Europe Week Two

The second week of our trip has been great. My team and I got great training on the K120 and K90 in Oberstdorf while also utilizing the gym and roller ski course. Thursday was our first competition while being over here and I had some mixed results. I had been jumping well all week but failed to put solid jumps together in the competition. With jumps of 120 meters and 116.5 meters, I was still in the hunt during the race. The first race at low altitude is always a bit interesting. At this low altitude my body can go quicker and harder than in Steamboat. Sometimes it takes a little while to understand and get used to that. I was actually very happy with my race finishing the course in about 28 minutes. This was another solid race for me but once again I need to translate my training jumps over to my comp jumps to get the results I'm looking for. After the competition we drove 6 hours to Liberec, Czech Republic. Liberec is a great place and I have spent about 40 days here over the last couple years. Being back here brings great memories of the World Junior Championships last winter where I put up some of my better results. Friday was spent recovering from the race on thursday. We hit up the sauna and cold tub in order to get our bodies back to full speed and prepare for Saturday. Saturday was a brutal double interval day. In the morning I did 6X4 intervals on roller ski which was followed in the afternoon by a track workout. For the track workout I did 6x400 meter sprints at about 95 percent speed with a couple minute break in between each sprint. The point of the workout is to consistently put up the same time even with the fatigue and lactic acid building up. I was able to do that running every 400 in under 1 minute and 10 seconds. It was a grueling day and my team and I are using today to just relax and recover. Tomorrow we will depart from Liberec and head to Klingenthal, Germany. In Klingenthal we will be jumping the notoriously fun and big K120 jump. My team and I will also be preparing for a Summer Grand Prix in Oberweisenthal, Germany which begins on Saturday. I'll keep you updated on how the Grand Prix goes! Thanks to the NNF and everyone else who supports me- Ben Berend

Ski Jumps in Oberstdorf, Germany

Track Workout

Liberec, Czech Republic