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Skinnyski.com
There is a small group of athletes that disclose what they do for training, and what it is that makes them good. But very few seem to discuss what they did when they were young. That’s really what is important. For it is when we are growing up that we establish the foundation for what we do in the years to come. Nowhere is this idea more important than in endurance sports.
Many athletes of old who look upon today’s rising athletes in endurance sports have pointed out that kids today are not as well prepared as they were. Time that used to be spent playing around the neighborhood is now being spent in front of the television, computer, or newest gaming system. Kids now are consuming an ever-greater proportion of their energy from sugar. But when you are a kid, the last thing you are thinking about is the effect of your childhood activity level.
For the next few columns, I am going to share with you what I did when I was younger through today – for training, but also as a lifestyle. I can’t exactly call hiking in the woods at age 12 training, but in effect, those active hours a decade ago are the foundation for what I do now.
Let’s start from (close to) the beginning. As long as I can remember, my family, consisting of my parents and a sister who is three years older than me, spent weekends on our modest sailboat kept in Bayfield, Wisconsin, a small town on Lake Superior, the gateway to the Apostle Islands.
While our parents relaxed on the beach, just “getting away” from city life by way of a good book, my sister and I would spend the entire day exploring. The Apostles are a group of nearly two dozen islands that are protected from development by the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. On many islands, there are miles and miles of hiking trails, on others, equally long white, sandy beaches. As just my sister and I, or as a family, we would take hikes and swim in the lake.
Bayfield is also the first place that I cross-country skied, at age 5. And as many know, I completely despised it. My Norwegian ancestors probably disowned me for thinking such horrible thoughts about those innocent skis and poles. So cross-country skiing would wait another few years.
Instead, I “did my time” on teams for baseball, basketball, and soccer, and went to summer camps when my family hadn’t planned to go north to Bayfield. My school’s physical education program was rather intense, around 45 minutes of various activities each day, from dodge ball and floor hockey to running and gymnastics. After school, the kids in the neighborhood would play hide-and-seek or tag, or just bike around the block annoying everyone with our screaming and youthfulness.
At some point, I started in the Bill Koch Youth Ski League at Hyland Park, a few miles from my family’s home in Bloomington. Perhaps at age 9. It was just Sunday afternoons. Nothing too intense. My parents enjoyed skiing, so a few times every winter, we would drive to Telemark in Wisconsin or Lutsen up north, and I would ski a few times. Nothing was planned regarding training. The last thing on my parents’ mind was to turn me into some champion skier or biathlete. They just wanted me to have fun, be active, and not fight too much with my sister so they that could have an enjoyable vacation.
In fifth grade, I became really interested in running the mile, and obsessed about breaking the six-minute barrier. So obsessed that I even brought a pre-race snack to school the day we ran it in gym class! There was never much thought about training for the run. I didn’t have any idea one could actually do such a thing. There was one lanky kid that I badly wanted to beat. And, of course, I wanted to make up for the fact that I couldn’t do a single pull-up.
My parents were always rather conscious about what they fed my sister and me. There was the rare fast food dinner, and the box of cookies or bag of chips was emptied partially by my hands and mouth, but we ate wholesome food and my parents did not give into most of our childhood cravings. They set a good example that today feels only natural to follow.
Of course, the point that I am trying to convey with writing about my early childhood is to dissuade those parents who might otherwise believe that turning their child into an Olympian begins by starting them on a regimental training program from age 5. On the contrary, most studies and athletes that I have spoken with suggest that kids need a variety of activity when they are young, not only to allow them the time to really find that thing that they are good at, but also to lay the foundation for later training in whatever thing that is.
My other point is that cross-country skiing is as much about lifestyle as it is about training. Here in Scandinavia, where I am currently training, the backbone that has kept skiing strong is not the Bjørn Dæhlies, Marit Bjørgens, or Gunde Svans, it is the hundreds of thousands of people for whom skiing is an engrained part of their identity. For they not only keep the ski companies alive, they are also the major force that builds ski trails, keeps them maintained, coaches youth athletes, supports developing skiers, and recognizes the benefit of sponsoring elite athletes. All the way from baby strides to great big, long ones.
About the author...
Brian Olsen, 22, grew up just a few miles from Hyland Lake Park in Bloomington, Minnesota. He trained with the Minnesota Valley Ski Club and Minnesota Biathlon before moving East to work with the Maine Winter Sports Center. This past season, he was a 2006 Olympian. He now competes for Team Soldier Hollow in Heber City, Utah. Madshus and Marwe are among his sponsors. More information can be found on his website, www.frozenbullet.com.
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