Tips and Tricks for Thanksgiving Training Success:
As I said before, Thanksgiving usually marks the first time of the year to train on snow, and this is true for most other Americans as well. Given the fact that it's the first time in over 6 months that you're able to truly glide on a ski, ambitions are high, and the overall excitement level is through the roof. At least that's how it's been for me. With that said, it can be really easy to do too much during that first phase of on-snow training. Whether you end up logging entirely too many hours for your respective level, or go too hard all the time, or a combination of the two, you can end up digging yourself a major hole. I can personally attest to doing just that. While yes we do spend the entire year getting ready to ski on snow via various forms of ski imitation, there is nothing quite like the real thing, meaning, an additional stress for your body. For a lot of people, “Thanksgiving Camp” means traveling to places like West Yellowstone, or Silver Star, both of which are at altitude which adds other aspects to take into consideration especially if you’re coming from lower elevations. In my experience, it's better to take things a bit easier than you think to let the body adapt to the new stimulus. The whole point of getting in lots of skiing is to start building ski specific efficiency so that you’re ready to rock when the race season kicks off, not to bury yourself before you even get the chance to toe the start line. Another very important variable to take into consideration is your skis. A lot of times athletes will get a fresh new pair or two during the late fall/ early winter, and all of this early season skiing is a perfect time to get to know your skis. (If the conditions allow, that is.) Test them versus your old skis, test out kick zones, and in general take advantage of the varied conditions that you will likely be skiing in so that you really know how your skis run.
