mountains and athleticism
When we run uphill our running speed decreases. This is mostly due to the fact that we need to add vertical speed to the horizontal speed. The qualities to create horizontal speed and vertical speed are different, even if a big base is very similar. When we talk about speed in flat running we take…
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One of the first things to do when we start planning a training season (or multi-season) is to decide which kind of plannification we will have. One of the major factors on that decision is in my opinion the racing/goals shedule and the diversity among them. Last month during a trip to Lyon I had…
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This article was featured in Kiss The Snow magazine (spanish) Sitting around a stove fed with yak droppings, Mireia and I looked at each other in surprise. In a lodge at 5000 metres above sea level, the young camera that accompanied us had just told us that she had learned Catalan by watching interviews with us, as…
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This article was featured in Kiss The Snow magazine (spanish) The evolution in any sport has been since long ago a search for the most, the fastest, the most difficult, the highest, the farthest… and extreme skiing has not escaped from this either. Alpine skiing is the conjecture of 2 activities, skiing where from long ago speed…
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This article was featured in Kiss The Snow magazine (spanish) In the past articles, I have analyzed skiing from its steepest angle. For those of us who like ski-mountaineering and who look at it with eyes that have seen more ski-ropes than ski-doors, when we think of skiing we think of this sliding on steep faces. But…
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This article was featured in Kiss The Snow magazine (spanish) I remember that cover like it was yesterday. A skier with his legs open like an Olympic gymnast to keep both skis in contact with the snow such was the slope. I was just a teenager who spent the long, boring winter afternoons looking for the warmth…
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This article was featured in Kiss The Snow magazine (spanish) 4 pairs of skis, leather boots and fifty degrees. “Not the height but the precipice is terrible,” said Frederich Nietzsche. Some people undoubtedly find pleasure in the terrible, and even make it a necessity to live. You can practice more or less absurd activities to look for…
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A good friend asked me recently to write an article about training for his magazine Kiss The Snow. I couldn’t really refuse because I owed one to him since a few years ago, when he was still a puppy and he blind followed what the elderly tell him, he came to my place in Chamonix…
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189 days is the time it took Nirmal Purja “Nims” and his team to climb the 14 principal summits above 8000 meters. Nims, a former Gorka soldier and UK navy special forces, was born near Dhaulagiri, and this was the first 8000m he summited in 2014. 5 years later he announced his Project Possible with…
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Since 2006 when I started racing in trail running as a complement for my ski mountaineering seasons my training and racing orientation were based more on quantity and diversification than quality. The main goal was to do complete seasons with good results in different kind of competitions, from skimo championships and cup and long distance…
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