Disclaimer: I started this post on August 6th I think, and I tried to find time to finish but it didn’t happen. It was supposed to be posted 8/7, but was actually posted today, 8/16. Read it like it was 8/7!!
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I misspoke in an earlier post…the week ending 8/7 was actually my week of training the most hours.

Last week (ending 8/7/09) was an absolutely balls-out training week. It was the big volume push of the summer. Not too difficult, just more hours training than I’m used to doing. And so I’ve noticed that with more volume training at once comes more learning about my own body and limits.

Here’s the rundown from the last 7 days.
Thursday: level 3 skate rollerski intervals up the North Adams side of Mt. Greylock. (1 hour 20 minutes)
Friday: hour recovery run. (1 hour 5 minutes)
Saturday: level 4 classic rollerski intervals up the Lanesboro side of Greylock. (1 hour 45 minutes)
Sunday: off.
Monday: level 3 bounding intervals up the Hopper trail to the top of Greylock, then back down. (2 hours 37 minutes)
Tuesday: 3 hour distance run on the Taconic Crest Trail into 3 states, skiwalking the steep grades, to find the VT/NY state corner marker, the Snow Hole, and the VT/MA/NY tri-state marker. (3 hours 7 minutes)
Wednesday: hour warmup run and then Hilary’s Decathlon Circuit, explained below. (2 hours 32 minutes)
Thursday: distance skate rollerski from 5 corners in S. Williamstown to the Mt. Greylock summit (2 hours 57 minutes)

That means in a rolling 7-day period ending yesterday, I did about 15 hours of training, give or take. I’ve logged 12 hours so far for this calendar week.

Here is Hilary’s Decathlon Circuit. It actually contains 11 exercises, done in any amount of reps at a time, in any order adding up to one of the three amounts specified. If that doesn’t make sense, think of it as a workout where you must do 160 pushups, 45 pull ups, and all the other exercises any way you can to complete the workout.

Here are some photos that I’ve neglected to post since last time.

That was it? It seems like my longest week in terms of training hours sort of breezed by. I specialized a little this week when I did ski-related workouts, with 30/30 classic intervals on Monday, specific explosive strength (not too painful when you’re doing it, but it sure hurts afterwards) on Wednesday and a distance skate ski on Thursday. What I tried to do on Thursday was improve my degrading skate technique, but that didn’t actually happen much because my rollerski poles are still too short.

Tuesday was interesting. I went out on what was supposed to be a 50 mile bikeride with a small but determined Tuesday night group, but what happened was we got to 40 miles and we got demolished by a thunderstorm. Hail, 25 mph sustained winds, blinding fog, a sudden 30 degree F decrease in temperature, frequent lightning and drenching rain stopped us, shivering, in the doorway of a roadside restaurant. We ended up riding for about two hours and calling Craig’s wife who, despite her apprehension about thunderstorms, came to pick us up. The four of us rode home with towels around our shoulders and the heat blasting at our hands.

Friday I took a trip to the pool to try to ready myself for the upcoming triathlon (thursday july 16). I learned a lot from the woman who coached me. I found out that I have to lengthen my glide and make the most out of each stroke just like skiing! The difference of course is breathing…I’m having the most trouble with that. Once I can figure out how to breathe I think I’ll be an okay swimmer! I’m heading to the pool at some point on Tuesday and possibly at lunch on Wednesday to ready myself once more. Seeing as I’m not allowed to graduate Williams College without knowing how to swim (just search that PDF for “swim test”) I figured I should start learning.

And finally yesterday I travelled up to Hanover to ride in the 28th annual Prouty century bike ride benefitting the Norris Cotton Cancer Center and Dartmouth Medical. I rode with the “Holderness Bull Riders” but saw a lot of other people I knew, including SMS and my understanding is that there was a larger contingent from Williams also riding, but we didn’t encounter them.

All in all this week I trained 12 hours with workouts every day. I still feel really good. I do feel guilty because cheated and carried some of the hours from yesterday’s Prouty over to today, though. Hope no one minds.

Today we had a sweet OD ski into New York. They have some awesome roads down there. 25mi, 2:30 in total. Incredible scenery and a great day overall.
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/dashboard.mb?episodePk.pkValue=8564277

The training group ran part of the Taconic Crest trail today. Unfortunately I forgot my GPS so I don’t have a cool map but I did get a few good photos from the ridge above route 2. (+1 from my 2.5 hour bike on tuesday.)

I really struggled today probably because I didn’t eat enough. I ate a bar beforehand and then was starving by the end of the run. I have weird metabolism lately though–I can be completely full at the end of a meal, but be searching for food two hours later. This is especially troubling at work, where there is not always healthy food around every two hours. (by the way, designing this website is what’s been keeping me busy. It’s also going to pay for new skis)
Love Justin Freeman’s new post…hilarious.

I couldn’t restrain myself; when I saw the road yesterday I just had to climb Mt. Greylock on my bike. It was so worth it. I regret to say that this is only the second time I’ve ascended the roughly 2500 ft. from the reservoir to the summit, but that’s because I got into cycling a little late and the road has been under construction for three years. The views were excellent and I even got a glimpse at my distant beloved white mountains. Check out some low quality pictures.

Here is a long overdue portion of the blog, a MotionBased link:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/dashboard.mb?episodePk.pkValue=8340981

the reservoir

beautiful houses near the entrance to MtG State Park

the hopper valley

the summit from fitch overlook

adams

they say that Mt. Greylock is 9ft short of being considered an “official” mountain by USGS. i think the tower makes up for that though. it still is the highest point in massachusetts

they also say you used to be able to see Boston from here until there was just too much smog. you actually can see the white mtns though, if you look the right way

the famous Mt. Greylock tower. I once climbed up to the light room, when i was in about 6th grade, and i was the highest person on land in massachusetts!

Thanks for viewing!

Ian

Yesterday after the storm I had a sweet ski at Prospect Mountain. I think they got a solid 6″ of fresh powder, which they rolled and groomed. Unfortunately I skied about an hour earlier than the tracks were set, so I had to do my classic 4×4 intervals without a real track. The classic skiing was fairly nice though; I put on some Swix green and was set to go for most of the day. The only problem was when it started to get colder (9º F) towards the end of the workout, the green started to get slower.

Today I skied with the Mounties at the high school and did a workout with them. Basically it was an hour and a half ski with the business end of the workout being 100m head-to-head sprints on the track. I got beaten by the two top Greylock skiers, Dylan and Patrick, and tied my brother. Those guys do sprints a lot at the end of their workouts, which is something I’d like to do more of, but don’t always have the time at school. At the end some Greylock Alumni showed up and sprinted as well. Overall, a good two days.

Happy New Year!
Ian

Today the Mt. Greylock practice was cancelled because the roads up to Prospect were in fairly bad condition. That left most of us wondering what we would do for a workout. My brother dusted off his bike and spun in the basement, but I decided to brave the cold rain and go out for a run with my friend Cary and his brother on Hopper Rd. in South Williamstown. It ended up that the rain stopped just as we got there, so I didn’t need all the layers we thought I did…and instead I was quite hot. The run lasted 50 minutes exactly, and we went almost 4.5 miles.

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