James Southam

September 11, 2009 It’s October and the best skiers in the Lower 48 are back in Lake Placid, the Alaskan’s are starting to transition to winter and I am doing a one-man training camp here in Park City, on my last trip as a non-dad. I started coming down here in the fall of 2004 when the national team was doing their open fall camps here and kept coming down the next two years when I was working with Torbjorn Karlsen. I stayed home last fall and missed it so I came back.

This time of year when the cold wet weather is creeping to the northern climates a few weeks of generally dry (it’s snowing as I type) and sunny weather can do wonders. Add to that a tough roller ski loop, some different training locations and the benefits of altitude, and you would have a hard time convincing me there is a better place to be right now.

The place where I am staying has some amazing running and biking right from the door on the single track trails that wind around Park City and the canyon’s ski resorts. It has made for some great afternoon training. The mornings have been spent roller skiing usually at one of the canyon roads or down at Soldier Hollow where the biathletes are having a camp right now as well.

For roller skiing the two big assets down here are the canyons and SoHo. Long steady climbs and tough ski trails. They just don’t make roads with hills ski trail steep very often so I have been trying to take advantage of that for some of my harder training. One L4 and one long L3 session on it so far. The legs just have a different feel after an hour of L3 on ski trail steep hills than you get from other terrain.

My camp here is winding down with only two training days left, one of them is going to be pretty severe with a 30km race effort at Soldier Hollow. That should leave me plenty tired so I can go home and take a few days off and hang out with my very pregnant wife.

Until next time….

October 13, 2008 (Park City, Utah) – It’s October and the best skiers in the Lower 48 are back in Lake Placid, the Alaskan’s are starting to transition to winter and I am doing a one-man training camp here in Park City, on my last trip as a non-dad. I started coming down here in the fall of 2004 when the national team was doing their open fall camps here and kept coming down the next two years when I was working with Torbjorn Karlsen. I stayed home last fall and missed it so I came back.

This time of year when the cold wet weather is creeping to the northern climates a few weeks of generally dry (it’s snowing as I type) and sunny weather can do wonders. Add to that a tough roller ski loop, some different training locations and the benefits of altitude, and you would have a hard time convincing me there is a better place to be right now.

The place where I am staying has some amazing running and biking right from the door on the single track trails that wind around Park City and the canyon’s ski resorts. It has made for some great afternoon training. The mornings have been spent roller skiing usually at one of the canyon roads or down at Soldier Hollow where the biathletes are having a camp right now as well.

For roller skiing the two big assets down here are the canyons and SoHo. Long steady climbs and tough ski trails. They just don’t make roads with hills ski trail steep very often so I have been trying to take advantage of that for some of my harder training. One L4 and one long L3 session on it so far. The legs just have a different feel after an hour of L3 on ski trail steep hills than you get from other terrain.

My camp here is winding down with only two training days left, one of them is going to be pretty severe with a 30km race effort at Soldier Hollow. That should leave me plenty tired so I can go home and take a few days off and hang out with my very pregnant wife.

Until next time….