What to do for off-snow training? Certainly roller skiing is an option, but not always a safe one if the conditions are wet, icy, hilly etc. Plus I am a beginner. The next obvious choice is running. This is sensible. You are on your legs doing the same "basic" motion as skiing. And then there is walking. Yeah, walking. Now, trust me, I am a hard core, fairly fit guy who would have laughed at anyone that suggested to me that I could train for anything by walking. But after some personal experience, observations and experimentation, I am rethinking. Here is why.
The "make or break" aspect of XC racing is hill climbing. That is when the boys and girls with the really big aerobic capacity show their stuff. So, do we run hills to simulate the hill climbing on skis? No, I think most of us would do better by walking all the long steep ones we can find, fast.
This got started when my wife told me that the women she ran with would often shift to a fast walk during hill climbs. They cold have continued running, but they didn't. They shifted into a style where their arms and legs were moving in the long deliberate movement cycles typical of skiing.
On a motorized treadmill, usually late at night, I have been experimenting on myself. With a heart rate monitor and controls that allow me to change speed or treadmill incline on the fly, I have done some interesting workouts. I like to experiment under well controlled conditions, so the laboratory treadmill is perhaps a workout only a physiology geek could appreciate. I started with walking and slowly increased the "hill" to 14% grade, which is really steep, but just below what over-stretches my Achilles, then I keep increasing the speed until I have to really work to keep up while walking. In fact, if I shift into a jog on the steep climb, the going is actually easier and I feel less fatigue. It turns out that I can achieve a heart rate of 155-160 at this steep incline, upper limit walking pace. This is perfect for me for steady state work. However, I can easily reach the same cardiovascular workload with running if I speed up the treadmill and drop the incline. This is actually more "comfortable" for me and I get less local muscular fatigue. So, why not just run? The really important difference is the muscular work pattern. When I started doing this workout, and at the same time comparing it with running at the same or much faster speeds and lower inclines, it was the walking that made my legs and lower back feel the fatigue pattern I get from skiing. This was true despite the fact that I could maintain the same heart rate over a wide combination of speeds and inclines, including a pretty fast running pace at only a slight grade (I call these my "iso-HR" fartlek sessions). The difference is new to me, but not to the skiing elite and researchers. It turns out that walking more closely simulates skiing (especially the classic stride) than running. This has been quantified using electromyography, a technique that detects the pattern and intensity of electrical activity of active muscles. The ground contact phase for walking is longer and less "ballistic" in walking, just as in skiing. This means there is less vertical motion associated with walking. And, vertical motion is not something we want to create much of in skiing either. Of course, the incline is critical to the whole thing. This is what forces a higher muscular workload at a low horizontal speed and stride frequency. The incline you need will depend on your fitness. However, even the elite guys spend some time "hill walking" during long steady state workouts. And when they run the hills, they employ a hybrid movement style that exaggerates the horizontal component of the movement, while minimizing "bounce". Out on the hilly forest trails they use the poles too, but I don't do that on the lab treadmill!
So, if you are still waiting for snow like me, experiment with some fast walking. If you don't have the really long hills around, then mix the exaggerated walking style in on your runs whenever you come to a short steep hill. This may be just the ticket to help get you ready for the white stuff!
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