This is Not Your Parents' Cross Country Skiing

If the thought of cross-country skiing does not bring to mind images of people gliding across flat, vast expanses of snow in their wool sweaters, hats with the fuzzy pom-poms and their gaiters, then don't bother reading any further, because I'm obviously preaching to the choir......

Simply put, the sport of nordic skiing (as it prefers to be called), is nowhere near as genteel as the masses might think. I'm sure that my colleagues who see me rush off from work to get a quick workout on the trails in before dark think of Canadian Tire skis with the three-hole plaftorm under the toes, but the sport now is radically different.

Nordic skiing, of course, has been around for centuries.

It originated in Scandinavia during prehistoric times, when hunters discovered strapping a pair of boards onto your feet gave you a huge advantage over long-legged prey in deep snow. Even as recently as the 19th century, it was the chief method of winter transportation in countries such as Norway (the mecca of nordic - all enthusiasts must make a pilgrimmage there one day), Sweden and Finland. Immigrants from those nations brought the sport to North America.

The "skate" style had long been in use in those countries, but the classic style held sway in competitive circles. American Bill Koch caught the attention of the media, however, when he won the 1982 world championships using the technique, becoming the first non-European to top the podium (only one other non-Eurpean - Canada's Sara Renner with a bronze, has even stood on the podium at the worlds since then).

From there, skating grew in popularity. A primitive form of it was first used at the 1984 Winter Olympics, but it really only gained acceptance from the FIS in the past 10 years. At the winter games, there are still as many classic races as there are skate.

As in most other sports, technology has played a huge role in the advancement of nordic skiing. Most people only know the "classic" technique when it comes to the sport. Gliding in pre-set tracks, classicers use a shuffling/kicking motion to propel themselves along the flats, then move into a "running" technique (for the elite skiers) or the traditional "herring-bone" method when it comes to hills.

Skate skiing has benefitted the most from improvements in ski construction, bindings and bood manufacturing.

In comparing the difficulty between the two techniques, well, there is no comparison. If you can balance, you can classic. Certainly, there is skill progression and fitness involved, but for the recreational classicer, there is little to compare it to skating. Skate skiing uses a different motion (i.e. skating, but with 183 cm blades), does not use a track, and relies on the poles more for propulsion (and at that, there are different methods of using the poles on flats vs hills - no herring-bone for skaters - you skate up the hill)

In short, skating is much, much harder. Harder to learn, harder to master, and demands a much greater level of strength and cardio-vascular fitness. To compound that, most true nordic ski centers are not built on flat terrain. Hills are part of the game. At my home resort, you climb over 200m in elevation in the first 2 km (the good thing about that is that most of the last 2k of your ski are downhill, which is a challenge unto itself). I often have to remind myself that I'm having fun as I climb.

Skate skiing uses every major muscle group (to be fair, so does classic, but at a much lower level of intensity), and is one of the sports that burns the most calories per hour. Nordic skiers are among the best-conditioned athletes on the planet. Legendary Norwegian skier Bjorn Daehle set a world record in a fitness test with a 96 VO2 max.

I was a dedicated alpine skier until a few years ago. I even patrolled at Blue Mountain, a Southern Ontario ski resort popular with the Greater Toronto Area crowd. I slowly became disenchanted with the sport, however. As the sport became increasingly popular, the lineups at the chair lifts grew (if this was Stowe or even Mt Tremblant, I could put up with it - I'm not waiting 15 minutes to ski down Blue, though). Injuries became increasingly common - the local hospital could probably have set up an hourly shuttle service to ferry the injured back into town for treatment).

My frustration grew one Friday night around 9 pm. I was slowing down as I approached the funnel that leads to the Grand Prix chair lift, when out of nowhere a skier came up from behind me and bowled me over.

As I was lying on the ground, he cursed at me for being in his way (being the uphill skier, he had the right to watch for my safety - I'm thinking he didn't read the skiers code or responsiblity plastered on signs all over the litigation-concsious resort). I managed to get to my feet, and went over to patrol headquarters to get looked at. The head patroller recommended I get my shoulder x-rayed. I drove myself (one-handed) to the hospital, only to get a stern lecture from the emergency room doctor about out of control skiing.

The final straw occurred one night as my wife and I were dining at one of the resort's restaurants. My patrolling position was voluntary - in exchange for taking regular three-hour shifts, we received "points," redeemable at the resort. I had enough for dinner for two.

During dinner, we struck up a conversation with the couple dining next to us. Turns out they got a dinner voucher for sitting through a timeshare presentation. Freeze your ass of for three months and get a free meal, I thought to myself, or sit through an hour long timeshare presentation. I turned in my uniform at the end of the season.

We had long thought about returning to cross country - sorry, Nordic. Both my wife and I grew up on Canadian Tire skis. When our oldest son entered high school in the fall of 2006, his reputation as a distance athlete was growing. With that in mind, the nordic coach tried to recruit him - and failed.

Undaunted, the coach also happened to be his 2nd term phys ed teacher, and listed as a "next step" on his report card of "joining the nordic ski team to improve his fitness." He joined the following year. In need of an assistant because of some successful recruiting, the coach turned to my wife, who was a teacher at the school. She has a long history of coaching experience in cross country running and track - but none in nordic.

Her learning curve was steep, made even moreso by the fact that the coach retired from teaching a year later, leaving her in charge of the team. Given her background, however, she picked things up quickly, and now runs one of the largest and most successful high school nordic programs in Ontario.

At that point, we bought me an entry pair of Fisher waxless classics, and before long I was schushing my way along the trails. While I improved a great deal in a relatively short time, I couldn't help but feel a little inferior to the legions of skaters who were flying by me. The next season, I picked up another entry pair of Fishers, this time skate, and was on my way. Because I was self-taught, however, my technique was horrible, and much to my chagrin decent classicers were now passing me. I was soon back to the level of frustration I had experienced with alpine. I couldn't go more than about 800m without having to stop to catch my breath.

I sought out professional help in the form of Youtube. The tips I garnered there, along with the advice my wife passed along from her coaching clinics, helped me to get my arms and legs into some form of co-ordinated state. I may not be the fastest skier at the resort, but I do pass a few people along the way now.

Many people try skate skiing, but give up in frustration after a few attempts. That I didn't give up on the technique is probably due to a genetic disposition toward stubborness. Because my wife had a larger team than usual this year, she needed an extra adult along for crowd control, and the odd tip to beginners. This caused me to focus more on my technique, which in turn led to improved cardio (less effort extended), which in turn improved my technique even further, etc...

My advice to those who would like to try the sport is not to take a lesson. Take several. The progression of skills doesn't come overnight. Perhaps those who have considerable experience on other forms of skates or skis think that this sport should come easily. It doesn't. You have to learn how to glide on your skis, then you learn how to involve the poles. Then hills change things a bit. This all takes time. I should know.