lucky to break 160 now without going into cardiac arrest.

I noted an episode of an insanely high HR earlier in this thread in a Cross Country Race years ago. I literally thought my heart was going to explode out of my rib cage it was beating so hard!

I recall Cross Country Skiing at an XC Ski area near Donner Pass, near Lake Tahoe years ago at over 10,000ft. I got 5mins down the trail, and it felt like I was skiing with one lung!

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

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