July 22, 2011 (Alaska) – My goal as a coach of APU and two of the women on the US Ski Team is to help support an environment where we have the best women in North America training together. I believe that training in groups is the best way to lift the level of skiing from good to world class. On day 6 of the camp it is evident the group is getting better each day we train as a ‘team’.

The plan is to have 1/2 the camp on dry-land and 1/2 the camp on-snow at our glacier training center on Eagle Glacier, at the Thomas Training Center. The dry-land portion is a good start. Daily volumes have been between 3-4.5 hours of training, mainly split between 2 sessions. We have had 2 interval sessions, 2 strength, and whole lot of distance training.

It is hard to pick which has been the best group session. My favourite has been the 50 km double pole on the “Tour of Anchorage”, double pole L3-4 intervals 4-6*6 minutes, and the 4-6*10 min L3 intervals with sprint finish. We have two more days in dry-land training, the focus will be on speed work and a roller ski race.

The magic in racing fast is training well and training to be fast! The magic is in the training. Enjoy the pictures…