Finally snowfall

Big soft snowflakes are falling and makes the world white, quiet and fluffy. We finally got winter in Måndalen, Norway after a surprisingly dry, sunny and snow free November.

Everything takes some extra time, shoveling snow outside the front door, digging out the car and waiting for the snowplow to clear the road out to the main road. We drive to the training mountains where we go skiing a lot wintertime. Today we are lucky, there are already a track made in the fresh snow. We have been able to ski the past week, but the snow layer is thin and it’s easy to hit stones, so a refill today is very much appreciated. Today we made some loops in the forest lower down the mountain since there is no visibility higher up. The powder skiing is so much fun. It burns in the legs but makes me so happy. That is actually one of the reasons why it’s so easy to train a lot of hours on skis during the winter, it’s simply so much fun a lot of the days! 

Skiing has less impact on the body compared to running and it’s easy to train many hours without too much risk for any injuries, but another important part is that when the snow is nice it’s just so good to be outside skiing and it’s easy to become that kid who keeps saying, “Again, one more time!” When you don’t rely on lifts, the only option is to walk up again and it naturally translates to a lot of uphill training and vertical meters wintertime. Winter is the time to build that strong durable base as the foundation for summer running and racing.

I still do some running in the winter, but much less and often not for long, at the most around one hour. I think wintertime is the perfect time for runners to change some parts of the training! Depending on where you live it could be skiing, biking or maybe focusing more on strength training and yoga. My training advice for the winter when the motivation sometimes can be lower is to not be afraid of switching up the training. Go and try something new!

/Ida