David’s Experience Joining a Team

Picture of David getting ready for US Nationals in Anchorage.

David Ronnevik joined Team Birkie this past year and he writes about how he would motivate himself to train alone. David also describes how he went from training alone a lot to now being a part of a team. David is right out of high school and Team Birkie is excited to see what he can do.

“This is my first year training full-time with a team. There is so much I am thankful for that has come from it. Learning from athletes and coaches who are far more experienced than I am has been great. From being pushed in interval workouts to having company on those long runs, Team Birkie has been great! Though training with a team is best, often athletes either do not have access to a team to train with or have schedules that don’t allow training with a group. Because of this sometimes we have to train on our own and I would like to share some ideas that helped me when I was without a team to train with.

Always have a plan the day before. It is difficult to have a productive training session without a set plan. I had a training plan written for me each week, I used Andy Newel’s NTS plan. Each week had a focus whether that be volume, intensity, or recovery to name a few. Details included in this plan were how many hours I needed to train that week and then how many hours a day I needed to train to meet that goal. In addition to this, it is good to decide on something to focus on specifically before each workout. Normally for me, this was a technique idea. This could be getting over the top of your ski when practicing V2, keeping your hips forward when double poling, or whatever you think you should work on.

Wherever possible, train in the morning. This one is self-explanatory. Nearly every time I train it’s in the morning. In my experience, it’s much harder to get motivated to work out later in the day. This is even more true when it is hot outside during the summer. I also quite enjoy the feeling of starting the day off with something positive which for me is training.

Change up the location. Training, by nature, is repetitive. But there are things we can do to keep things interesting. I had 2-3 different routes for rollerskiing that I did far more often than others. They were all just different low-traffic county highways outside my house. Sometimes when I wanted to change things up I would go pole walking/bounding at the local trail system, Spidahl's Ski Gaard. I would definitely recommend! I don't like having to drive more than I have to, but changing where you train keeps it from becoming a drag.

David racing SuperTour in Cable December 2024.

Quality training is the most important thing to being a strong athlete. It is far too easy to just go through the motions. Being intentional in training is paramount to get the most out of what we put in. I hope these ideas help you in just that! 

Happy training and Godspeed!”