The 24-year-old from Støren in Trøndelag will, in addition to the 10 kilometers in classic, also take part in Sunday’s 20 kilometers in free technique when the cross-country world cup kicks off in Ruka, Finland.
The training phenomenon Ree really broke through when he won the five-mile in the NM part two in Harstad in 2022. After that he stagnated, and in the spring he found out that he had to take action to get his skiing career back on track.
For many years, Ree has had a personal collaboration with Magnus Stensås, who is the coach of the cross-country circuit team in Sør-Trøndelag ski circuit, and together they agreed to contact sports manager Frode Jermstad in the Norwegian Triathlon Association.
As said, so done. In the spring, the collaboration was established in consultation with Tinius Dahl, who is the coach for the recruit national team in the Norwegian Skiing Association.
– I have always been among those who have trained most solidly, between 1000 and 1100 hours a year, and I have also trained very well from May until now.
Inspiration
Ree says that he has been in very good shape throughout the autumn. He won the last test race before the national cross-country opening, and when he came fourth in Saturday’s classic race at Beitostølen, he realized that he could be among those who could win Sunday’s freestyle race at the same place.
Ree was the favorite in the absence of Johannes Høsflot Klæbo and Harald Østberg Amundsen, and he delivered.
– I have taken inspiration from triathlon and talked to people in the association there. I’ve tried to transfer it to cross-country skiing with four days of training and then one day of rest, and then I repeat it. It is systematically and structured so that you catch it early if you get tired, Ree told NTB after Sunday’s victory.
Frode Jermstad (50) in the triathlon association has naturally followed the start of the cross-country season closely. Jermstad, from North Trønder, was himself a very skilled skier in his time.
– We sat down and looked at what he had done, and made up our minds to manage the intensity in a much better way. I set up a proposal to manage it more blockwise. In triathlon, we have been successful in running blocks with training on four or five days in a row, instead of the “old” cross-country way with an easy week, a medium week and a hard week, for example, says Jermstad to NTB.
Control
Jermstad believes that this way of setting up the training gives better control.
– By breaking a five-day cycle, you have one day you can control. Where are we right now? Then we can adjust to the next period if you have trained too hard or lightly in the previous five-day period. It’s a lot about managing the intensity, having control so that you can also train more intervals, but also more quantity that you need in endurance sports.
Ree says that he has had a much better O2 recording ahead of this season. The O2 uptake shows the body’s ability to absorb and consume oxygen and is often used as a measure of how good an athlete’s endurance is.
– I don’t have a terribly high O2 uptake, but a skating test in Granåsen shows that I have increased from 71 to 81.5 compared to the same time last year, so the increase is quite significant in percentage terms, says Ree.
Jermstad is not surprised, but says that it is also about more than just training.
– I knew that the O2 recording would go up. Another thing we have done is to have enough available energy for all the sessions. If you don’t have energy, you can’t perform either. Good training over time and a focus on nutrition are what we have taken with us. Increasing the intake of grams of carbohydrates has been a key to being able to withstand the training, says Jermstad.
This weekend we will get the answer to how well Ree matches up with all the best on the starting line.