Update from Thomsen

Hey everyone! It's been awhile since I have posted on the forum, but I thought I would post a quick update on how things are going with xc ski training.

I have had a great summer to date of consistent training here in Whistler. I have found that living simply on the verge of being a hermit over periods of a few weeks at a time has paid dividends with my improving fitness.

My especially monk-like July was broken up by a visit to Andrew to talk training. This was a much-needed visit as it proved both incredibly enlightening and also a little refreshing to break the routine of training in Whistler.

Upon my return to Whistler, I set upon training with renewed gusto, as the training ideas Andrew and I talked about were slightly altered, if not blatantly conflicting, to a few of the methods I was employing. The main instance of blatant conflict, was the process with which I completed interval training. The "old me" would set out a defined amount of work to be completed, say 6 x 3 minutes hard, and I would go out and dig deep to get the work done. The "new me" approaches an interval set with a range in mind, 2-4 x 5-7 minutes for example, with specific performance goals in mind, ie perfect technique and breathing, and when either of these starts to fall apart it is either time to rest and try again with a new interval, or it is time to stop the interval work altogether. Another important goal for interval training, is that I now make sure that I am indeed WORSE at the end of an interval set. Otherwise it hasn't had a training effect and isn't worth it. It's also important to gauge how much rest it will take if you truly finished the interval set WORSE, and knowing to what degree you are worse, and it's equally important to take this rest in order to even get benefits from the intervals. This is all pretty basic stuff when you think about it, but many athletes are a little too inclined to pick two numbers that they like with the letter "x" in the middle and go out and hammer.

I recently also competed in the Squamish 10k on July 31st. I approached it with the goal of running under 36 minutes if I was running well. I went for it off the gun, but soon thereafter realized the time was not achievable on the day. I was too tired from previous training and it was too bloody hot out on the tarmac. I ran through 3km in 10:40 and from there the race went downhill. Hung on to 18:20 through 5km but ran the final 5k in a suffering 20:30 to finish in 38:50.

I had 2 glaring weaknesses pop up 3 km into the race. The inability to maintain proper cadence, and the inability for breathing to keep up. The final 5km I couldn't for the life of me get my cadence above 84rpm. Breathing was shallow and slow. The race wasn't without purpose though as it showed me these two obvious weaknesses to work on over the coming weeks.

So far I have had a few great training sessions working on both weaknesses. I would like to do another 10k this fall to improve on the Squamish race.