The British Nordic Ski Team changed management this spring. Transferring from being run by, primarily, volunteers in the British Nordic Development squad, being supported by SportScotland, over to the governing body, British Ski and Snowboard. It was rather unclear what these changes would bring, but a large injection of cash the previous year, ring-fenced to…
Learning to embrace the acid party
I have received a complaint about this post potentially advocating drug use- to be very clear, I am not. Norwegians call a hard training session a “syrefest”, directly translating to “acid party”, which of course has connotations in english that are so far from the eat, train,sleep lifestyle of an elite endurance athlete that I…
End of season update (worst title yet?)
With the snow rapidly disappearing in Lillehammer it’s getting pretty difficult to pretend spring isn’t well underway, so it’s time for a new blog before it all seems too distant a memory! I wrote my last blog from Livigno, on a precamp for two prior to the World champs. The banter got pretty weird but…
Faffstorms and Italian curry
All of a sudden half of the season has gone by and I haven’t sat down to write any sort of blog, so here’s a wee update. January started off with some promising results at the Tour de Ski, both in the sprint where I moved up considerably on my ranking, and in the mass…
Zig zags and the frozen north
Since my last blog the surroundings have undergone a bit of a colour and texture change, winter has arrived! In an effort to make this transition as seamless as possible and to get another dose of altitude, I spent, along with the rest of the national team, 4 weeks high in the Italian mountains doing…
Coffee, reindeer meat and the big freezer
As everyone is likely far too well aware, what with my recent shameless social media plugs, I’ve been running a crowdfunding campaign in order to raise money for new skis which will hopefully be competitive with those under the feet of the World’s best skiers. This has had a fantastic response and I’m overwhelmed by…
Into thin air
A lot has happened since my last blog, probably because I’ve totally neglected my hardly ambitious target of one blog a month! In August I packed my poor car to capacity and began the LONG drive to Lillehammer, stopping off first in Lancaster to visit my pal Sam and secondly for a longer stop…
The B7007 and a new chapter
If you leave Edinburgh to the south on the A7, take a turning just after Gorebridge and continue past the limeworks and the incessantly barking collie, you’ll soon reach a cross roads with the B7007. Parking up on the roadside before the snow gates you’ll notice straight away what feels like a 10°C temperature drop…
Ciao, Rigazzi
It’s been a while since my last blog post, summer flew by with many training camps and hours logged in. Everything went smoothly bar the slight issue of a minor ankle break in September right before returning to University. Concept 2 sorted me out with a ski erg so that I could maintain my training…
Skiing in June!
June has been a fun month so far! Having completed my exams by the end of May I got stuck straight into a more intensive training regime. On the 6th of June I took part in Ming the merciless, a fundraising event for the British team. Ming comprises of a 14 mile off road run…
Testing testing
On Tuesday I was over in Stirling for some physiological testing at the Scottish Institute of Sport. We usually do this twice a year, firstly at the start of the training season (now ish) then again in October before we start racing. This is primarily to check how I’ve responded to a summer of training…
Callum Smith 