Went for my first time yesterday, and I’m sore as crap today. 9km of hills and I snapped a pole (carbon), fell 18 times, abruptly got stopped by a tree going downhill, and hit a heart rate above 190. By the way, doing 4 km with only one pole fucking sucks. Gimme 100’s in the pool on <1:05 any day.
So does anyone else do this horrible sport when they are sick of the bike trainer and treadmill in the winter?
Maybe I can trade you some swim ability for some XC ski ability…I can’t even swim 20m at your 100m swim pace. Once you master the basic technique, you can really motor though.
Right now, you are probably the equivalent of a 3 min per 100m swimmer on skis…once you get to the equivalent of a 1:55 100m swimmer, you can let your engine take over and bring you down to the 1:30 level…getting from 1:30 to 1:05 equivalent takes a lot of refinement and technique in addition to fitness.
The cool thing is once you have technique, you have it for life. I went from zero XC skiing to 20, 22, 30, 22 K skis in the past week, leveraging just swim and run fitness (neither of which is that good right now, but the crossover is very easy once you have basic technique), so right now you are just being limited by form more than anything else. Get some local lessons to get you to the equivalent of a 1:55 swimmer :-).
Just relax, even the best skiers in the world fall sometimes.
This is from today’s stage in Tour de Ski
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvhqbZT9zqI
This is how they train
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg5fKfSuluw
I agree that it can be a great workout. I used a short xc ski today as a warmup for some running at half marathon pace. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being good, I’m probably a 3 for xc skiing. It’s humbling to have people fly by like I’m not moving. Keep at it and like any other sport, you’ll see good improvements.
wait so I need to be at the equivalent of a 1:55 100m swimmer? That makes no sense to me for some reason. The time I was referring to was in yards anyways so don’t be too impressed. 1:10 sets for 100m is more appropriate.
But I feel a bit better knowing that pros fall sometimes.Towards the end on a downhill section a family with like 3 kids were going opposite of me and of course my skis started to cross each other and I fell.
My main point is that once you get to the skier level of a swimmer who can ‘get by’, you can then do a lot of work on skis at reasonable speed.
Hell yeah! I will xc ski any day of the week rather than go on the bike trainer…or run on the dread mill/crappy roads. Unfortunately we have no snow in upstate ny right now…which is ok since it means I will still bike/run outside. but I’d much rather be skiing this time of year.
As dev said, once you learn technique you have it for life…especially for skating. Last year I went from no xc skiing to doing a 25k skate race in 2 weeks. It wasn’t ideal…but I still had fun…in a sick way.
A couple of side notes…swim workouts REALLY suffer the day after skiing. Personally, I wouldn’t worry about losing any fitness if I spent all winter xc skiing. In fact, I’d expect to come into spring in amazing shape. As i told a recently departed friend who had the same reaction when he first started…you DO realize Olympic xc skiers are some of the fittest athletes on the planet…right?
+1
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Kershaw looked wiped 
.
Snow conditions and/or course conditions can also effect the effort required to “glide” on skis. Long time skier here who enjoys the outdoors but no snow either in this location. I also wish swimming was as easy as skiing.
Keith…pick up some roller skis and get out there. Your neighbourhood is perfect for roller skiing…smooth roads, few cars and some decent undulations (nothing hairy dangerous). I do most of my roller skiing within 2-3 K of my front door just looping through neighbourhood streets with low traffic.
I know…every year I think about it and decide against buying them. I really need to just do it as I know they’ll last a long time. Shanley might not be real thrilled if I do that right now though. Apparently Santa didn’t receive my list!!
I actually got about 10 hours in on the bike this week (I’ve been on vacation)…so it’s been ok.
It’s a fantastic sport. Great cardio exercise. Hits lots of muscles. Wonderful scenery (especially if the alternative is laps in a pool). Attracts friendly people. Relatively low cost.
For your first day you might have picked something easier, such as flat ground. Going uphill is definitely hard. Compared to swimming, it is a much easier sport to pick up. (Well, I am from Maine and was skiing at an early age, so maybe I am not a good source).
Ever watch the xc ski races in the Olympics? I have never seen any endurance sport in the Olympics in which the top competitors are all so thoroughly exhausted afterwards. The top 5 gus all cross the line and basically collapse. Yes, we see that once or twice in other sports but in xc skiing, they all do it.
The highest recorded VO2 max of any athlete was, I am told, that of a XC skier. Over 90. Watching those Olympians, I believe it.
It is the toughest sport. Nothing in triathlon can compare on a per kilometer basis as to not only the physical, technical but scientific demands of xc skiing. Just the mental aspect of keeping your technique together each stride/skate is incredibly tough. Yes, waxing is HUGE, understanding the effects of even how an already skied in track vs fresh snow is huge–so many factors involved in going fast it is just crazy. Thing is that on snow practice is not practical for most year round especially because we all have “low snow years” where you may have only a month or two of decent skiing.
Biathlon adds in the requirement to quickly drop your HR by about 40+ Beats per minute so you can shoot.
XC is great because you use both arms and legs plus need balance which works core and other good things.
Alas, I am currently skiing downhill which does raise the HR when skiing the trees, glides, powder and even groomers as your speed goes up.
train with aluminum cheap poles, race with Carbon. You learned that lesson the hard way today. Enjoy, I have missed XC skiing this year because in California we have NO SNOW. Its really sad. I have more iles on my rollerskis than any season EVER this year. Plan to be in Tahoe next weekend but forecast looks grim! The best season of Tri I ever had was after 25 days on sticks during the winter.
Dave
If you want to be inspired as a skier, or triathlete, simple watch the many astoundiing performances of Petter Northug of Norway on YouTube.
I almost wrote “of Sweden” as a social experiment on Norwegian reaction time.
Better yet…watch Marcus Hellner of SWEDEN put the hammer down at the Holmenkollen World Championships (2011 in Oslo):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6DTvHo6eYQ&feature=related
…and yes, Northug gets dropped! One day I have to ski in this stadium! I still think the Swedes had faster skis that day.
As for skiers dropping in exhaustion, while I don’t disagree that they are working hard, I don’t think they are working any harder than the TdF sprinters galloping into a sprint finish in Bordeaux, however, if you drop in exhaustion off a bike you end up in hospital…skiing, you have snow. The same skiers never drop in exhaustion at the end of roller ski races where they’d end up on pavement…just sayin.
Dev
Stadium is great, but I have to say watching how Northug finishes the 30k and 50k races is more inspiring watch.
Great clip though.