We did some skate speeds down by the Kincaid Chalet on Friday. After I had finished my speeds I was skiing back down the road. Bart Dengel still had a couple speeds to go and as I was starting my cool-down he took off V2-ing in front of me. Now Bart was really hammering these 30sec speeds and as I watched him an entire scene recreated itself around him-- snow, pin-flags outlining finishing lanes, phantom competitors (two on his left, one on his right), a finish line just over the crest of the hill.

It was only the access road to Kincaid, but he was skiing with such a purpose it was no stretch of the imagination for me to put him into a race. Now THAT is cool, that is how you should train. To really train for ski racing is to be able to hear the cheering of spectators during your intervals, it's being able to feel the elastic of your bib across your ribcage. To really be able to train is to feel like everyone is watching your splits on the big screen even is you're the only one who will look down at the time on your wrist watch at the end.

There should be such a purpose that your teammates can recreate a race around you as you train.