Hey Laura,

I came up with this question after talking to my friend Jenny Townsend
about Whitman and Walla Walla.

A lot of skiers develop excuses as to why they can't hang with the
best. Training location is one of the big ones that always seems to
come up. Here in Rochester, NY, I frequently deal with no snow, poor
grooming, and lack of good ski trails nearby. I heard, though, that
at Whitman there's often no snow in town and a long drive to the ski
trails, which sometimes aren't much better than a snowmobile trail.
There's also the added effect that Walla Walla is at low elevation
while most of the western NCAA races are much higher. So Laura, how
did you deal with these challenges to become one of the top skiers in
the NCAA? What advice can you give to skiers that may also struggle
with challenging conditions?

Thanks and good luck with your races!

LunaSki

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Dear Friendly Lunatic-

It's true-- Walla Walla is at about 600 feet, there's seldom snow in town and it's a 45min drive to ski on sometimes groomed ski trails and sometimes snowmobile trails. The grooming's been getting better over the years and I think we only skied on snowmobile trails a couple times my senior year. While there's certainly challenges associated with such a training location, it also allows for lots of room for creativity.

Jenny helped coach the Whitman Ski Team my freshman year and one of my most vivid memories from that year is when Jenny led a strength session. Nope, not in the weight room (although Whitman does have a super nice one of those), but out on a run with impromptu stops to do push-ups, fence climbing, dips or some other torture depending on what the terrain offered. You can bring the same creativity and playfulness to ski training when there's poor grooming. Skiing on snowmobile trails, both classic and skate skiing, is excellent for developing balance and agility. Basically, instead of complaining about poor conditions you have to learn to appreciate and utilize the benefits you can get from your specific training location.

The low altitude is a little harder to overcome. I will say that the more often you go back and forth to altitude, the easier the transition becomes. Our ski trips were from Wed-Sun with races Fri/Sat so when you're at altitude 5 days every two weeks you can certainly learn to acclimate. Furthermore, there's a lot of benefits to training at a low altitude that you should appreciate-- increased speed capacity and decreased recovery time being the two big ones.

Most of us will ski faster when we're living in a vibrant community with plenty of opportunities for playing and exploring all of our passions than if we were hidden away in a mountain yurt with perfectly groomed ski trails outside our door every day-- it's good to balance access to skiing with access to life. People who love to train and love to ski will get faster regardless of where they're living.

Another good example is Miss LunaSki herself who will be competing in the 2007 US XC Running Champs on December 8th. Despite the challenges associated with living in Rochester she's certainly one speedy chica. LunaSki is another one of what I would call an overeducated ski bum and tells about her athletic adventures at LunaSki's blog. So good luck to LunaSki in that endeavor and we're looking forward to having her bring some of that aerobic fitness to the ski world later this winter.

LAV

p.s. LAV loves receiving questions whether frivolous or serious because that means she doesn't have to think up her own topic for a post: email laura@lauravalaas.com.

Labels: Ask LAV