Though it feels like the “real” winter just started yesterday, the season will soon be over and cross-country venues will close their gates until next November. So what to do in these long summer months to be ready for the next season on snow?
As a rule of thumb, to keep their fitness level up, recreational skiers should exercise as many times a week as they would go for a ski in snow season. Increase your training towards the fall and you will be ripping next season! Focus on maintaining and toughening your cardiovascular and muscular base. As cross-country skiing is a full-body workout, training in summer should include a wide range of exercises to strengthen both the lower and upper body. We are in the lucky situation to live in the Sea to Sky Corridor, which provides us with endless possibilities to work out outside.
Whether you are going for a run, bike ride, swim in the lake or a kayak tour, all these activities will help you to keep and improve endurance and strength. Don’t forget to include some demanding interval training in your workouts, so meet up with your ski buddies for a daylong bike tour or regular morning runs and include some race intervals. Grabbing some poles and hiking up one of our beautiful mountains will give your upper body a boost. It is also a good idea to include modes of exercise that closely match the motion and drills of cross-country skiing like roller skiing or Nordic skating (if you are inline skating with poles, make sure to get some appropriate summer ski tips).
Key skills that every cross-country skier can work on in summer are also balance, coordination and core strength. So why not take the kids to a trampoline place, go for a surf or horseback ride or build some homemade balance boards to play with? Also, the local ski clubs offer group dryland training opportunities.
Luckily we all got a few more weeks left to enjoy the snow for now — and Ski Callaghan even decided to extend its season, which would usually end on April 6. The gates will be open for seven extra ski days in April (Friday-Sunday, April 11 to 13 and Friday to Monday, April 18 to 21, access through the Callaghan Country gate only, www.skicallaghan.com). So get out and ski as long as you can!
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Watch Canada’s best ski jumpers compete! — This Friday and Saturday (March 28 and 29), Canada’s best ski jumpers and Nordic combined athletes will compete in the Aviva National Championships Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined at Whistler Olympic Park. Spectators will have the opportunity to cheer on Olympic ski jumpers Atsuko Tanaka, Taylor Henrich and Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes and their teammates in their fight for the titles. Also, international athletes will take part in the competitions: The Swiss ski jumping team, including World Cup athletes Gregor Deschwanden and Marco Grigoli, has signed up and also jumpers from the U.S. will compete on Whistler Olympic Park’s normal hill (hill size 106 metres) and large hill (hill size 140 metres).
On both days, ski jumping will take place from 9:30 a.m. to noon, with a 10:30 a.m. start for the competition rounds. On Friday there will also be the cross-country race for the Nordic Combined National Championships starting at 2 p.m. From March 25 to 27, the athletes will jump during a training camp (jumping times also approximately 9:30 a.m. to noon).
On all days a $10 admission fee per vehicle applies for spectators without a regular Whistler Olympic Park trail ticket or season pass.
Silke Jeltsch is an administrator at Whistler Olympic Park. She can be reached at [email protected]
