Ivar Formo - FasterSkier.com XC Training (original) (raw)

By Langrenn.com
Translated By [John Aalberg](author.php?a=John Aalberg)
Wed Jul 16, 2003

The 50-km Olympic Champion from the 1976 Seefeld Olympic Games, Ivar Formo, lets our readers get a unique insight into his training

Facts Let us first present Ivar Formo for all of you that are not old enough to remember his golden days:
Born: June 24, 1951 in Oslo, Norway
Results:

• Olympic Gold, 50 km, Seefeld 1976
• Olympic Bronze, 15 km, 1972
• Olympic Silver, Relay 1972 and 1976
• World Championship Bronze 1974 and 1978
• European Junior Championship Gold
• Overall winner of first ever World Cup title, 1974
• World Championship Bronze in Orienteering
• Several National Sportsman Awards in Norway

The importance of collecting experience

Ivar has his opinions of how Norwegian (and other countries’) Cross-Country skiers can improve. And he shares Vegard Ulvang’s view of the importance of an accurate training log. Ivar was also very systematic in logging his training sessions, just like Vegard. "Without knowing what you’ve done, it is difficult adjusting the training later", says Ivar. That simple! His written training logs span 10-years — from the end of the 60’s through the end of the 70’s. He competed with historic skiers, such as Harald Gronningen, Paal Tyldum, Odd Martinsen, Lark Erik Eriksen and Ove Aunli — some took over winning after Ivar retired. Ivar however remembers one competitor better than any other — Oddvar Braa. They were the same age, and neither of them had ever lost a ski race when they met for the first time in the Norwegian Youth Championship. They both later became the national heroes of Norway and on first name bases with the whole nation.

Heroic

The live coverage of the Seefeld Olympic 50 km ski race on February 14, 1976 became famous in Norway due to the exiting race, level of the live TV commentating, and because the young skier with the beautiful technique surprised everyone. He outclassed the competition, even though noone thought he would be able to stay in front for 50 km.

After having studied Ivar’s preparation and training, we now can understand how he was able to "stay" the whole distance. More thorough preparation is hardly ever seen.

Volume, altitude training and all-around skills

Today many experienced coaches ask the question: "do today’s Cross-Country skiers train correct and enough"? Most skiers when asked may believe that training volume has increased and methods improved. Not just in Cross-Country. This may not always be true. Let us go back 30 years, and look closer at Ivar Formo’s training. You can check out his training on the Norwegian electronic logging system www.sportsys.nu

Ivar’s yearly training volume was 890 hours. In November 1975 he trained 123 hours. Some weeks he skied 600 km.

It is also interesting to note Ivar’s first experience with altitude training. A hard session on a clacier in Northern-Italy at 3000m (above 9500 feet) resulted in a headache, and both an exclamation mark and a question sign in his training log for that day.

Regarding training during the summer, Ivar did not believe in vacation or time off from training. As a national class Orienteering athlete he competed often. The training consisted otherwise of rollerskiing, cycling, some kayaking, volleyball and soccer as a supplement to running which was his main method of training.

Ivar was known for almost always staying healthy and injury free. This is probably not due to luck. Ivar must have had a very "good head" for training smart. This means he must have been able to cut back training when needed, and take a more careful route. Ivar remembers that some of his teammates on the National Team were not as "lucky", and trained themselves "into the basement" (Editor: Overtrained).

Original training zones

It is interesting to study the way Ivar used training intensities and zones. Today we’re used to heart rate zones from 1 — 5; Ivar’s zones were:

"all right tempo", "easy tempo", "ok tempo", "very good tempo", "consistent tempo", "hard tempo", "very easy tempo", "good tempo", "hard running", etc.

This may seem as the tempos of a piece of classical music. And perhaps this was how Ivar looked at his training zones and intensities? He was very thorough in pointing out if parts of a training session were done in a different speed or intensity than the rest. Perhaps many can learn from this way of logging training sessions.

Training buddies

It could not have been easy for the other skiers in the club to train with Ivar in his prime. His training log is proof of this. In reading the names of his training companions you notice that each one of them were only able to go along one day at a time, then again after a few days of recovery.

Once in a while you also notice famous skiers: run with Paal (Tyldum — another Olympic Champion), easy run with Odd (Martinsen), nice session with Oddvar (Braa).

Below we have included some typical days from June, July and August of 1975. Remember that in 1976 Ivar was one of the very best skiers in the World. Don’t try to copy his training. It probably will not make you any better.

June training:

July training:

August training: