[Scott Johnston]

Steve:

Nice to hear from a fellow XC skier.  Yes I knew John Albert pretty well.  He really understood training using the Norwegian method. I remember several long training discussions we had over a beer or two in West Yellowstone.  Both of us being engineers could relate well.  I was very sad to hear of his passing.  He had a big influence in Sun Vally.  TBK, what a character he was.  My wife and were probably his first US friends when the USST hired him to coach the women’s team which in the mid 80s was based in Boulder, CO where we lived at the time. I trained a lot of hours with Torbjorn.

Anyway…On to your questions.  Here is how I would make the most of the ME training to improve your XC skiing endurance. What you are doing now sounds perfect. Nice gradual progression in weight.  I’m a little hazy on the duration end of things though. Is your hill 24 minutes long?  You might consider doing 2 laps if so. Dump the water at the top and refill when you get to the bottom.

But as the fall progresses I would recommend shifting to a more XC ski specific ME workout.  What you are doing has got you moving at too slow of a cadence. It is building good strength and ME fair very steep hills but we don’t have 40% grades in XC skiing. Especially on the Rendezvous course.  I would find a 15-20% grade hill and using moose-hoof technique and no more that 10% of your body weight do weighted uphill intervals at a Z3sort of intensity feeling.  Keep the reps long, like 8-10min and eventually accumulate up to 45min of this work.  Start with something like 3x8min with either a full walk down recovery or if the hill is long enough you will get better effect from 2-3 min easy walking recovery between reps.

It sounds like you have a laid a great ME base but you need to turn this work into something a bit more specific to your goal event.

Good Luck

Scott