Many Swedish national team skiers are heading to Vålådalen for a training camp today. But two athletes instead chose to prepare at high altitude in Livigno.

“I have seen that I responded well to this arrangement, says Frida Karlsson,” who runs the Livigno training camp together with Moa Ilar.

In the coming weeks, many Swedish cross-country skiing teams will be in Vålådalen, Sweden. The A national team, Team Bauhaus, and the junior national team will all be there and prepare for the season with the Swedish premiere in Gällivare in mid-November and the World Cup start in Ruka the following weekend as the first competitive stops.

During this year’s dryland season, the Swedish national team has had a solid investment in high-altitude training, and Frida Karlsson and Moa Ilar will continue this by heading today to the high altitude in Livigno:

“In the preparations for the coming season, I have done six weeks at high altitude until now, and it feels exciting to complete this entire investment. I have found that I respond well to this, and above all, I have received very good responses when I get home. Then I can push on in the training sessions, and I believe that this can mean that I can take another step,” says Frida Karlsson during Monday’s press conference in Stockholm.

She is therefore joined at the training camp by Moa Ilar:

“The challenge of being at a camp at high altitude is that it is difficult to find the right intensity. If we take threshold training as an example, I think I want to be ten heart rate beats lower than I usually do. Then, it is important to get used to high altitude, i.e., the first few days. But I see this as very valuable, and I need the experiences that the high-altitude camps provide,” says Ilar at Langd.se and is agreed by Frida Karlsson:

“It’s exciting and educational, and I will continue with high-altitude camps during the season as well. I will be running camps at altitude before the Tour (de Ski) and before we go to Canada. Then everything gets a little harder at altitude. You get a slightly worse recovery; the body has to work harder even at rest,” says Karlsson.

Moa Ilar:

“I usually get good answers when I come home from altitude. For me, it’s important to get a good start to the season so I can work from that and not have to chase any form. So, I both hope and believe this will be a perfect arrangement for the Swedish premiere in Gällivare and the World Cup in Ruka the following weekend,” concludes Moa Ilar.

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