City Training Between SuperTours
Hello ski friends! I am having a super fun ski season so far and have been greatly enjoying the Midwestern snow! Earlier in the season, I was traveling a lot, the first SuperTour being in Alaska, traveling home to visit family, and the second SuperTour in Lake Placid, NY. However, our domestic squad is currently in one of our longer blocks of training between SuperTours and has been training in Minneapolis.
City of Lake Loppet. Photo: Skinnyski
Having long breaks between SuperTours can be a nice break from intense racing, provide some rest time at home, and allow for a bigger block of training. It also provides some challenges. For me, I tend to race best when I can stay in a race-focused mental state, which is difficult when races are so spread out. Fortunately, there are so many amazing citizen races in the Midwest to supplement racing during these breaks. For our longer breaks at home, we spend most of our week training on the Wirth or Hyland trails. It’s been super fun to actually have some snow this year and to explore the natural trails, which is a first for me! On the weekends, we have a longer intensity workout or compete in one of the many exciting marathon racing options going on every weekend in Minnesota and Wisconsin. This allows each of us to pick and choose races we want to target and plan our training accordingly. They are also great training races to prep for our favorite race of the year, the Birkie!
The whole team after the City of Lakes Loppet
This past weekend, most of our team chose to do the City of Lakes Loppet. It was an easy travel day and great practice for the Birkie! I trial ran some race nutrition, as well as got some necessary reminders on the importance of ski testing and the difference in pacing between 20 and 30k. Overall, it was a super fun day and a great event put on by the Loppet Foundation.
The other nice aspect of a longer break is getting to enjoy the fun winter events and opportunities that living in the cities provides. The team has started up a weekly hockey game on Tuesday evenings, which has been super fun. It has also been great watching some of the high school races taking place and cheering on the younger generation of skiers! We are also all very excited for the next big Loppet event coming up this weekend! I went to the Luminary Loppet last year, and it was a super cool and unique event. This year, most of the team will be around to go with me, which will make it even more fun! We hope to see you there, and don’t forget to watch all of our teammates in the Olympics!
Last year’s Luminary Loppet