back at it... full throttle

So, my rest period has now finished, I am not sure what to think of it. It seems I have some serious lack of judgement and focus when I am not training full time. In the past I have always had lots to do during my time off, (school, work). But this time, only working part time and being in whistler in september when it is really slow economically here, I had not much to do. So that is why I thought I'd keep things fresh with my trip to Vancouver. Well that was a huge highlight, but training wise I felt like I was not focused at all. A very weird feeling after being so dialed into my training all summer. I guess its ok, though it did lead to some hairy situations for me. I think it started with my fall at the end of my last big workout, than I had a moment at the gym where a little lack of thinking made me try too heavy of a squat (nothing happened, but dropping the bar and waking everyone up in the gym with a very loud clang) than the next day, I was doing a 'recovery' run and slipped again on some wet roots. In the past I have prided myself with being agile and sure footed, and all summer I didn't have any problems with this. So my conclusion is that I was losing my focus not training many hours. The thing that saved me from doing any further damage I think is that it was only 2 weeks. I am back in a biggish week. Training doubles some days (two sessions a day), and I feel like I have my focus back with two time trials in two days under my belt.

Now onto the time trials...

I wasn't sure what to expect with these. My first one was a 2 km uphill double pole time trial and I hadn't done that since late june. The second one was skate, up the same hill. Coming off two weeks of easy training I wasn't expecting huge improvements since I'd be a little flat. The double pole was going better since my overall fitness has come a long way since june, I had decided that. It did prove to be better, 2 MINUTES BETTER! I was pretty happy, especially with coming off some down time. I was pumped. Than this morning was the skate version of the TT. After yesterday, doing that well and not feeling very 'poppy' in my technique, I thought that today was going to be good! In my warm up I felt really solid, so I thought I'd try and PB, well I got ahead of myself. The last one I did was just before our last trip to Canmore, and I was ON then. I ended up being 13 sec. slower this time. Feeling as though I had really given it my all, I was a little disappointed. Lee was quick to point out the differences with last time, mainly coming off a slow week and that I have always performed better in the summer while on the go. So good TTs behind we set off tomorrow to tackle Duffy Lake Rd. The plan is to Bike to the bottom than throw the rollerskis on and classic up. I am very exited for this, it is one of my favorite things to do on rollerskis and bikes.... go uphill.

C

what do i do when i have extra time and energy due to small training hours.

Alright, one week of easy training past, and for the beginning of that week I didn't do much. I mainly focused on recovering from my rediculous fall runing the sunday before (nice bump on my tibia bone), and worked a bit. Work is slow in september. Whistler being a resort town relying solly on tourists to keep the economy rolling makes the non tourist seasons very slow, therefore work is virtually non existent. This makes life tough for the full time athlete relying on a retail store to keep some food on the table. So instead of wasting time pondering this and wearing out the old brain with these thoughts, I decided to head to Vancouver. This was a time to shake things up a bit. It was not a very long stay (I feel like I could live there) but it deffinitly took my mind off the same old same old. It is a very effictive place to go to achieve this. I ended up staying at my super awesome friend Linnaea's house, which is also super awesome. Quite the place in the city, located close to everything important. The beach, Sushi, downtown, Granville Island, the list goes on. You can't go wrong living there thats for sure!when I got there Linnaea found a single speed for me to use to get around the city and have fun...fun underlined the whole stay. I met some really cool roady friends of hers (they ALL ride road bikes it seems...) like a whole underground culture with track races, bike polo, sprints, you name it. What they come up with is incredible. They also deserve a ton of credit for (most of them) riding all of this on fixis (no free wheel on their bikes, a bit like little kids bikes, without the pedal break). nothing we did was not fun, although the sunday night was bythe highlight. It was filled with some really random fun bike rides, climbing adventures on Ganville Island, and really pleasant laughs.

... and ended no earlier than 2:30 am. That goes to show you how much energy I have when I train little amounts. I am already halfway done my second eas

y week and get to finish it off with two time trials up Kadenwood

, double pole on saturda

y and sk

ate on sunday. This is a 2km uphill time trial which in the past has been death. it is steep, it is hard, and we

make it fast. Finally after that we head into the the first intensity block.

I will tell ou guys all about my first fun week of hammering when i

t comes.

cheers,

C

-photo credit of Linaea Kershaw

Body and Mind

Well that time has come for me to say good by summer. Well give me two days, than I can say that. For a cross country skier the summer is all about building a base of endurance to build on in the fall with intensity so that sustained speed is the end product, to be fast in the winter. So this is a change in pace for all skiers. You complete the summer and take some time to recover and rejuvenate mentally so that when the time comes to start putting in intensity blocks instead of volume blocks, you can really hammer and and reap the benefits of these workouts in the fall period.

So now I am getting ready to have a physical break from training, by doing two small weeks (never completely off training). In these two weeks I hope to be able to leave whistler for a couple days to give myself a mental break at the same time as physical. There are still long weeks and hours to put in and it is much better to stay sane during those days so breaks are encouraged.

Cheers.

C