Free Inquiry: Cross-Country Skiing Day 3

Friends! I am so excited! My goal today was to get down the very first hill of the trail without falling and I did it! In fact I didn’t fall at all! Success! I’m so excited for how today went!

Today we went on a huge adventure covering new trails we have not been on before. My goal was to implement some of the techniques I had learned watching the YouTubes videos mentioned in my previous post. Specifically, i concentrated on gliding, snow plowing, and “running” up the hills. I noticed a huge difference in my efficiency when I focused on gliding rather than shuffling my feet. I’m confident that this contributed to my endurance and my ability to ski for almost twice as long as I had previously.

Photo by Patty Proctor

This route was also great for practicing going down hill as there were many more long and steep hills than we had done previously. I really focused on bending my knees and shifting my balance forward and overtop of my feet rather than sitting back like I had been. This gave me a greater sense of control and meant that I was actually able to go down most of the hills with one ski in the track and one ski out of the track. This technique allowed me to snow plow when necessary but for the most part I was able to ride the hill out which was a lot of fun! Finally I focused on “running” up the hills and using the grip of my skis to get me up the hill rather than basically hiking up the hill. While I would say it was faster and somewhat easier, it was definitely must more of a workout.

All in all it was a successful day. We ended up being out for about 3 hours and about 13 km. By the end, both my mom and I felt we had been hit by a bus, we were exhausted but happy.