Practice Plan for Thursday, 1-15-15

Notes:

1. So great to see everyone out there on Tuesday on good snow! Despite the cold temps, there were smiles all around. Thanks for  working with your children to have them dress appropriately. Hurrah for toe warmers, buffs and mittens!
2. Equipment: Please clearly mark your skis and poles with your skiers’ names. Colored duct tape with a name works well for easy ID. Also, we strongly recommend ski straps for both keeping track of and protecting your skis before and after practice.  Mark those with your name as well and ask your child to put her skis back in the strap at the end of practice. It’s a great habit to start early.
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3. On classic skis, it is important to know where your child’s “kick zone” is. This is where you apply kick wax to the skis. Having the right wax in the right place makes a big difference in your child’s enjoyment on classic days. Finding the “kick zone” is easily done, as the following video demonstrates.  When you do this, make sure the bottoms of the skis are clean, and the floor is as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z76IXy5W-I0)
4. When waxing with hard wax, “crayon” the wax on the kick zone (trying not to leave big chunks or globs), then use a cork to “cork it in” and repeat this three times. It is helpful to do this before practice if possible, but we are there to help at practice if you need it!
5. For more wax advice, we have help listed on our waxing tab on our site. Since most of you use Swix wax, this site is really helpful, too.
6. For those of you interested in seeing terrific nordic racing online, this website is remarkably good, with full coverage of every international race and informed commentary in English http://www.crosscountryski.us. Thanks to Jay Davis for pointing it out!

Cheers and see you tomorrow!

Ashley and Peter