Training Together for Winter in the Mountains

The snow has started to fall and in some places, it’s even sticking. I don’t know about you, but the team here at Hagan USA has tunnel vision for the incoming winter. Every year, no matter what training I do, I find myself incredibly sore and slowed down after each tour for the first two weeks of the season. That soreness only intensifies if I’m pushing the pace on my skimo setup or skiing my bigger skis hard.

Tired of that two-week hump, I reached out to the Hagan USA team to learn how the professionals prepare for winter. Here’s what I learned:

Quick Takeaways

• Do more squats

• Do more deadlifts

• Increase aerobic volume slowly but steadily

• Increase vertical gain slowly but steadily

• Stretch more often

• Save most of the speedwork for in-season

• Keep it fun, prioritize family, friends, and school

Now for the long form:

Justin Sackett, Owner of Skyline Mountain Guides, shared:

“I can't wait for a winter of ski mountaineering in Washington State! Going into ski season fully primed for big 10k days and jump turns is super important. For me, I prepare for ski season by going out into the mountains for big days running up big glaciers and climbing on knife edge ridges. The more volume and vertical I can get in the summer the better I feel when the skis go back on in the winter. I supplement the big mountain days with weighted pistol squats, stretching my hips incessantly, and deadlifting! Gotta keep the body strong and limber if you want to play in the mountains your whole life!”

Thank you, Justin, we’ll keep it simple: more uphill, more squats, more hip mobility, and don’t neglect the hamstrings. Justin is one of Hagan’s guides. His service, Skyline Mountain Guides, offers backcountry skiing and avalanche education courses (among other adventures) out of Snoqualmie Pass, just southwest of Seattle, WA. We highly recommend Justin and his team — they’re some of the best in the business and know how to play hard in the mountains.

Rachel Hebaus, skyrunner and skimo U23 athlete, explained: “The summer and fall seasons mostly consist of running for me, but I also spend quite a bit of time in the gym working on strength and all the small things to keep me healthy. I think this is especially important going into the winter season where my legs transition to working uphill and down in a different way. 

Along with staples like deadlifts, split squats, and RDLs [Rear Deadlift Squats], I’ve really enjoyed incorporating isometrics and glute/hip band work into my weekly, sometimes daily, routine. Lately, hamstring isometrics have become a favorite. While unstructured repetition work can be easy to overdo, I find isometrics are something I can integrate both as a warmup and post-training to build strength without adding overload.”

Jesse Thompson, father of nine-year-old Tristan, highlighted the importance of keeping things fun: “[The] excitement of the season is palpable and we talk  about something with skiing almost everyday. Talking about talking, it’s actually a big part of our preseason plan right now to address and work through some bigger key concepts of the upcoming season. From simple stuff like how many races we think we can do, where we might get to travel, and identifying key technical goals to work on and get better at. In Tristan's case, this year we are tackling, skins off with skis on, really steep switchback kick turn corners, hydration and diet.” 

Jesse also made a point to talk with Tristan about why they enjoy racing, reflecting on whether they’re in it for the right reasons. Beyond that healthy reflection, it’s full steam ahead with fall sports: four days a week of soccer, tae kwon do, and 12 local CX races. For Jesse himself, the focus is on upping bike mileage, mixing in hill days and intervals, and supplementing with running, calisthenics, and stretching. By mid-October, he’ll be adding more hiking and light trail running with poles.

This summer, Sage Canaday has focused on “aerobic base building” — stacking up Zone 2 miles around the mountain trails of Poncha Springs, Colorado. “Last week I hit 120 miles of running,” he says, “mostly easy effort to strengthen the aerobic system without overtaxing recovery.” To balance the load, he mixes in cycling, hiking, and mountain climbing — lower-impact ways to build strength and durability. He’s now summited 57 of Colorado’s 58 14ers, with only Culebra left on his list. “I’m hoping to ski it this winter or spring,” he adds. Highlights from the season include pacing Kilian Jornet on Antero, Tabeguache, and Shavano during his States of Elevation project, and earning a podium at the Grand Traverse Dual Sport (run + bike). “It was amazing to see the full Grand Traverse line from Crested Butte to Aspen in the daylight,” Sage says. “It’s made me excited to try the full ‘Triple Crown’ someday — ski, run, and bike.”

Beyond the mountains, Sage continues to coach athletes through Higher Running, offering plans for #AnySurfaceAnyDistance. “Our free Aerobic Base Building Program is a great way for athletes to kickstart endurance training,” he says. Strength work is also a major focus, including weighted vest Bulgarian split squats, glute band work, calf raises, and traditional lifts. “As I transition into skimo season, I’ll add power hiking sessions on a treadmill at a 20% grade or steeper with the vest on — working up both pace and duration.”

Jonathan Sheftz, Director of the Northeast Rando Race Series, gave this fun update: "Alas a major asterisk applies to my Consecutive Ski Months #46 and #47 since I ticked off both August and September by skiing indoors in a New Jersey shopping mall. Otherwise, I have been busy with scheduling for the NE Rando Race Series, including trying to book a private session at aforementioned Joisey mall (aka Big Snow at the American Dream Mall) for what could be the world's first indoor ISMF-format skimo race.  My usual training regimen has been sidetracked by Coach Dad obligations for my daughter's newfound passion for tennis, my other competitive sport in college (besides alpine ski race of course). As a fellow National Ski Patrol full-fledged ski patroller, she will serve as Chief of Course for the Berkshire East race, so you'd better keep your ski poles flat on the snow at transitions!"

Well said, Jonathan. It’s refreshing to hear from someone rooted in the race scene that it’s okay to ease up on training when life comes first.

Our youngest Hagan grom, 13-year-old Victor Doronin, wrote the following himself: “Okay, so I’ve done a LOT over this summer, and condensing it into two paragraphs is just hard. Anyway, the hardest thing I did was going to a running camp called Max King Running Camp—because Max King was the coach, obviously. Max and his friend Joe almost killed me by making us run like 20 miles each day! Before that, I’d never run more than 7 miles a day, so yeah, it was really hard. But the waffles they had in the kitchen were so good that I snuck in at midnight and tried to grab like 10 of them—though I didn’t get away with it. The running camp was only four days long, so for the rest of the summer, I did other stuff like biking.

Oh, I biked so much that I almost died once. The most fun part was when I biked through an old abandoned railroad tunnel that was like 4 miles long (Snoqualmie Tunnel), and my headlamp turned off. Imagine: I was alone in the middle of a strange, scary abandoned tunnel a mile under the earth with no one around. I biked so hard to get out of that tunnel that I probably set a world record, and I risked hitting the walls because my headlamp turned off for some weird reason. I also ran a race in the Cirque Series near Mount Rainier, which was fun. So, my summer consisted of biking, rollerskiing, running,  swimming, hockey, summer biathlon, golf, tennis and other stuff.”

Final Thoughts

A few themes stand out from everything our athletes shared. On the physical side, consistency and variety are the most important. Hiking, running, biking, and even tennis all help build aerobic capacity that pays off once the snow starts to stick. Strength work matters too, especially squats and deadlifts, which showed up in nearly every routine. Just as important is recovery. Stretching and mobility preparation are what keep athletes moving efficiently on those steep, uneven skintracks.

On the mental side, the preseason is a natural moment to pause and reevaluate your “why.” Reconnecting with what you love about winter before it arrives helps guide how you train, how you race, and how you recreate once the season begins.

With this advice in mind, I’ll be spending more time in the gym and on the trails, whether that means running, biking, or even grinding out miles on the stairmaster. Preparation now makes it easier to leave that early-season soreness behind and step into winter with energy and confidence.