If you are planning a cross - country ski trip to the Banff area, this book is an excellent guide to the ski trails in the area to east of Banff (but not including the park itself). Two trail recomendations - "Goat Creek" and "Peter Lougheed Provincial Park". The author has also written a guide to hiking trails in the area.

In turns, this account of his incredibly strenuous year is funny, heartbreaking, introspective and irreverent. I'm surprised how modest the author is about his ability to even perform some of the workouts -- a 3 hour and 55 minute run or ski! I'm an exercise fanatic myself, but I don't see any 4 hour workouts on my horizon. The chapters on the origin and development of cross country skiing are fascinating -- I used to hear about Koch and Caldwell when I taught at the Putney school. Our Olympic program hasn't really done much to produce skiiers since that time. You'll also gain a tremendous respect for the Norwegians, Swedes and Finns whose reverence for this grueling sport makes them the finest in the world. This book went well beyond just sports -- although his father's illness was introduced abruptly, it does serve as an anchor for much of hte second half of the book. His dignity to the end made it inspiring rather than depressing. My only small criticism is that since the book is so personal I would have liked to hear more from his wife and daughter's reactions to his training. He alludes to them, but it sounds like they lived on another planet for that year which I'm sure was not the case! Very rewarding and inspiring read, well written.

OK: so I admit I'm envious: take a year off to concentrate on training to Ski the Big Race. This is a grand undertaking, indeed! There are plenty of ski anecdotes here to satisfy the addicted, and the dream is compelling.

However, the narrative is disjointed in parts, the text being at times too thinly a transcription from a journal. During the year lived strenuously the sudden decline of the author's father's health comes abruptly, cutting the book in two. The narrative would have been more effective if the struggle for ski quasi-demi-godhood had been balanced against the more mortal values of family relationships, with stories of his father woven in to foreshadow the crisis to come.

I would like to have read as the conclusion of this book that the struggle of death had inspired a continuation of the struggle of life -- ongoing commitment to training for the exhilaration, for the exhaustion, for the joy, for the long slow slog. Keep training, Bill! The race goes on!

Despite criticism, I highly recommend this book for cross country skiers and endurance athletes. Here's hoping for the sequel: Longer Distance.

As a skiing enthusiast, I found that Bill McKibben's Long Distance revealed the world of physical and mental training that i never fully grasped existed. Even with all his training it was amazing to see that so much rested squarely on genetics, to see that after his many hours of training he could only become so much. The mental aspect was a plus to the book, as a past ski racer it was nice to see someone put into words how it feels out on the course:

"Except that the minute a race is done, you start trying to make it all add up, turn the thousand things that happen even in a three hour ski race in to some kind of coherent storay with a morale at the end: 'I couldn't focus,' or 'I bonked,' or 'Everything came together.'" -Bill McKibben.

To sum it all up, Mr. McKibben has written up an endurance trainer's dream and how he copes with the mental and physical pressures are fascinating to read. I would recommend this book to anyone that is remotely interested in cross-country skiing or how the elite athletes train.

Fitness Cross-Country Skiing by Steve Gaskill is a commendable book for anyone who wants to train seriously. It covers pretty much everything but stops short of integrating technique with fitness. Other books which I found useful in my training were Training for cross-country ski racing by Brian Sharkey and Tao of Skiing cd rom by xczone.

This book is definitely for the cross-country skier who is also a racer, or wants to begin racing. This is not the book for the occasional skier who only wants to slide and glide on the golf course. Steve Gaskill, the author, was coach of the US Ski Team for ten years. Since it was written by a coach, "Fitness,Cross-Country Skiing" is a very highly organized, step by step instructions for getting it top shape to compete in the demanding sport of Nordic racing - everything from 5K sprints up to 50K marathons. Everything a competitor needs to know is here, dry land training, on snow training, exercises in the hills, on the flats, roller blading, stretching, and rest days. There are heart rate charts, calories burned charts, and suggested levels of training for everyone from the out-of-shape weekend racer to the elite world class athlete. This is a wonderful resource of the competitor or one interested in total fitness.

This book begs to be picked up. The photos are beautiful. Why 3 stars? Because there are simply too many errors in the actual ski techniques to get you past novice.

This is a great looking book on cross-country skiing. Color photos and superb layout. It is one of the nicest books for beginner and novice skiers.

Better skiers are going to find it weak on technical content with most of the explainations taking a certain artistic licence at the expense of accuracy. Two books advanced skiers should look into are "Tao of Sking" and "Ski Skating With Champions."

I recently started Cross country skiing and I purchased this book. I found it very helpful and informative. Anyone just starting cross country skiing should buy it. It has many great pictures and diagrams that help in learning different techniques.

Cross-country downhill and other Nordic mountain skiing techniques is an bold idea for its time. Today where nordic ski racer regularly exceed 50 mph on racing skis or we have extreme telemark films, the book is dated. Good historical reference.

Barnett's book was the first to describe the downhill techniques- noteably the Telemark turn- to the modern generation of XC skiers. It was written long befor ethe current crop of edged "Telemark" skis, plastic boots and heavy cable bindings, which is an advantage, as he teaches you techniques possible in light touring equipment. Indeed, some illustrations show Barnett skiing in light skis and Adidias racing boots and bindings. A valuable addition to the tourer's library. If you can find a copy, buy it.

This book helped me out a lot in terms of finding areas to ski in when I first moved to Washington from Montana. However, some of the dialogue disturbed me, as I am a cross-country skier who also works for an organization that fights for the elimination of catastrophically damaging logging techniques. One quote is as follows: "In the rosy glow of the 1980s, it seemed that the overcutting of timber on forest lands was, if anything, a boon to the cross-country skier: more forest roads to explore in the winter, more clearcuts for downhill runs, and easier access to high meadows." At one point, it even described clearcuts to be "picturesque." I see clearcuts as the rape of the land, and because I learned how to cross country ski on narrow trails used for hiking in the summer rather than forest service roads, many of the descriptions turn me off to areas rather than draw me in. Where can I ski in a truly wild area, enclosed by frosted trees?