Lactate Tolerance feedback follow-up

A couple of readers submitted comments regarding the last post on lactate training. As I was responding, my comments were getting verbose (big surprise) so I thought I would create another post with them in case others find the dialogue helpful...

Hi Brian, another really great read and for me, some food for thought as to prep for next season. I have to say that so far this year that I have held my own and been happy with the up's but suffered and lost time on downs. Don't know what the courses are like in North America, but here in the Alpes some of the down hill is like the dark side of the moon!

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Lactate Tolerance

As this week's post comes to print you'll have to admit I'm getting better at cranking them out. I feel good about it. This post on training certainly raises the bar for length and probably could be divided into three different pieces. But it was written in a multi-day stream of consciousness that I will keep together. Hope it works for you...

Okay, enough ranting and excuse making. Time to spend a post talking training! And not just any type of training, either. This is some of my favorite type. The kind spent in the weight room getting stronger. Because, let's face it, endurance athletes are some of the weakest people on the planet when compared to athletes who spend at least part of their training time pushing iron around. Greg Glassman and his cronies at CrossFit love to point out the fact that endurance types are pathetically weak. When Outside Magazine comes out with a cover story on the "Fittest Man on Earth", it's invariably a long distance athlete of some sort. Glassman just scoffs at the notion.

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Off-Season Rando Training

I received an email from a reader with whom I have had a discussion regarding training for ski mountaineering racing.  I thought it would make a nice jumping off point for summer training for a winter sport.

Brian,

Hope your season went well, and the spring is moving along.  

I had another rando training question for you.  After a good strong first season, following your training advice from the fall, I am ready to start a new year now, to be ready for next year.  I will continue to do Long Slow Distance primarily for my cardio, lots of walking up the mountain with ski poles, but am curious to know what I should be doing for strength training.  My understanding is that I should use spring as a time to build muscle, the early summer to work with max strength, and late summer/early fall power, with a bit of endurance through the whole summer.  I am lost for what kind of exercises or training regimes to do.  I do know that core work is really important, but how I design my routines I am not quite certain.  Any thoughts on this? - Alex

The first thing to note here is that Alex is a single sport athlete right now, at least that is what I'm getting from his email.  This allows him the luxury of periodizing his preparation for next season.  Since I bike race in the summer, my approach is different by necessity.  I continue to strength train during the summer but my time in the gym is short and aimed at holding on to my form and some of my strength so that next fall is not so painful.

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Two Day 20K

Just a week until 24 Hours of Sunlight.  I did this race with my now wife two years ago and we won the Duo Pro division.  It was not hotly contested and we were never really pushed.  All the pushing came from within and it was mostly fun getting that much vert.  This year, Dina, my wife, is doing the solo event and I'm doing the Duo again but this time with a male partner, Mike Werner.  He is a great skier and experienced rando racer but only has one day over 10,000 feet, ever!  Should be an interesting adventure for him.

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Pump up the volume!

I've never been a big base mileage guy.  Back in the day when I was racing my bike full-time (20 years ago?!!) I felt that intensity was the key to success.  I reasoned that getting to the finish line was not the problem, making the break was.  What I didn't know was that there were more subtle things going on physiologically that allow us to tolerate repeated bouts of the race-making intensity efforts.  This is what so-called base training is all about. 

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