Follow USST nordic skiers on Twitter

Some of the US Ski Team cross country skiers are tweeting.

Andy Newell tweets as AndyNewellskier.

Kris Freeman 4th in Kuusamo

Freeman placed 4th in the 15k individual start classic race in Kuusamo Finland today!!!

Difficult to ski in Level 1

I started using a heart rate monitor this fall. Here's a few comments from my experiences thus far.

The monitor says my level 4 efforts were about right.

My level 1 training was way off. With the monitor, I found that Level 1 is a much lower level of effort than I supposed. I'm also having trouble staying in level 1 while skiing... yesterday I was constantly finding myself in Level 2 or 3 while trying to ski an easy Level 1 distance workout.

I'm using the levels defined by CXC Academy. My numbers are shown in the table below. I'm using 187 for my max heart rate which is the highest I've seen during hard efforts. This is a bit higher than the age formula which gives 220-40=180.

Max HR: 187

Level MIN MAX

5 187 (100%) 187 (100%)

4 168 (90%) 187 (100%)

3 150 (80%) 168 (90%)

2 131 (70%) 150 (80%)

1 112 (60%) 131 (70%)

World Cup Opener

Cross Country Skiing World Cup opener today in Beitostolen Norway.

The US Team posted a couple of top 30 finishes (Kikkan and Freeman).

Check this video post from Andy Newell

World Cup Video from Andy Newell

Hopefully the races will be on tv next week.

First day on snow today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!