I live at sea level. I’m spending a week at high altitude skiing hard. Half way down a hard run I am gasping. After two days I can hardly walk.
Is this helping with anything besides skiing? Am I building leg strength that will serve me during racing season?
not really
.
Of course you’re buildiing leg strength. Assuming you’re skiing hard, you’re stressing/fatiguing your leg muscles. Any time and any way you do that, strength gains are the result. While these strength gains are not necissarily specific to racing needs they are the equivalent to any other strength-building program. As for the gasping - that’s just thin air!
Keep turnin
Frank
Try not to be too obsessed with “counting” everything you do. Your question suggests training discipline and commitment to triathlon. Overall balance in your life including other non-specific activities that you enjoy is just as important.
I remember several years ago there was one of those multi athlete competitions on TV where athletes from all different sports came in to compete in various events. There were football, hockey, baseball players, even Roy Jones Jr, the boxer participated.
Alpine skiers came in first and second, beating all the athletes from other sports. I believe it was Herman “the Hermanator” Mier (sp) first and that Italian skier, “La Bomba” finished second.
I’ve seen a number of posts about alpine skiiing here and it amazes me how some of the posts seem to think that alpine skiers aren’t athletes.
To answer your question - why worry about it. I wish we could have a week’s ski holiday this year. Enjoy.
I’ve been downhill skiing every Saturday since January - between 2 1/2 hour and 4 hours a day.
When I laid out my sked I figured I would ride after as skiing was not a workout.
Did that the first weekend - was completely trashed afterwards … then I wore my HR monitor the next week and figured out why, I was definitely getting a workout, I figure akin to cycling, and I have ditched the cycling afterwards every weekend since, leaving me feeling great for all the rest of my workouts.
My goals for the season cap out at some 24 hour MTB races, 1/2 marathons and Olympic tris, so if you’re an Ironman I’m guessing you need to be more sport specific, though you could look at it as your cross training day.
Tri Hard !
I live at sea level. I’m spending a week at high altitude skiing hard. Half way down a hard run I am gasping. After two days I can hardly walk.
Is this helping with anything besides skiing? Am I building leg strength that will serve me during racing season?
I had a biz/ski trip in Tahoe a couple weeks. I only skied two days but hard, HR was in red zone at times. When I got back I felt stronger in my workouts and especially strong when I played in a hockey game. I think the combo of skiing hard and high altitude do help.