About Nordic Skiing

March 17th, 2024

This article is meant for my 15-year-old self to explain why i went every day to push on poles when i could hit the snowpark instead. Hey kid, please forgive me.

🤔 What is nordic skiing?

I don’t want to give you the ChatGPT definition, but basically you have skinny skis and long poles, and the goal is to propel yourself forward on groomed slopes. No lifts, just your own strength. And yeah, the heel of the boot is not attached to the ski.

It was invented a long time ago in nordic countries, not as a sport but as a way to travel across their frozen lands. It became an official sport during the first winter Olympics Games in Chamonix (coucou) in 1924.

You have two ways to practice nordic skiing: classic and skating. Here I’ll only focus on the latter, because that’s the only one I’m (quite) familiar with.

Some people might also describe it as “skiing but with all the fun aspects removed”. I was one of these people.

😡 I used to hate it

I think this guy summarizes it pretty well in this video: “the worst sport, ever”!

As a kid from the Alps, for me skiing was about going off-piste with the lads, building kickers, and getting massive hits of adrenaline when trying to land tricks (we mostly never landed anything properly). To give you an idea of what it looked like here are some videos from 20 years ago (ignore the publishing date):

We also spent quite a lot of time in snowparks, sliding on rails and jumping on kickers. Easier to land tricks there. But also most of us ended up at the hospital at some point. For me it was a concussion when overshooting a big table at the park and landing a [360 + 90]-degree rotation on the bottom flat part: aïe.

In elementary school we were forced to go nordic skiing (the classic version) and this was just horrendous. We all saw nordic skiing as a weird thing for lame people. Cool kids have to jump on things. Cool kids have to push each other to crash!

It was simply unimaginable that one day we would go nordic skiing again. Period.

🦠 That same trigger again

Time flew by, and as I was getting older (pleurs) I switched my freestyle skis for all-mountain ones. We were still skiing with friends, enjoying powder days, and doing the occasional jumps here and there. But somehow it became a bit boring to queue in line to waste time on a lift to then go down the slope on a straight line in 30 seconds. And repeat ad infinitum.

Then on the 1st of January 2020 in Les Contamines, a friend (merci Blue!) convinced me to try nordic skiing, just for fun. This was my first time doing the “skating” version. I probably complained about it, but it planted the seed in my brain.

Actually, 22 days later I convinced friends who came to the alps for our annual ski week to also try nordic skiing, between two days of intense alpine skiing. This was almost fun!

Then something less fun happened: Covid. The following winter in January 2021 I was in the French Alps (Cloud Citadel) but the resorts were not allowed to open. Everybody went big in ski touring and nordic skiing. Since I don’t want to die in avalanches (as I feel like I exhausted my credits as a teenager) I naturally picked nordic skiing, and started doing it more and more often. I started to get a bit of that meditative high from it.

That season with some people from the coliving we did a introduction to biathlon (nordic skiing + shooting) and the instructors gave me good tips on how to improve my technic. I also realized that I wasn’t too bad at it. Probably because as a skateboarder your proprioceptive skills are improved, and a good balance is mandatory to glide properly on one ski.

Something clicked…

🪄 Suddenly, it made sense

The following winter I went nordic skiing as soon as I could.

This feeling of repeatedly balancing from one ski to the other while being surrounded by stunning landscape and peaceful, quiet nature. The endorphins release after a session. And just a hint of adrenaline when going downhill with these edge-free skis…!

Alpine skiing on a big powder day is still great, but this ski industry is just too much:

so much equipment needed
too many people
the non-sense of using energy to lift people up
and more energy to groom immense slopes and bring back snow to the top
so much money involved (everything is expensive, as skiing became a status signalling activity)

Nordic skiing is also about status. If you’re doing it, the message would be the following (chatGPT-generated):

As a Nordic skier, I embody a thoughtful connection with nature, embrace a meditative and respectful approach, and cherish the profound benefits it offers to both body and soul, distinguishing my pursuit from the conventional indulgence of alpine skiing.

That winter I felt limited. I couldn’t do enough of it. So in April 2022, I booked the same coliving in the French Alps for two months: January and February 2023 would be only about nordic skiing!

♠️ Went all in

From 05/01/2023 until 01/03/2023 I went almost every day.

I had rented a car so I could be on the slopes 15 min after leaving my bedroom in the Citadel of Briançon. Skis, poles and shoes in the car. Season pass (90€) in the pocket. The routine was locked in.

Even though I managed to take some people with me from time to time, I mostly went alone with my AirPods. This was great. Some songs made me enter this highly-desirable state of pure flow when pushing it on a uphill red slope: Opal at the top of the playlist.

The main resort was in this incredibly beautiful spot of “Vallée de la Clarée” (a scenic valley as it would be described) and it would take only one hour on a sunny day with perfectly-groomed slopes to feel weirdly ecstatic.

There was a guy making his own chai tea/apple juice/mulled wine and selling it on the slopes. I got into the habit of stopping there in the middle of a session, and chatting with him about random things. About the snow, the trees, his bees…

Taking the time to connect with a local is very rewarding. It’s not just about sports, you’re not just here to “consume” the slopes. You want to feel part of a community. Thank you Frank for the conversations!

Some friends visited me to go nordic skiing as well, and I was happy to show them my playground. One of them who’s a strong trail-runner came and pushed me to do more than my usual sessions: we did 24km on a Saturday and 26km the next day. At the time these were my records, even though I couldn’t know because I wasn’t tracking anything.

🏁 Strava

You probably heard of these Strava apps: they let you record activities so you can then later obsessively check your stats (speed, distance, elevation etc.) and check other people’s stats on their so-called “segments”.

I was really against using Strava because I thought that only stupid/weak individuals need numbers to be happy or to assign tangible value to an experience. And it didn’t help having trail runners disturbing my peace on a hike because they want you to move aside so they don’t lose a second on their watches. Somehow trail runners really believe that they are important to mankind. They’re not.

But in March 2023 I finally picked up that brilliant book: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. I had been reading many books, or articles mentioning that book (eg Deep Work, Hyperfocus) but foolishly never got to read it. This is old advice but always try to read the original, in the original language!

Anyways, it turns out that tracking your progress is a very valid way to be happy… It creates this immediate feedback loop of knowing where your are in this graph of “Challenge vs Skill level”. You have rules, goals and constant feedback: these are the conditions for experiencing flow.

Also discovered this word: “autotelic”. An activity doesn’t have to make sense for the outside world to be enjoyable. Nobody needs you to do laps in a pool, but you can derive enjoyment doing it just for… the sake of it!

Later that year I would be nudged to go on bike rides (in Tenerife) and started to see why using Strava could be “fun”. Even though with a friend (Wiwi) we were still calling people doing that “Strava wankers”!

I read that book twice and decided that next year I would try to track my nordic skiing sessions.

😤 More more more

In June 2023 I was already planning my next winter: as a full-time nomad I always need to plan in advance so i don’t end up in a situation where I don’t have a place (or not a good one).

My goal was to find a coliving where I could go nordic skiing every day but without needing a car. I really dislike cars for daily usage. Cars destroy cities (what’s uglier than a parking lot?), contaminate the air, create noise pollution and enrich the wrong people. Small EVs are much better, but still, a life without a car needed for daily usage is a superior life (at least, for me).

I was on my bed at Maraya in Tenerife, and I remembered that there was a coliving in the Swiss Alps being renovated at the moment. I messaged them and here is their answer:

Bingo!

For non-french speakers: they have nordic skiing slopes in front of the coliving that will be opened for sure next winter. Outcome: when they opened bookings I immediately booked.

And here I am writing these lines from Alpiness (the most active coliving ever) where I stayed from mid January to mid March.

The dream came true: every day at lunch time I would go the basement, grab my skis, walk 45 seconds, cross the road, attach my boots to the skis, put the music on and… launch Strava.

Snow disappeared a bit in March (in the 1400 village not in 2000 Arolla) but ballpark here are the stats for my winter there:

50 sessions
700 kilometers
10,000 meters elevation

Actually went so many times that I became the “Local Legend” (Strava lingo) on many segments in Évolène/Les Haudères/Arolla — also got the “Course Record” on one segment, but this one was a GPS mistake so not sure it should count!

But the main goal for the winter, the one I had committed to on Instagram (lolz) was to do 42km in one day.

🥲 Tears discovery

It’s time to tell my 15-year-old self a secret. It’s something that people who do endurance sports know but rarely talk about.

On Saturday 20th I decided to do my 42-km challenge. It was a beautiful day. The snow was cold (good thing). I had slept well the night before. I thought this was now or never (for this season).

I kept going and suddenly as I was reaching the top of one hill just past the 30-kilometer mark, with the right song playing in my AirPods, I started crying.

I mean really really crying. Real fat tears rolling down my face. But these were not sad tears. They were happy tears. The body was numb but feeling great. Feeling almost invincible.

And well I very rarely cry. Ok I can get these tight-throat moments when watching touch movies ("Les Petits Mouchoirs” anyone?!) — but no tears.

But man how good it felt to let it all out!! So addictive!! And that’s when I understood why people do stupid things like “Ironmans”: just to be able to feel something once in a while.

I got another high when I completed the 42-km challenge. Letting my knees drop on the snow. At that moment I felt invincible :)

😏 Many benefits

Agreed. The idea is not to set a big challenge every day to try to reach it to then cry like a baby. But nordic skiing is actually great for you:

Full-body workout: your muscles in the legs, core, back and arms are engaged
Endurance: it’s a “vigorous aerobic exercise that challenges your cardiovascular system, improving heart health”
Flexibility: enhance hip flexibility because of the range of motion required
Coordination: balancing from one ski to the other will improve your proprioceptive skills and overall body awareness
Mental health: endorphine shots that elevate your mood
Low-impact exercise: a high-intensity workout that is low-impact on your joints, which means lower injury risk (why so many strong old people do it)
Abs: gives you sick abs (dm me for a picture as a proof ;))

I could only find two negative things about it:

Wrinkles: you might find yourself grimacing a lot, especially when going uphill
Conflicts: some stupid people are walking in the middle of smoothly-groomed nordic skiing slopes. You have to call them out and be ready to start a slope fight if required.

If you’re not convinced yet, I’ll happily show you how it’s done. With a caramel/chocolate waffle as a reward. Or a beer. I did introduce nordic skiing to a bunch of people already. The conversion rate is not the same as Heroine but not bad either. This year a friend that tried it summarized it pretty well with this sentence: “It’s interesting…”!

🛹 Next

Unfortunately it seems that winters are getting shorter and shorter… So it’s already time to put the skis back on the rack and prepare for the no-snow season.

One thing that is painfully missing with sport like Nordic Skiing is creativity. But it turns out that unlike freestyle skiing/crashing I’m still skateboarding. I love skateboarding. Be proud you ungrateful 15-year-old version of myself!

It’s like my favorite barbell strategy: balancing a un-cool un-creative sport with the coolest most creative sport there is. Balancing an aerobic endurance sport with an anaerobic one. Switching the snow for an urban terrain.

And very conveniently in Briançon withing walking distance of Cloud Citadel, there is now an indoor skatepark that looks quite dope!

I’ll be there in April/May, without Strava this time but probably with video clips to be proud (or not) and get immediate feedback of my position on the “challenge vs skill” curve.

Flow will be achieved.