The week that was (for me): Plodding along
Greetings Gripwax nation!
I want to open this week by thanking dedicated followers and supporters for sticking with me. I know the content has been either non-existent or less-than-edifying over the last month. Let’s just say, the Seder-Skier empire isn’t conquering content like I hope it one day will.
This is just the stage of life I’m in, I suppose: job, kids, training, rinse, repeat.
I find it hard to hold a conversation consisting of more than two volleys with my wife before something interrupts us. We have, however, been trying to set aside Sunday afternoon from 1:30-2:30 p.m. (don’t call or text me then!) as our weekly ‘date on the deck.’ We put the kids down for their naps, grab a beverage and go to the shaded side of our small deck to talk.
It’s great. You can wear sweatpants over there all summer. Sometimes we chat about plans for the upcoming week, something one of us read, or — my favorite — what my next purchase on Temu.com could (or, in fact, should) be.
We also talk a lot about the future. Last week, I brought up Seder-Skier.com and the Seder-Skier podcast.
I feel (as most Nordic ski fans probably do) there is an incredible void in the ski journalism space. Our sport is not covered well. Period. End of story.
I think, with my background knowledge and content creation capacity, I’d be able to make a space people visit every day and are fed well…IF…if I could jump into the role with both feet. But I can’t right now. And it’s frustrating. Very frustrating.
I think I once heard someone say that whenever you see a thing and think you could do it better than it’s being done, that means it’s the place you’re called to be.
During our date, I told my wife about my vision for a site that is like Letsrun.com (relax) — only for skiing.
New headlines every day. Breaking news. Editorials. Interviews — written out and in video form. Weekly podcasts. Prediction contests for the championship races and Olympics. A message board for the fans to discuss anything and everything.
We’d cover World Cup skiing, the SuperTour, NCAA and high school. Plus, citizen races, too. I’m already doing all of this in my full-time job, by the way, with one difference: I do it for like 14,876 different sports simultaneously. Thus, I know the protocol for churning out 2-4 stories a day, efficiently — but I don’t have the bandwidth to do that in two places.
So, for now at least, you’re stuck with my Ploductivity. I’m chipping away at the goal. In-between diapers, after late-night lifts or runs or skis and between protein shakes.
Maybe you’ve noticed some of the fruit of my labor. Last week, we revamped the layout of the website! It’s a start. I hope you enjoy it.
Keeping this email coming every week — even if it’s totally lame, like last week — is another important step I’m trying to take. In the future, I’m hoping to start making at least one Nordic-ski-related phone call a week to either write a story or stash into our ‘interviews’ tab….or, worst case scenario, insert into the podcast.
On that note, our podcast isn’t going to change too much. But I’d like it to get a little tighter…denser…that’s maybe a better word.
Ultimately, I’d like to see a segment-based 50-75-minute show which would move seamlessly from the newsdesk to commentary to a quick guest (an expert who would hop on to quickly comment/banter back and forth on said commentary, similar to most national sports talk radio shows) to scientific research and hot takes. It seems like most ski shows feature long-winded interviews with one person. While those are fascinating and educational, I think we also need to have an ESPN presence for this sport…
In other words, I think it would be sweet to cover it like other good journalists cover other big time sports. No one is doing it. I’m going to try….
….but we’re going to build the plane while we fly it.
So, bear with my lame posts, comment on the good ones, tell your friends about our site and share our podcast with your most influential influencer.
And don’t forget, whatever dream it is you’re working on….Keep on Striving. Keep on Skiing.
~Sederskier
The week that was (in skiing)
- Anti-doping initiative in Norway selects some interesting characters.
- Julia Kern and Jessie Diggins are in New Zealand getting on snow.
- What is Klaebo up to? He was in Minnesota briefly, meeting with CXC and Loppet Nordic Club athletes in Minneapolis. Now, he’s back in Park City for his fall altitude block. Something to keep an eye on is how athletes prepare for the 2026 Olympics in terms of altitude training. Here’s a study from July on biathlon athletes’ prep in advance of the Milana Cortina Games.
- The Bridger Ski Foundation blog has some good recaps on their summer camp to Sweden, where the BSF Pro team put in time in the snow tunnel in Torsby and at the Alliansloppet rollerski races in Trollhattan.
- A couple of interesting pieces were up on langrenn.com this summer about the incomes of Johannes Klaebo, Petter Northug and Bjorn Daehlie. Klaebo and Northug both had good years in 2023. The value of Klaebo’s company went up from NOK 6.9 million in 2022 to 17.5 million in 2023. Northug’s income doubled (4.4 to 9.7 million) as well.
Therese Johaug has said she will race four weekends before the World Championships in Trondheim in 2025. Johaug will be in Beitostolen (Nov. 22-24), World Cup opener in Ruka (No. 29-Dec. 1), World Cup in Lillehammer (Dec. 6-8) and the Norwegian Cup in Hamar (10k classic and 20k skiathlon.
“Johaug is considering possibly going to the last World Cup round before Christmas, which takes place in Davos in Switzerland,” Langreen.com reported. “But she is not going to do the Tour de Ski, and probably not any of the World Cup rounds between the New Year and the WC.”
While the Norwegian star is primarily targeting the 50k, national team coach Sjur Ole Svarstad has reportedly said she could be a contender in all the distance races (there’s also a 20k skiathlon and a 10k classic, as well as a relay).
Who’s hot AND who’s not!
Hot
- Andrew Musgrave – Musgrave has been on a double-pole tear lately. At the beginning of August, the Brit won the Lysebotn Opp double-pole event and the Blink Classics 50k, which attracted many of the top Ski Classics stars. He also took the 15k classic individual start title at the Alliansloppet Festival last week and topped off the weekend with a second-place finish (by 0.1 seconds) to Edvin Anger in the 48-kilometer mass start. All of this has me wondering: should Musgrave make a switch to Ski Classics while he’s still in his athletic prime? He has some background in the double-pole peloton, and theoretically, he could jump over there in a few more years, too — but I wonder if his true calling has always been the long-distance classics…why wait?
- Helene Marie Fosseslhom – With her dad serving as coach, the 23-year-old has been on the rise since falling off the national team scope since the Beijing Olympics. Things seem to be working, too. She placed second in the 10k and sprint at the Blink Festival and was third in the uphill freestyle. She was also fifth in the 20k classic, which isn’t her best event. Could she be a Norwegian darkhorse this fall/winter?
Not
- Come on, did you really think I was going to open up this bit with such negativity? Give the Vikings a week and then we’ll have plenty of people to throw under the bus…..
Email of the week: Matt Carpenter on skiing
By far the highlight of my week was an email correspondence I had with the legend himself, Matt Carpenter.
I’m working on a Vail Daily story, which should be out in the next couple days, and I reached out to Matt — who doesn’t normally do interviews/respond to the press — for a quote. I was thrilled to receive a 3,800-word response as well as some further back-and-forth. All of it is gold. {Most of it will stay between the two of us. Sorry!}
But….he did say it was ok to share the below portion — which is kind of (but not totally) unrelated to my story:
I love running because it is such a simple sport. Since I see that you are also a competitive xc skier I will make an analogy. I did a few x-country races and even won a race. But that sport pissed me off! First, I had to buy all the equipment. Then, I had to replace my standard Fisher skies with the shorter version that became the rage. Then, I had to get the ones with the metal edges. Then, they came out with the “power pole” grips. Then, I had to get the carbon version. Don’t even get me started on the f##king wax! Cera F was so expensive for such a little vile of white powder that people joked that they didn’t know if they should put it on their skies or snort it. I couldn’t justify that, so I was stuck with picking the red, the blue, the green, or whatever it was called 35 years ago. If I picked the wrong wax, I could push off and not even move! I get understand that is part of the sport but that is not the way I want a race to be decided. I could give a similar analogy for biking. It would never happen, but it would be neat to have races where everyone had to use the same bike set up or for skiing, the same skies or at least the same wax. Ah, I’m flat out rambling now, sorry…
Matt: I feel you buddy. I feel you.
Here’s a piece I wrote for Fasterskier back in 2018….
I thought you might enjoy some other writing I’ve done lately….
Did you miss our last podcast?
We’re up to 151 subscribers on Spotify! I think we went over 100 sometime last winter…I still remember when we were at like 31! Baby steps, people. Baby steps.
From the archives – The Herald Democrat, Sept. 18, 1898
The frigid fall brisk can be felt at the tail end of every late-night bike ride here in Leadville. That can only mean one thing: the first snow is not far away!
Apparently, I wasn’t the first Leadville-based content creator to discuss the shift from cycling to skiing.
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