Bill McKinney Nordic Ski Hack Query
Hey Rich,
I've been focused on nordic skiing for this winter and did pretty steady running and upper body/ski specific stuff for the fall. Once I got on skis I realized my fitness wasn't where it was around this time last year (when I was on Nov OS), so decided yesterday to jump into January OS. The first lesson is that OS provides great base fitness, so I should have done Nov OS again…but too late for that now. I also took a nasty spill on day 1 of ski season and had 3 weeks essentially off while my back recovered. SO…at this point I'm in a bit of a hole and looking for advice on digging out.
I've got 3 ski races coming up, and one of them is a "double" coming up in 4 weeks. It's a 42K classic (e.g. old school striding) race on Saturday and then a 42K skating (e.g. new school) race on Sunday. The 3rd one is 50K and comes in about 7 weeks. Last year what I did for OS (once there was snow) was the Tues/Thursday/Saturday bike rides, most of the Wednesday runs, but replaced the Tuesday runs with 45-60" of hard skiing, added an hour or so of skiing on Saturday, and then did long skis on Sunday. I also added some skiing on Fridays when I could fit it in.
I'm thinking I will follow a similar plan this year, but my question for you is where would you load up the volume over the next 4 weeks and what OS workouts would you sacrifice to maximize readiness for the races in 4 weeks. For example would you skip the Saturday and Sunday OS workouts and just do long skis? For reference the classic race should have me on skis for 4-4.5 hours and the skate race should be 3-3.5 hours. Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Comments
Yes, I think that's fine. You have plenty of time to build tri sport specific endurance, not like the OS is about that anyway