Nothing outrageous to report this week in training. I was on target for getting my 15 hour/week goal and then got side-tracked by the damn job! Yes, life certainly gets in the way when you don't get paid to train. So, I ended up taking an extra day off on Thursday after getting hammered in the operating room for 11 hours and just could not get psyched about going up on the King after 8pm. This allowed me a short block of over-reaching into the weekend that I certainly felt. Hopefully, I will come up out stronger because of it.
I did no really long days this week, with the longest being 3.5 hours. What I did get was more intensity and I felt it by the weekend. I did my usual VO2 max intervals on Tuesday and felt good. I experimented with getting the "engine running" prior to hitting the throttle for multiple minutes. I liked how that worked and will repeat that tact this week. Instead of jumping right into a 5 minute all-out effort, I "warmed up" with 1 minute on, 1 minute off for 5 minutes to start. This is still hard but easier than 5 minutes straight, obviously. I then hit two more efforts of 5 minutes each with full recovery followed by one more set of 2 on, 2 off x 3. I proceeded into the weight room after that and called it an honest day's training.
The other hard day was somewhat less taxing although it seemed to cost me more into the weekend. Friday night I hit the King for a bunch of 30/30 efforts, 37 of them to be exact! Sounds like a lot and probably is for this old man. I warmed up for half a lap and then did 10 of them to the top. The next lap I started them from the bottom and took 27 minutes to top out again. One thing is for sure: doing them on a machine road is way easier than doing them up the fall line. Holy crap! The lactate load is much higher and recovery less going straight up. It took me ten or eleven of them to get to the machine road and I was ready for the quasi break. Take home point here is that I probably get closer to my actual max when doing them straight up the fall line. I will do more of those!
Following those efforts I went straight into the weight room and tried to catch up on some missing work for the week in the form of 3 sets of 30 rep squats. I warmed up with 95 lbs on the bar and that felt easy. I did the next two sets with 135# which was hard but not ass-kicking in the I-think-I'm-gonna-puke kind of way. Nonetheless, they take their toll, for sure. I think I will bump up to 140# next time.
The real beat down was Saturday when I agreed to meet another, faster skimo racer up on the Pass for some laps on Edelweiss. After our approach run, he stripped down to his friggin' race suit and I knew some pain was coming. I hung pretty close for the first 20 minute lap, probably ending up 10 seconds behind him. When he did a full race-speed skin rip I knew the descent would be fast, as well. We railed it to the bottom without slowing. Another fast transition and he was gone. I arrived in time to tell him I was slowing a bit before he took off. That was the last I saw him that day. He was planning on 5 laps before heading off to the Village for some cable time and I was going to do at least 6 runs.
I settled down a bit but kept the pressure on until the final 6th lap. I was near threshold the whole time but not quite the intensity required for the first lap. I was just tired. The weights from the night before made my glutes sore. There was a part of me that felt that maybe I shouldn't be going that hard at all. Not really sure. It had me second-guessing my plan just for a moment. I got the work done and was WORKED afterwards. Ate big that afternoon and actually did not feel too bad on my recovery day Sunday. In hindsight, as is my habit of not extending myself too much on multiple days, I would have done a recovery ski on Saturday and then got more out of a Saturday-like effort the following training session. But like I said, it was a bit of over-reaching that can pay some dividends when applied occasionally. We'll see.
Here's the run down:
Monday rest
Tuesday ski, 2 hrs., 3,000' vertical, Snow King, HARD, VO2 max intervals, 5 x 1 min on/1 min off, 2 x 5 minutes, 3 x 2 min on/2 min off, then weights, 1 hr. FS 215, SS 145
Wednesday ski, 2:15, 4,500' vertical, Snow King, recovery
Thursday off
Friday ski, 2 hr., 3,800' vertical, Snow King, hard, 37 x 30/30 intervals, break after first 10, then weights, 15 min., 3 x 30 rep squats, last 2 sets at 135#
Saturday ski, 3.5 hrs., 7,500' vertical, Edelweiss, 6 laps, race pace
Sunday ski 2.5 hrs., 5,000' vertical, Edelweiss, 4 laps, recovery
Total 13.5 hrs., 23,800' vertical
Coming up this week, more of the same. Hope to get another solid interval session in on Tuesday, perhaps adding an additional 5 minute hit. I'll add 5 lbs to the 30 rep squat sets. I would like to see 4 hours at least once if not twice this week. Perhaps a longer adventure into the Park is in order. My operating room schedule looks lighter this week so I should be less hammered on that front. - Brian