Or… The Sweden Project is going to be the next phase of Devils Track Nordic Ski Shop, a training and racing program to be established domestically first, and then globally. With the name “Sweden” in it, that is one of the places I hope to base out of, but it will probably involve a multitude of places to explore all of what cross-country skiing has to offer.

Here is a sketch of some of the details for the Sverige Projekt, more will be cleared up once we have good snow to train on. Master’s World Cup is coming to Canmore, Alberta CANADA in March of 2022, so that’s my focus for the program.  Send an email to ski@devilstracknordic.com if interested.

$675 High training program 2-3 days/week (6-8 hrs.)  Tuesday &Wednesday (11 am to 1 pm)/Sunday (afternoon 4-5 pm)

3 free ski waxing

Distance and technique work; sprint intervals on Wednesday evenings

Planning training for World Masters

$175 Learning program 1 day/ week (1-2 hrs.) Sunday (afternoon 4-5 pm)

2 free ski waxing

Distance and classic/skate progressions

Planning basic weekly training

As Tom Petty said, “The waiting is the hardest part”.  That’s been true with the ski shops inventory this season (almost two months behind schedule) and skiable snow (I skied about 300 kilometers by this time last year). Luckily, my first batch of skis, boots poles and bindings are scheduled to arrive mid-week (Dec. 8-9th). All my gloves and mittens should be there by that time too and all of wax order has made it too. After a relatively long snow drought, that may be over soon too as snow is forecast to begin falling the night of December 4th and extend into the morning of December 6th. The storm has been upgraded to a “Blizzard” so we’ll see what happens. I’ll be heading out one last time to cut up some already tipped over trees alongside the Pincushion ski trails so the when the groomers start grooming these trails should be passable. As with any early season storm, the first snowfalls usually bring down a few large trees.