Training with Telemark

There's nothing better for a mountain bike race off season then a robust ski season.  However, as fun as it is to race down slopes with a set of downhill sticks, at times it seems a little easy, and may be too much rest as an off season training regimen.  Especially when I throw back a few beers after a nice day out on the slopes.

I love to ski and I love the winter because of skiing.  I also love starting the spring season with super strong legs and cardio fitness to boost.  Most people will ride a bike trainer in the winter months, or fat bike and those are great (especially the fat bike), but they both pose limitations. 

Riding a trainer, much like a treadmill, only somehow worse

For one, riding my bike on a trainer is a short form of psychological torture for me.  It is an evil way to experience the thrill of riding my bike as it takes away the actual riding part.  Yes, I am technically riding a bike, but I'm not going anywhere and most likely staring at a wall the whole time.  Fat biking is a great way to get off the bike trainer and outside during the winter, but most fat bikes are limited by the amount of snow they can ride in. Cross country skiing is an excellent cardio winter workout, but it lacks the excitement and speed of downhill skiing.

One thing that winter offers is ski mountains and night skiing with many resorts making their own snow.  Alpine skiing at these mountains is a great way to experience the thrill of speed while working out the core and quads, but it can get easy once you're in shape.  However, there is a form of downhill skiing that is never easy.  It is known as free heal downhill skiing, or telemark.  

Somewhere in Norway outside of Telemark

Telemark has a long history and is a style that predates modern alpine downhill skiing.  It is named after a town in Norway where the style originated from.  It combines elements of Nordic skiing with downhill and essentially allows practitioners the luxury (or curse) of turning with a free heal. 

Before I am asked why would anyone want to revert backwards and not take advantage of the years of technological advances in skiing, let me explain what the thrill and feel of the tele turn is like.

Try to remember your first ski lesson, and try to remember how difficult it was to teach your muscles and your body to turn.  Everyone can remember the "pizza, French fries" analogy, and can remember how the pizza part was very uncomfortable.  That initial discomfort is because the modern down hill turn works against the body's natural conformation for a downhill ski turn. 

In telemark skiing the turn is very natural.  It follows the way that your body was designed to tackle a steep slope with skis strapped to one's feet.  In downhill the turn is initiated by the leading ski, with the body and legs leaning in unison into the side of the mountain. 

But in telemark, the turn is actually split between the forward and rear leg and ski and the power comes from lagging the trailing foot and ski behind you.  The turn and your body weight is split between both legs and skis.  

Is this binding broken?

But here's the kicker.  In downhill when one finds their rhythm one will start to feel a burn in the top of the quads.  In telemark when one finds their rhythm the burn is felt throughout both legs, in the feet, calves, quads, hamstrings, and glutes.  The shear number of muscles firing at the same time is mind boggling and the amount of energy that is required to master a run is far, far greater.  To give you an idea of what it's like, imagine doing a serious of jumping squats for several minutes while trying to keep your upper body balanced with your core and that's telemark. 

I have tele skied easy runs that have taken 4 times as long to complete as downhill with an energy expenditure so great that my legs ended up as a quivering mess and most of my layers were shed due to exertion and sweat.  I used to get bored by the chair lift because it was a pause in between my runs, but now I can't wait to get to the chair after a tele run because it means I can take a break and rest!

I have alpine skied entire days without taking a break because of how much fun I was having and because I was conditioned enough from racing to not get tired.  But even after the best race season the longest I can telemark without uncontrollable leg shaking is 3 hours.  It is simply a far more difficult and taxing style, but one that gets very addictive partly due to it's challenge and partly due to how great it makes you feel. 

But by far the greatest benefit of a winter of telemark skiing is destroying that first season race because your legs and cardiovascular system have been put through the ringer on all the slopes you dared to tackle with a style of skiing that is 150 years old!

Delicious powder waiting to be tamed by telemark!

Addicted to Mt biking

Waiting for the race to start

At the end of my 2015 race season I decided to cater to my penchant for all mountain riding and entered an enduro race at Highland Mt bike park in NH.  The night before the race it poured and dumped several inches of rain on everything including the mountain and race stages which made for ridiculously slippery conditions as every root and rock was covered in slimy mud.  I almost came out of the race unscathed, having only suffered minor scrapes from a few falls, until the last stage.  

This stage was the steepest, most difficult, and rockiest stage of them all, and I managed to complete 90% of it with out breathing from sheer terror at its difficulty.  It was literally the toughest mt biking trail I have ever ridden in my life. 

Helmet hit the ground first, thankfully it was full face protection.

The terror factor resulted in my death gripping the handle bars and as far as I can tell the reason why I got bit in the last 200 feet of the race, when I lost control on a turn; fell over the bike, failed to clip out, hit head first into the ground, landed my left thigh on a broken sapling tree stump, and rolled over the bike while it was still attached to me.  I felt a very weird sensation in my left hand and immediately thought that I had torn a tendon.  I got up, checked that I was ok, got back on the bike and finished only to realize that something was very wrong.  

Spiral fracture on 4th metacarpel bone

After a trip to the ER tent and 30 minutes of waiting to make sure I didn't have a concussion, I made the 2 hour drive home in severe discomfort from my thigh and hand, only to come to find out several hours later that my 4th metacarpal suffered from a spiral fracture from the fall.  I was placed in a cast and told that it would stay on for 6 weeks, followed by 2 weeks in a brace, and that I could resume full activity after 12 weeks. 

The first week I was good.  I didn't do anything but rest.  By the second week I was getting ancy, so I started to do some light cardio and hiking.  But, I had reached my limit on the third week.  I had been away from my bike for three solid weeks, something I haven't done in over 15 years.  So I decided that I would grab the most stable bike I own and go ride the easiest place I could find, and headed to a local rail trial with my fat bike. 

Yes, this was a stupid thing to do, but I literally couldn't stay away from biking for that long, I just missed it too much.  I was having nightly mt biking dreams and was waking up very upset that I couldn't bike.  So I decided that enough was enough and took matters into my own hands.

We can all agree that there are far worse addictions,  but I won't deny that I am fully addicted to mt biking, and I'm not sorry about that.  As for Enduro racing, I'm probably over it, but then again I know better then to never say never.  

"Falling down is how we grow. Staying down is how we die." -Brian Vaszily