I began Nordic Cross Skating 13 years ago at age 60. I skate about 1300 KMs per year between April 1 and December 1 mostly on back country roads nearby. A great time for podcast listening!
Nordic skiing is truly one of the healthiest, most enjoyable pastimes to engage in as well as the most demanding of sports to pursue if you so desire. I was not blessed with any particularly special physical attribute but I love a good challenge and I knew how to train. I did several sports including bicycle racing. I was introduced to XC skiing in my early 20s by a wonderful friend who was Ontario time trial cycling champion at the time. Nordic Ski racing was a great way to do winter training for cycling so I joined the university ski team. I made special friends in the team and we did well. We skied what’s now called Classic Style and only started skating in my final year of competition. Classic style is more interesting in some ways as I feel classic technique is slightly more nuanced than skating and we also had to really understand waxes and snow, as well as ski design in order to perform because classic skis are much less forgiving than skating skis if incorrectly matched to difficult conditions. As for off-snow training, my Jofa roller skis mimicked classic skis and were not really designed to accommodate skating. They also didn’t have brakes so I had to do semi-snow plows to stop. Working in big cities was not conducive to skiing so I switched to other physical exercise once I left school and then I had to care for several aging family members as well as my parents so competitive sports weren’t possible. However I did other things to challenge myself. I even once thought about trying biathlon as I had also shot 3 position rifle in high school but it was a real struggle to train for such a complex and unsupported sport in a big Canadian city and then a spinal injury worsened so that was that. Nowadays I spend many hours each week working to save Canada from our criminal WEF globalist government so it’s all I can do to just stay physically fit to keep that going, at least until we “make Canada great again”.
Nordic skiing is truly one of the healthiest, most enjoyable pastimes to engage in as well as the most demanding of sports to pursue if you so desire. I was not blessed with any particularly special physical attribute but I love a good challenge and I knew how to train. I did several sports including bicycle racing. I was introduced to XC skiing in my early 20s by a wonderful friend who was Ontario time trial cycling champion at the time. Nordic Ski racing was a great way to do winter training for cycling so I joined the university ski team. I made special friends in the team and we did well. We skied what’s now called Classic Style and only started skating in my final year of competition. Classic style is more interesting in some ways as I feel classic technique is slightly more nuanced than skating and we also had to really understand waxes and snow, as well as ski design in order to perform because classic skis are much less forgiving than skating skis if incorrectly matched to difficult conditions. As for off-snow training, my Jofa roller skis mimicked classic skis and were not really designed to accommodate skating. They also didn’t have brakes so I had to do semi-snow plows to stop. Working in big cities was not conducive to skiing so I switched to other physical exercise once I left school and then I had to care for several aging family members as well as my parents so competitive sports weren’t possible. However I did other things to challenge myself. I even once thought about trying biathlon as I had also shot 3 position rifle in high school but it was a real struggle to train for such a complex and unsupported sport in a big Canadian city and then a spinal injury worsened so that was that. Nowadays I spend many hours each week working to save Canada from our criminal WEF globalist government so it’s all I can do to just stay physically fit to keep that going, at least until we “make Canada great again”.