By Angie Kell
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PARK CITY — I recently had the good fortune to spend part of a day with the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team during their National Training Group camp (NTG) in my hometown of Park City. As I told the USST nordic coaches, this time of year is my favorite time in Park City as tourism is at a nadir. But when recreating, one can often see the likes of Jessie Diggins, Rosie Brennan, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, and (new this year) Martin Løwstrøm Nyenget out on the roads, training in peace but also happy to stop and chat with fans like me.
As an outsider looking in, there were so many questions I had for the coaches and athletes, to whom I largely had unfettered access during this preplanned meeting. What goes on at this camp? Why elevation, now? Where are we at with nutrition and the high-carbohydrate movement? How does the team identify young talent? What is the team working on at this camp, and how does one continue to work on it? Why doesn’t the U.S. have a single, proven philosophy on training the way that the Norwegians seem to?
What I discovered, mostly, was that the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team centers itself on the idea that there is more than one way to skin a cat for any given topic I inquired about (it feels democratic and so on-brand for the U.S.). And, truly, that is a feature and not a bug of the team’s philosophy.
More holistically, as the sport of nordic skiing is trying to find its path forward in creating additional fanfare, seeing these national-level and world-class athletes on a vulnerable day, after several days at altitude, made me see them as normal and human, in an atmosphere I could only call inclusive and welcoming on the part of both athletes and coaches. I wanted an entire sports populace to see it and then feel the same excitement for the sport and these relatable athletes that I did on that day.
In lieu of that, I asked questions that regular athletes may want to know about these elite skiers and their fall NTG camp.
The goals of the camp were many: team building and camaraderie. Train as a team. Continue a two-year project of working on fast starts. Test the system (at altitude) with a few days of rollerski races at Soldier Hollow.
Riding in the sag wagon with Greta Anderson, USST Development Team Coach, while the entire team was out for a two-hour L2 rollerski on a snowy, 36o F day in October was a treat. Not only for the chance to ask about the training philosophies of the development and national teams at the camp, and to discuss the aforementioned questions this nordic ski fan could ask and talk about all day, but also because Anderson is just a good human, and we need more of those in this world.
That fall camp includes the development team is designed to allow younger athletes to reach one step further and let them meet the people who can help them get there. Perhaps they’re heroes at their home club; training alongside others of the same caliber allows for growth and camaraderie. Training alongside the national team gave the younger athletes the opportunity to realize that there are commonalities, not to mention that you can learn a lot from skiing an L2 training session behind these seasoned folks.
I wanted to learn from them, too. Starting my day of education was the topic of training at altitude (Park City rests at an elevation of 6,998 feet). Many are familiar with the performance enhancements of altitude and with how to sustain the benefits once you return to sea level.
But why bring the younger athletes to elevation, if they’re based in Minneapolis for example, at this point in their progression? “We encourage athletes to journal how they’re feeling at elevation every day,” stated Anderson. “Because they may race at elevation at some point, it’s important to know how your body feels every day when they’re here.”
Sure enough, an athlete approached our car an hour into training, stating that she was disproportionately tired. Anderson validated the athlete’s sentiments, acknowledging that this was consistently the day at elevation when her body begins to falter, based on their observations from prior team camps at altitude. In light of this evidence, the athlete called it a day and headed home.
Next, the topic that has been of great interest to me and fellow masters athletes in the last year was the one of sports nutrition and fueling. One would have to be living under a rock not to see the advances that the high-carb movement has made in other corners of the endurance world, including triathlon, cycling, ultra running, and marathoning. While I didn’t focus on the athletes for the entirety of the session I spectated, I saw one younger athlete stop to drink from her fuel belt in that time.
Anderson was a little coy on this topic when asked where the team is at with high-carb fueling specifically, but acknowledged the importance that fueling in general plays in sport. “We have staff nutritionists available to the athletes when they want it,” she stated, while not mentioning any specific fueling strategy or philosophy.
While that disheartened me slightly, she did follow up by saying that the younger athletes are asking questions about fueling, and that it’s on their radar. Admittedly, I had grand visions of learning about the fueling strategy that would see Ben Ogden finally able to sustain his balls-to-the-wall efforts in sprint finals, but my expectations were somewhat tempered.
Next, I asked Anderson more about her athletes specifically, and how she identifies talent on the Development Team. As background, my son’s Alpine Academy recently hired the former Director of Sport Science from the USST alpine team to lead their program, and I was familiar with his evidence-based metrics to identify young talent that he authored while with the National Team. Might the Development Team have a similar approach?
“You know it when you see it,” Anderson remarked about her methodology of identifying young talent, though she also recognized how nice it would be to have a system such as the one I mentioned above.
She said she simultaneously identifies good club coaches and will often look at athletes coming through their programs, as that can often assist in identifying up-and-coming athletes to watch for. Her skilled eye is truly the methodology they employ, and after spending the day with her, this felt nearly as data-driven as the alpine team’s methodology. (See more details on this topic in a previous article on Nordic Insights.)
[Editor’s note: Greta Anderson once noticed a growth area about my skiing from the other side of the cavernous Kincaid stadium, at a distance of at least 250 meters, and a day later gave me a technique cue that directly improved it. She has a good eye for these things.]
As far as stated goals were concerned, Anderson expanded upon their goal of building top-end speed, which they also worked on at the June camp. Anderson stated that these goals are often identified when comparing U.S. athletes internationally and assessing liabilities the USST might have. Two years are used to work on a single component of racing.
How can we be assured that these goals are being worked on while not at camp? “We communicate frequently with the club coaches,” Anderson explained. “We are not prescriptive in how to achieve these goals, and the coaches are quite creative. We end up getting a lot of good ideas from other coaches on achieving what we are trying to accomplish.”
As a neuromythed, left-brained scientist who often seeks a singular, evidence-based path to an objective, this initially seemed a bit freehand to me, but simultaneously made sense in an “oh, duh” sort of way. Left brain, meet right brain.
It also felt contrary to what lay people think of as the “Norwegian Method,” which can be viewed as a tried and true, single-track way to achieve success.
Anderson dispelled me from such a myth: “A lot of people think that the Norwegians only do things one way. There are many ways the Norwegians train, and it’s the media who label it under a single method.” Noted.
I came away from the day appreciating that the camp served to connect motivated, talented athletes in an idyllic setting where knowledge is shared and expanded upon. The U.S. Ski Team is clearly in good hands, and sports fans have good reason to be excited — both for this Olympic year in ski racing, and for the future athletes in the sport.
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