Mansfield Nordic Club

Ski training and coaching is complex. There are so many different “elements” of coaching or being an athlete, and it often feels like you can start falling down a rabbit hole pretty quickly. As an athlete, you can feel overwhelmed with the amount of information you’re receiving and how to process it all. As a coach, it can feel like there’s an overwhelming amount of information to share and teach and many different arenas/methods to share.

I’ve started to think of it like holding a deck of cards, and choosing the time and place to play each card.

There’s the sports science and training theory card, like this article from Team Aker-Daehlie that has gone as “viral” as you can get in the Nordic ski world. Trying to explain these concepts before practice would be a huge mistake, as often skiers are arriving and focusing more on what they need to do that day. Likewise, after training (especially on weekdays) it is getting late and everyone needs to get home for schoolwork, dinner, etc.

But for the past few years I have increasingly sent follow-up emails after many training sessions. Many coaches and leaders are adamant about the benefits of a “debrief” after practice, but that’s really hard for our group to do in-person…at the Range we depart at different times depending on how much we’re trying to ski. Biathletes depart before practice even ends. And often I am talking to individual skiers since some of the team I only see once or twice a week.

The email at least serves as a way to bring everyone back to reflection on the session, and also conveniently link video from the ski. In this case, I linked the article above after several sessions last week too. Maybe some clicked-through and read-on, and maybe others didn’t. But I was able to think about what I wanted to say/type about the article, and provide better context than I ever could on a training day.

Not long after getting engaged with some reading on intensity monitoring, we were all-in for remembering watches and monitors at intervals

Then there’s the expectation and layout card, like on Sunday when a good number of skiers were late to arrive and much time was spent in the Cochran’s parking lot without starting our workout. I was driving the van as a shuttle/support vehicle for most of practice, and had lots of time to think about how I wanted to go over the late-to-practice thing.

In this case, I knew everyone would need to ride in the van back to the starting point, so we would have a dedicated gathering. But I waited until we were in the parking lot so that I could turn around and actually try to be a part of the discussion…a better topic shared honestly and in person, rather than an email.

What about the technique card? That changes often. Is there a quiet moment where one skier can be pulled aside

for video review at practice? Maybe, but that can often lead to a queue lined-up for more turns on the camera and all of a sudden the rhythm of practice, as finicky as it is to achieve, is already out of balance.

Sometimes we can structure it so that everyone makes a pass for the camera, and either review it together or separately.

Most often, I will take all video at practice and try to stay in the moment with my own actions and verbiage, and then include all of the video in a follow-up debrief email with a “reference clip” of pro skiers. Recently we’ve tried to incorporate more video right before skiing, via a TV in the Walker Building and a few minutes of focused viewing. But in any case, this card can be tricky to utilize correctly!

There are cards for teambuilding, cards for logistics, and cards for tough moments and excited moments alike. Whether or not I play the right card at the right time is always something I’m reflecting on…by playing the wrong cards at the worst times, I’ve learned some of my biggest lessons as a coach!

A recent article has been making waves in the ski community, and for good reason!

Team Aker Daehlie, a Norwegian pro team, recently put out this piece about endurance training:

You are training too hard and will never reach your full potential!

Matt Whitcomb, US Ski Team head coach, had the following to say about it:

“I think every endurance sport coach should read this. The concepts are easy to understand, and the presentation encourages flexibility and creativity. So why do so many coaches and athletes blow it? This is the low-hanging fruit to make your team better. Take an hour and read it slowly.”

I have been sharing this with athletes over the course of the week, as a follow-up to training sessions. I think that when I send out blanket emails with info, they can be overlooked, but after most every training session I’ll send a follow-up/debrief email with thoughts, video, links, etc…

Here is a little of what I wrote to the Juniors, which I think can be carried-over to other club members, leaders, and parents. Take a look if you like, after reading the article above.

Adam’s Notes to Juniors

(apologies for the strange paragraph spacing which I can’t seem to correct)

Team Aker Daehlie athletes training

Some wouldn’t call just two efforts, about 20 minutes of combined time, an entire testing week. But the reality is, our recently-completed Junior timetrials do go beyond just a single week in scope.

We test periodically throughout the spring, summer, and fall. Since ski races need snow and only happen in one of the four(+) seasons we experience in Vermont, tests are one of our key metrics for gauging personal progress and responses to all of the training we do. We aren’t alone, as most every team has their own dedicated uphill run test and double pole test, among others (like the 3000m run, or different types of strength testing).

It is always fun to see big improvements. Often the biggest improvements happen when someone does a specific test for their second time ever…the first time through a test is a bit of the unknown, even if you warm-up by checking out the whole course. Nothing prepares you for the first time pushing yourself as hard as possible through a new experience! When a racers comes into the test the second time, they know more of what to expect and how to prepare both mentally and physically.

Big improvements can also happen over time through personal growth. Because age groups range from U16 to U20, we have people every year doing these tests from 8th grade all the way up through (and beyond) their early years in college. Whether through puberty, changes in school sport focus, or just the nature of being growing teenagers, you can’t always pin a improvement or a decline on the training plan alone. It’s not always a simple input (training) -> output (results) scenario, and that’s where Junior coaching gets complex and fascinating.

With the end of summer training, a tough volume block that included travel and altitude time for a collection of our group, and the start of a busy school year, this testing week was as much about checking for consistency and not just improvement. It was a check to make sure we had all survived the past few weeks!

The early part of the week brought the added challenge of heat and humidity to the double pole tests on Monday and Tuesday, but it was nothing some extra popsicles and hydration couldn’t handle. Sometime in the next month or two we will be rollerskiing with jackets and gloves on, wishing we could have a few minutes of blissful 90-degree temperatures…maybe.

Things cooled-off by the Bolton uphill run test at the end of the week, and a whirlwind of spreadsheets and time calculations had been completed. Across the two very different types of tests, there were almost unanimous PR efforts for double poling and uphill running. Those that didn’t hit a PR were either very close, or setting a season-best for their testing. Seems like we have collectively survived the switch to the next part of the year.

Lorenzo just barely surviving!