For the last two weeks we have been based in Otepää, Estonia. The team has been recovering from our time in Korea and preparing for the last World Cup here before World Championships in Finland.
For the first week we stayed a few minutes out of town in a old converted barn that was originally built in 1886. It was a pretty cool house and property, and fun to go for afternoon runs into the surrounding countryside. Definitely a scenery change from Korea!
After my third major timezone change in a matter of weeks plus a big volume of racing including two 30km races, I was pretty spent. I took a lot of the first week very very easy just trying to recover and get all my energy back.
Late into the first week I began a training block to prepare for the final period of racing in Europe. Training in Estonia has been fantastic with great weather and good skiing conditions everyday. Like so much of the world, skiing here in Otepää is limited by minimal snow but they have a lot stored and each day roll out more trails which is great.
One of the biggest bonuses has been working with Valerio, our new(ish) head coach for the team. It’s been fantastic working with him in technique, and Rob Jones who is here as assistant has done some good film work during intensity sessions for us to review. We have made a lot of quite positive changes already with Valerio, which I hope will keep improving my skiing.
It’s fun but always a challenge bringing new things into each of my techniques and then trying to keep them as part of the natural movement.
After almost two weeks in “the barn” we moved into World Cup athlete accommodation. From here it’s basically racing for the weekend, a quick travel to Finland and then World Championships begin next Thursday!
Tomorrow is the skate sprint on a 1.6km course and then on Sunday a 15km Classic on a very fast and gnarly course with some big fast downhills and some tough climbs.
Train hard. Rest easy. Live for the moment.
Paul Kovacs. Elite Cross-Country Skier 