Nordic coaches and athletes are often asked, "what do you do in the summer time." People are regularly surprised to learn that the majority of training for more developed and highly competitive athletes takes place during the summer months. The Comp team is currently in the middle of one of their largest training blocks of the year; some U18/20 athletes will put in upwards of 40 hours of training in July with the emphasis on building a strong foundation that is relied upon come race season. Activities vary and are balanced such that the yearly, monthly and weekly cycles have a specific emphasis and goal. In the next couple of months the emphasis will be volume training and low intensity, but athletes are always touching base with every aspect of training in any given week. If you see the Comp team out in the mountains, on the trails, or roller skiing on the pathways give them a shout out and know that they're putting in a tremendous amount of work during the mid summer period.
Strength Session
Prior to the large volume months, the Comp team kicked off their summer training with the on snow summer camp in Bend, Oregon. Mostly younger athletes, new to the comp team, participated in the camp with the leadership of U18 Alex Muromcew. JHSC teamed up with Sun Valley for crew of about 30 athletes. Intermountain team building, making new friends and learning personal responsibility in a team environment were all bonus pieces of the camp, while the primary focus was to get in a lot of training hours, focus on technique while skiing, and get in some solid strength and level 1 distance training for the dry-land sessions in the afternoon. To cap it all off we spent two days in Pacific City, Oregon for some beach time and surfing!
IMD Crew at Mt. Bachelor
Summer Snow
Trail Run on the Coast
Yoga on the Beach
Older U18/20 athletes have the option of joining the Haig Glacier Camp in Alberta in early August. Athletes will hike to a remote backcountry location 12 miles from the nearest road at 7,500 feet about tree line next to a glacier where there will be on snow training. This is slated to be another large volume week of training with on snow technique sessions in the morning and dry-land training in the afternoon.
Last week the Comp team completed their first "test" week. Physical tests included a double pole time trial, a strength test, the 3000m track time trial, and a trail run time trial. The goal of this first test week was to establish a baseline and give athletes an opportunity to set process goals in the next training block to accomplish their desired outcome goals for the next test week. The team usually goes through 4-5 test from June to November. Check out the links below for an archive of JHSC nordic athlete test results.
In other Nordic news, the Development and Junior team started their summer training routine last week. As their training sessions are held during the same time as the Prep and Comp team's strength sessions, there is at least some interaction between some of the younger and older JHSC nordies. It's been great to see motivated youngsters getting after it, and cool to see how the older Prep and Comp team athletes are doing their part to inspire the Development and Junior team athletes.
