Back to business

Having two weeks in a row of low-key training has actually really paid dividends to my body. I was pretty beat up with calf and IT issues, amongst others I didn't list. Last week I put in 10.5 hours and my body felt great. The goal is to increase work load every week until I get to 18 hours or whatever my body allows. It's unexplored territory for me, but I feel strong and I know its the volume I need to put in every week if I want to be competitive this year. I mentioned before that I'm following Joe Friel's Periodization methods for the season and to start the season (in order to have a good race at Xterra West Championships) I will be doing abbreviated Base periods with a quick peak for the West Championships, I will then start back in Base mode and build to ready myself for Xterra Nationals at the end of the year. Confused? My year will kind of look like this:

Prep
Base 1
Base 2 -Starting this week
Base 3
Peak
Race -Xterra West Championships

Base 1
Base 2
Base 3
Build 1
Build 2
Peak
Race -Xterra Nationals

How long will I stay in each period and what do they mean? Well the graph above briefly describes it, but keep following along and I'll try and explain a little each week. I'm new to this too so it will be interesting to see how my season pans out--it's off to a good start so far.

Here's a week's worth of training in pictures:

A Group Ride session with The Bike Shop



Pit Stop at the fire station to refuel



Some one-legged, high and low cadence drills on the trainer



Vail Lake MTB Ride





My kind of playground!



As always, finishing off the tough week of training with a new beer! Great on a cold, rainy day like Sunday


I finished up the weekend with a 1:30 MTB ride with a ton of climbing and hitting technical sections much better than I ever had. After the ride, I threw on my running shoes and put in a solid 4 miles on the trails. It was my first brick workout I've had in awhile and I felt great.

The next day I put in an easy 11 mile run and my body felt great. Another big week is in store, with the USATF Championship race on Saturday. I plan on "training through" this race. I know I won't be even close to competing - this is THE big Cross Country race of the year. I'll be racing against Olympians like Abdi Abdirahman and Jorge Torres. It will be on the same course as the Dirt Dog Championship final that I raced in November, except instead of a 4 mile race, it's a 12k (7.46 miles). With the fitness gains I have had, I imagine I'll be able to come pretty close to maintaining that same pace I did in that 4 mile race for 7 1/2 miles. We'll see.

Thanks for reading-