1 of 18

Long Term Goals

Your Best Day

at

Championship Races

2 of 18

Building a Champion

Consistent Incremental Improvement:

    • Strength
    • Endurance
    • Technique
    • Mental Toughness
    • Training Intelligence

3 of 18

Develop a Training Plan

  • Factors to consider
    • Your goals
    • Age
    • Amount of time for training
    • social/economic situation (bad equipment)
    • experience from your training log
    • your weaknesses

Link to a Training Plan

Best/easiest way? Join a summer training club

Please don’t use ChatGPT

Talk to a coach

4 of 18

Planning Hours

Caveats

Logging hours in Sept and Oct are challenging.

Ok to add a couple percent in June, July, August

Juniors - lots of time on snow after a 10 day break-in period. Neuromuscular Development

5 of 18

Training - Endurance

  • Incremental Improvement (10% to 15% per year)

  • consistency – daily workouts (not bunches spread out)

  • training hour benchmarks - multi-year plan:
    • Age: 13 to 14 - 150 to 200 hours per year
    • Age: 15 to 16 - 250 to 400 hours per year
    • Age: 17 to 18 - 300 to 500 hours per year
    • Age: 18 to 21 - 400 to 600 hours per year
    • Elite - 700 to 1200 hours per year

log your year round endurance activities: skiing, rollerskiing, running, cycling, canoeing, hiking, swimming

6 of 18

Training - Strength

Set incremental goals

      • 2 strength workouts a week
      • 250 - 500 - 1000 pushups a week
      • 10 – 20 - 30 honest dips (in a row)
      • 5 – 10 - 20 honest pull ups (in a row)
      • bench your weight x 10 reps
      • 60 minutes of core strength a week

Hips/glutes/core - injury prevention

7 of 18

Technique/Training

  • summer training clubs (very important)

  • videos - technique (yourself and others – you need to do it a lot more)

  • be independent - gather information about technique and training

  • Learn how to wax – seriously, it is time

8 of 18

Mental Toughness

  • seek year round competition or challenges
    • Running races hurts (so do it)
    • Rollerskiing for 3 hours is hard (so do it)
    • The Coulee is hard and scary (so do it)
    • Eight hour bike rides hurt (so do it)
    • Intervals make me tired (so do it)
  • you can not push yourself as hard as your teammates will push you (don't practice alone)
  • Get practice doing things that make you nervous

9 of 18

Training Intelligence

  • design a training plan – yearly, weekly, daily
  • log your work - use a training log
  • know and practice your weaknesses
  • get out of bed
  • listen to your body - e.g. check morning heart rate
  • On a distance day, go slow. On a speed day, go fast. Don’t live in the middle.
  • Put good things in your body – healthy food
  • “Big Picture” harmony with family, school, training
  • Concentrate on Long-Term Results - Years
  • Know your HR Zones and when to be in what zone

10 of 18

Incremental Daily Improvement

You don’t become a champion by winning a morning workout. The only true way is to marshal the ferocity of your ambition over the course of many days, weeks, months, and (if you could finally come to accept it) years.

From the book "Once a Runner".

Predicting Success by the time a person gets out of bed.

You can’t be afraid of work.

11 of 18

Perceived Strengths

  • Comradery and Team Spirit
  • Self Motivated Athletes
  • Depth of Squads
  • Level of Commitment
  • Joy

12 of 18

Perceived Weakness

Make Your Weakness Your Strength

Primary

  • Lack of Individual Planning - Year, Month,.....
  • Weekly Planning (hit this link)
  • Mental Preparation for Race Day

Secondary

  • Strength/Skate ski Leg drive
  • Ski and Kick wax knowledge

13 of 18

Goals

Process Goal(s)

Example: Have a plan

Example: Hit my Monthly Hours

Example: Run 500 miles this summer

Season Goal(s)

Example: Confidence on Race Day

Example: All-State

Example: Team Championship

Example: Make State Varsity Squad

Carry these with you - tell parents, friends, coaches

14 of 18

Holistic Approach

How does one gain satisfaction from racing? Is it medals?

For some, perhaps.

Others must look to the intangibles, the euphoria of an all-out effort, knowing that you have raced your best.

It’s the getting there, the highs and lows, the testing and probing, culminating is a day when everything clicks and you are able to overcome any obstacle. Those are the days to live for.

15 of 18

Athletes

  • Set high goal to dictate behavior
  • Be a calm, confident teammate on race day
  • Have an arrogance (I belong here)

  • Train together - most important

16 of 18

The HP Experiment

Running makes your skiing better.

Skiing makes your running better

20 years of history seems to validate this idea

17 of 18

Woach Kill’s Additional Ideas

1. Just because you get older doesn't automatically equal better. Being one year older means nothing -- having one more year of solid training means something.

2. Keep the fire - if your season ended on a disappointing note, while it can be easy to want to look past it, keep that memory in the back of your head. It will help you wake up in the morning to go for that long run. It will push you through the extra interval.

18 of 18