From Plus 22 to Minus 4, From Life of Student to Life of Sport

Nov 25, 2017

About m

y preparation for ski-o season in Finland.

It‘s October 23. My flight to Finland goes in 4hours. I haven’t decided yet whether I will take the flight or not.

I have a great opportunity to train one month in Finland. To ski all day long. But it’s my knee. My knee which hurts. Knee which doesn’t let me to train properly. Does it make sense to go to a skiing paradise when I can not ski properly? I can’t skate. I can do double polling. Maybe, it would be better to stay in Czech, do double polling on roller skis, and attend the school lessons. Or should I go to Finland, miss six weeks at school, have super much stress after I came back to Czech in order to pass all missed tests/exams and believe that one day my knee is good enough and I will be able to prepare myself for the first world cup round coming in late November.

Should I? Shouldn’t I? When will I be able to ski? Will I be able to skate in some days? Weeks? Months? Will I be able to do some other activity apart from double polling and upper body strength training? Is there any chance I could get ready for the world cup? Many questions, no answer. Guess what won?

I can not accept the defend without giving a try.

>>>FINLAAAAAAND

It’s my desire. I can not accept the defend without I try. I am in the plane. Who knows how my camp will look like, but I will do everything to get ready for the first word cup round. I have only one month left. Staying in Czech doesn’t make me ready for it. There is a hope staying in Finland will.

Where else would you meet raindeers in the middle of the city?

I spend my first four days in Vuokatti. I join the Finnish ski-o national team. Hm, I didn’t really join as I couldn’t take part in any of their trainings. I can not skate, I can’t run, I can’t do lower body strength. But I am very happy my knee lets me to run every day at least for some minutes. One double polling training per day feels enough for me. I tried classic skiing but those moments when your leg slides accidently down instead of going forward caused unpleasant pain. This didn’t happen very often but it made me realize I shouldn’t ski classic.

I spend in Rovaniemi four upcoming weeks. Nejvyšší čas to start with skating if I want to go to first round world cup races.

It works! I skate! I just stay on the flat part, but I am so excited! Skating on snow is such a beautiful feeling! Do I need to get injured badly to realize how much I love skiing? Knee pain comes after 20minutes. No more skating for today.

So happy to skate at least for couple of minutes

Rovaniemi offers great skiing conditions comparing to Czech. 9km long artificial snow track fakt luxus! Unfortunately, I can only use 700m of a flat part as my knee protest to go any uphill. My knee does small improvements day after day. I am really enjoying to skate despite I kroužím on this small round like on the athletic tracks.

Some skiing sessions are like a dream.

Skiing while sunset in early November at 2pm of Czech time

Three weeks to the first world cup race and I’m not able to skate any uphills yet. I am not so optimistic about my world cup participation anymore.

Another Finnish ski-o national team camp starts, this time in Rovaniemi. My original plan was not to have any injuries and do lot of ski-o trainings in next 10 days. Reality is just opposite. Despite I am already able to skate uphills, my knee definitely doesn’t handle any ski-o obratnost. So I’m not that sad that natural snow conditions are not good. With other words, four days of raining make all natural snow melt.

One week before world cup and my knee doesn’t bother me in skating anymore. I start to practise a bit of turnings. The knee warns me „I don’t like this“. Tak dík no. But day after day it feels 1% better. I know I will be able to start at world cup! Let’s see with how big speed and effort.

Last days in Rovaniemi are varied by cross country stars. There are lot of national teams training for their season’s opening. It was cool to ski together with Jessie Diggins, Krista Pärmäkoski or Iivo Niskanen.

During one of my last interval trainings before world cup I get encouraged by one skier: „you skiing looks very good“ he says. Maybe he was some national team coach, maybe just a hobby skier. It doesn’t matter. I am ready for the world cup! Let’s believe my knee is ready too.

Biggest THANK YOU to all doctors and physioterapist who did their best to make my knee ready for the world cup. Namely Jana Kuncová, Jarka Pochmanová, Petr Kamínek and David Smékal. Thank you so much.