2 inches makes a big difference

No, this is not what you might think.

The story starts with the fact that I had booked a couple of 2 hour lessons with a coach. This is because it is easy to develop bad habits, and you can't see them yourself. Also, without any means of training on snow in the UK, I don't even get to practice from one year until the next. Last time I did the RR, people told me that I was powering my way along, rather than doing it with minimal effort.

Thus I had set a goal of improving my technique to either get faster with the same effort or keep the same speed with a lot less effort. A fairly ambitious request for a coach in two days.

We started with some warm up stretching, explained for what each exercise does. This highlighted a problem that is true of most people who work at a desk - my upper body is quite rigid and inflexible (but more on that later).

After a few minutes of skiing, Wolfgang (Woki) identified the first problem. At 150cm, he thought my poles were too long. Traditionally poles were related to you height, but the latest thinking is that is not the whole story, and they have also to be related to your leg length. Thus for two people of the same height, the one with shorter legs needs shorter poles. So I skied the rest of the lesson with his 140cm and he recommended that I get some 145cm poles - I was planning on getting new poles anyway.

Two inches may not seem like a lot, and when you see the poles side by side, it looks trivial. However, the difference it makes is truly dramatic. Now, when planting the poles they are in the right place and at the right angle, whereas before because they were too long I was having to plant them too far forward.

I also discovered that you are supposed to only grip the poles when you plant them, and let go after a fraction once you are no longer using them to propel you, so they stream out free behind you, and you only grip them again after you have pulled them forward. This stops the arm muscles being held completely tense all the time.

Here is where we discovered the second problem - I keep my left arm bent. We think it is down to the fact that I am right handed and the right hand is extended more of the time for the mouse (or trackerball). Allied to this, my upper body is more flexible to the right than the left. Again, this probably comes down to the fact that I have a second monitor to the right, and anyone entering my office is to my right. Thus, day to day, I turn to the right much more than I turn to the left.

This will take much longer to fix, through a long term exercise schedule. However, I was planning a redesign of my office, and will now make sure that I try to ensure that I have to turn to both sides equally. Not a side effect I had originally considered from cross country skiing.

As an aside, if any of the girls from Burnham Harriers is reading this, I know many of you are fans of zoomba dance exercise. Apparently, the person in the US who developed this has her roots back in Taivalkoski, just down the road, and our second night's stop across Finland.

It has taken two days to get my new skis prepared, so I will have very little time on them before setting off. I have also extended my range of waxes. The temperatures changed rapidly during even a 2 hour morning session so that after an hour, the wax was no longer gripping.

I have new gloves, and my new poles have a wonderful, brilliantly simple, new feature - a quick release on the grip. Thus instead of having to release the straps and then refit them to the right position round your hand, you simply pull a release knob on the top of the pole and the strap is release from the pole and then it just "plugs" back in. That is a significant time saving in getting a drink, or wiping your nose, and will add up to maybe 10 or 15 minutes over the course of a day.

I think I have broken my new boots in. Two pairs of socks were required until they become more supple, and liberal applications of Lanocaine prevented blisters on the pressure points. Lanocaine is to sports what Teflon is to frying pans.

This time around, I have not been aiming for such large distances in my last minute training, because I know that I can cover the distance, so I limited myself to 30-40km each day. On the Polar training load, even this much takes me from the green to yellow training zones in a day, and into the red after 3 days. My Saturday 16km/90 min run is about equivalent to 40km/5-6 hrs (with stops for adjusting equipment, taking skis off whilst crossing main roads etc).

So will the training regime this time be overdone (like last time), just right, or underdone? Like Goldilocks porridge, I won't know until I have tried it. Does this mean I might need to come back and do it for a third time?

Certainly the time with a coach was time well spent, not least because what I discovered about my posture allows me to make improvements that may help keep me more flexible for longer into old age. And that is pretty much priceless, as you can't reverse the aging process.

Two days to go and then I will know if my efforts have paid off in my attempt to not be right at the back. Last time I was close to being the slowest (it is not a race), but as the snowmobile bringing up the rear with the stretcher and medical supplies normally follows behind the slowest, I don't want to be the one that is keeping it away from everyone else.