DAYS OF EVERYTHING

CO Heidi to backcountry, ID

Like any job, cross-country skiers get their two weeks - ours are just two weeks of UN-paid vacation.

How are these two weeks different that the 351 other days of a pro-athlete's life?

They are not logged. I wake up and go for a run, I meet friends for coffee, I go for a backcountry ski and then bee-line it to a deck for lunch. I shoot to the gym and finish the day with a bike ride and some grilled food. I wear lots of sunscreen and still get burnt. I laugh more than I speak and I am going all day long. I sleep hard at night and I am thankful every minute.

These are the days of everything. You can do it all because there is not a race in the morning and there are no intervals at 7am. They are not days of slacking, in fact they are filled over the rim. I am healthy, I am able and these are my 2 weeks.

I am the luckiest kid ever and May first is on Friday. It might be the start of the weekend for most, but for me it is the begining of 2010. I have been sick and injured, broke and currently homeless but Vancouver is 10-months away. There are skeptics - but I am not one. The game has been on since I was 5 and it will not end today.

Living the dream,
Kate

EASTERN SPRING

Spring in Vermont; something I miss terribly. I flew into Burlington for my "little" brother's birthday (little in age but 6'4" in height). We had some fun at his place in New Haven and I had the chance to catch up with some college friends.

After a few great days in the green mountain state, we headed home to surprise my folks and to catch up with our big brother (for my mother's birthday).

Happy Birthday Mom, and Jake!

Some of the highlights from the Vermont portion.

Training is going well, I am back in Idaho and my back is feeling roughly 75% these days (which is great)! I hope everyone has a good case of spring fever!

I have started coaching again (Girls on the Run) and training for the current year. The game is still on! More to come.

COUNTING TIME

For those of you who keep a training log, you might be surprised to realize that not all athletes record every minute they train. Sometimes as little as half of a session might be logged – or none at all.

In a recent email correspondence with a friend, I mentioned that I don’t bike very much in a big volume week because it doesn’t count as full-time. This fueled the following dialogue:

If you ride constantly for an hour, why wouldn’t you log an hour?

When you go down a hill while skiing you are gliding. When in a tuck however, you are still required to use strength and balance. When on a bike, especially on a road bike, a downhill does not require as much. Biking is also non-weight bearing; your body does not have to hold itself up because you are on a seat. Both of these factors move biking further away from being applicable to cross training for XC, which is why many athletes count bike training as little as half-time.

It has been a long debate with coaches for me, since I feel as if I am in L4 every second of a mountain bike ride and most of my road rides are trying to catch the pack in front of me. I have long since given up the argument and simply count races at 75% time and rides at 50%. Some recovery spins (on a road bike), I don’t count as time at all but make sure to note the activity.

Are there other activities that you don’t count, or log only partially?

There is a debate on how to count strength in a log. Some athletes log half-time because you do an activity and then rest. Some count 70% or even full time because rest is necessary and maybe heart rate is still up... Our team brought up this question to our coach and we did a field test to figure it out.

Our coach took lactate tests throughout a strength workout, taking blood samples from all athletes during both rest and active times. 4-6mmols of blood lactate is typically L3 (threshold). This is the highest effort that your muscles can clear all lactic acid. Much higher and you start to feel “the burn” which is acid pooling in your muscles and you move into L4 (race pace).

Throughout this strength session, some of our readings got up into the 12mmols! Mine were between 6 and 8 and only lowered into the high 4s during rest periods. We determined that during that strength protocol, not only should we count the whole session (100% time), but consider it a hard workout. We would not want to schedule it just before an important race, for example.

Because of that test, I log my strength as full time, marking half in L1 and the other half as L3 (even though my lactates read into L4 at times).

As far as other activities counted as partial time, I always stop my watch when I stop to refuel or talk to a coach. The hike up Hyndman mentioned in a previous article was logged as 5 hours. That does not include lunch at the summit or swimming in the river.

Spenst usually takes about 45 minutes but I count it as 30. We do it as a group and sometimes I am waiting for my turn to jump hurdles and the like. I don’t get too carried away with starting and stopping my watch, I just estimate the on-time.

How would you count this?

I have not figured out how to count something like hot yoga or tele skiing. These are activities that are definitely not XC ski specific, but I do them so rarely that they really make me sore! Hot yoga might not be cardio, I will admit to that, but if it makes me unable to walk the next morning it has got to be some sort of strength. So far, I note that I did an activity like yoga but have not counted it in my overall total time.

Does this count?

Anyone out there have any insight? I realize that this article might be a bit controversial (especially saying that biking shouldn’t be counted 100%) so feel free to comment and get a discussion going. I think the most important thing when keeping a log of hours and activities is to keep it the same year to year. You will be comparing yourself to yourself more than to others in the end anyway.

Game on!