Long Track Speed Skating

HAMAR, Norway - As she walked out of the Vikingskipet - Norway's speed-skating oval built to look like a giant Viking ship - late last night, Canadian coach Ingrid Paul took an unusual route back to the team's hotel.

Striding past the row of shuttle buses waiting to carry officials at this week's World Cup in Hamar back to their rooms, Paul crossed a vacant parking lot and disappeared into a dark alley.

For the next 10 minutes she zigzagged through an industrial part of the city, passing garbage bins and stacks of discarded wooden crates before emerging, suddenly, on the doorstep of the team's hotel.

"I've been here before," the speed-skating veteran smirked.

Shortcuts aside, the 44-year-old who competed for the Netherlands at the 1988 Calgary Games also knows a thing or two about plotting a course to the Olympics.

With four months to go until Vancouver, what athletes do now is crucial to how they will perform in February, and there are different theories on how to prepare.

Ask any speed skater these days and this thought is weighing upon all of them. Some are holding back, carefully preserving energy, others are trying to build up the intensity. But when to let up - and when to turn it up - is an art as much as it is a science.

Canadian speed skater Christine Nesbitt of London, Ont. has burst off the line this season, turning in some of the best races of her career.

But Nesbitt, decided to skip this weekend's world cup to train and rest, rather than keep the momentum going on the World Cup circuit.

Conversely, her teammate Kristina Groves of Ottawa, a veteran of two Olympics and a double silver-medalist in Turin in 2006, has talked about wanting to lay low for now and not peak too soon.

Paul has simple advice for all the skaters this year: Try to win, but don't die trying. Save that for Vancouver.

"Their basic level has to be good enough to do well, and that doesn't mean that they have to win all the time," she said. "Kristina Groves, Brittany Schussler [of Winnipeg], Christine Nesbitt, they all should be able to skate not at peak level, but at a basic top-six level, or top eight."

Otherwise the grind of the world cup season could get to them.

"What makes racing hard [throughout the season] is not just performing on the ice, it's being away from home for a long time and the stress from races. It's a lot of stress out here," Paul said.

Finding the right balance is a conundrum all countries are wrestling with. In the U.S. camp, 20-year-old Trevor Marsicano ended last season on a high, winning four medals at the World Single Distance Championships in Richmond, B.C.

The temptation would be to carry that momentum directly into the world cup circuit this fall and try to ride it as long as possible.

But Marsicano says he's not going all-out just yet. Still, his slow start in comparison to last season's remarkable finish has raised questions in the U.S.

"A lot of people have been coming up to me like ‘What's wrong? You're not where you were at last year," he said.

"But I am where I was last year, this has kind of proven to be my pattern. So right now I'm not ready to hit the panic button yet," he said.

On the other side of that debate is Marsicano's teammate, top U.S. skater Shani Davis, who has been nothing short of dominant on the world cup circuit so far. Davis will compete this weekend in Hamar, and is expected to be leading the pack again in Vancouver.

"Everybody has their own thing that works for them. Some people have to just go the whole season to keep themselves upbeat," Marsicano said.

"You have to pick your times where you want to peak, so that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to stay just enough above the qualifying regulations so that I can at least make it to the Olympics and then of course when I get to February I want to drop the hammer as hard as I can."

While a number of Canadian skaters, such as Nesbitt and another Vancouver medal contender, Denny Morrison of Fort St John, B.C., decided to skip this weekend (which focuses on longer distances) others are taking the chance to log more laps.

Vancouver-hopeful Mathieu Giroux of Montreal is one of them. After watching a few of his teammates return to Canada last weekend to rest, Giroux, who converted from short-track speed skating last year, pulled his coach aside and wondered if he should hold back as well.

But as a newcomer, Paul wants him to compete as much as possible.

"He asked me, will I get too tired if I race? I said no you are in good shape and you are improving all the time. He's still learning a lot when he races, so he needs the extra," she said.

As Groves takes to the ice for Canada this weekend in the 1,500 metres and 5,000 metres events, along with Winnipeg's Clara Hughes, her coach Xiuli Wang will be looking to strike that balance between building up the competitive fire and not burning out.

Wang said she's so far impressed with the physical performances from Groves, who made her first podium appearance of the season last week in Heerenveen with a bronze in the 1500m, and now wants to push her mental game to get ready for Vancouver.

"She kind of wants to delay a little bit," Wang said, pointing out there is no secret formula that applies to every skater.

"But I would like her to prepare herself mentally now. ... Every individual has a different reaction. There is no saying who is good now and who is good in the future. They just have to do their job."