March 19, 2013 – For you Master Skiers – If you’re a master skier and a serious trainer and need to maximize your training time during the snow months because of your job, you need to head to your friendly ski shop and take a look at Atomic’s Skintec skis. Not this year’s, but next year’s (if you can wait) as there’s promise that it will have a weight reduction – it’s going on a diet.

But, the Skintec part of the ski is what you’re interested in – it’s a couple of mohair strips that fit into a routed out space in the base and held in place by a couple of magnets. The configuration of the strips are the exact replicas of those Bill Koch had on his Fischer skis when he was the first skier of the modern era to race at the Olympics on no-wax skis.

I was recently in Ottawa for the Gatineau Loppet and took a pair of these skis out for a couple of days of skiing and was very pleasantly surprised with their performance. I skied on hard packed powder, glazed tracks, wetish tracks and in a light snowfall with about a half an inch in the tracks during a number of workouts. They kicked eyerywhere.

This particular pair of skis was a bit soft, so the glide wasn’t all that great, but when it comes to stepping out for a ski and you don’t want to have the hassle of finding the wax or having to wax, these boards fit the bill.

I will definitely be looking for a pair next fall – of course a fitted pair. I encourage you to look into them.

Liz Stephen – I’ve read all of the post race comments on her race and can agree with all that was said, especially what Liz had to say, but I have a bit of a different take. Right from the beginning, as I watched the race, she was in the lead pack and then passed up the ski change the 1st time (at 13.3km), and I thought this was a strategy of hers to put pressure on those skiers that went in, to have to make up the 25-second gap and burn their legs and physiology. Yes, Johaug was out front from the beginning trying to kill off everyone else – especially Kowalczyk.

Liz has to do the same thing, kill the other skiers from the beginning, as she will likely lose a final sprint against too many of the skiers in the last km of a race.

Were her skis slow at the end? Liz said yes, they were… but from what I saw I don’t think so. She was a very tired skier from her efforts and we all know that when this happens we don’t take that last big push as we start a downhill – we don’t one-skate those extra two strides as we go into a hill and change to off-set earlier, and we’re not as tight in our tuck as we were earlier in the race. It happens – we’ve all had the expereince.

I can tell you a podium is going to happen for Liz, but it will be with this kind of strategy – pedal to the medal right from the start.

TdS – It’s over – yes, it is, but next year’s strategy for the 2014 TdS will be on people’s minds very soon if they haven’t had discussions with head coaches about it already, while it is still fresh in their minds. Realize that a lot of people were coming apart at the seams and missing races these last couple of weeks – and next year’s Olympics is 10 days closer to the TdS than the WSC were this year. All those recovery days in this year’s calendar will be lost. Those Olympic medals are awful precious. I’ll make my first TdS no-show prediction – Ms. Bjoergen from Norway!

Way To Go Noah – Another front-end strategy – go for the bonus points – and then finish in the points on top of that – 24th place got Noah 7 pts but by sprinting up front with the “big boys” he picked up another 21 bonus points that bought him into the top 50 ranking on the overall WC and an invitation to go on to the finals in Stockholm and Falun. That’s clever – one thing to think it and another thing to make it happen – kudos to you my man!

Talking of front-end strategies, why don’t all those “B” tour skiers give skiing up front a try when they get their chances on the WC (and for some of them it has been a number of times) rather than starting out back in the 50s, 60s and 70s. You’re over there for the experience – find out what it takes.

Johaug – Where have all those heart rate readings, that we were getting early in the season, gone? I would have loved to see Therese’s numbers at the top of the big hill all three times. She had to be doing a lot of red line skiing from the start – pretty amazing effort.

OBOS – do you own an Obos(?) or have one in your car or house – big sponsor this weekend in Oslo!

Talk To You Soon!

MisterXC@aol.com