One of the biggest questions I get in the spring and summer is “What’s going to be different about your training this year??”. The first few times I got asked this question, I almost worried about not having a big change. I would look for something that was slightly different, or manufacture one because I felt like it was important. Recently, I’ve realized this didn’t make a ton of sense, and I’ve gotten much better at embracing the type of training that I’ve done for years and have confidence with. The cycle that I’ve used for years has worked for me, and I’ve been able to continuously adapt using it.

Skiing with Luke, Zander, and Kevin! (L to R)

Given this, I’d say my biggest change or focus this year is to stick to that cycle, and weekly/monthly layout. I’m really trying to be great about the bit of recovery in between also, which I’ve grown into. The advantages of really embracing this training schedule are that 1. I know how hard I can push myself without overtraining in this structure, 2. I can keep working with my home club (AWS), and 3. I’m confident that it works for me. All of these things together have lead to a summer of content and true confidence in what I’m doing. I have a super solid structure and flow that I love, and I have my rigid recovery days that save me from overdoing it. A downside of doing it like this is that I don’t have as much flexibility to work with other people, but there’s still little ways I can move stuff around, and it’s worked out enough to join people on different programs. Check my “links” page to see a sick speed session I did the other day with Kevin Bolger, JC Schoonmaker, and my AWS teammate Zander Maurer! This was one that wasn’t exactly how my plan goes, but it was a really worthwhile session watching some of the best sprinters in world fire off speeds, and doing my best to keep that pace and relax.

Zander and myself after a running treadmill lactate step test

Now that part wasn’t entirely truthful; I am altering one part of my training: L3. I wouldn’t say I’ve been horrible about it in the past, but I’m making a concerted effort this year to truly pace my threshold training better. I, like many young skiers, want to be as fast as possible in every workout, but this doesn’t help so much in L3. I’ve done more learning about lactate and the different energy systems, and started to really pay more attention to my lactate during threshold sessions. My goal is to increase my time in that L3 zone, but make sure it’s truly 3, or under 4 mmoL of lactate. Pushing harder than that will definitely help improve speed by also training your anaerobic system, but it greatly increases the load on your body and limits the amount of training you can do at that higher speed. To be transparent, a lot of these workouts have been in the 70-90 minute range of total interval time, and while that may seem like a lot (it did to me in the past), if you’re well-trained and going the right speed, it actually doesn’t feel that bad. People with sport physiology knowledge are going to scoff at my revelations, but it’s hard to know what to do when you don’t know exactly why to do it!! Young athlete education is super important for stuff like this, and I think it’s something we might need to step up a little in the U.S. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying that close of attention…