Patrick Stinson Blog Banner

Archive for November, 2008

Cwazy Time

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

The skiing out at Kincaid is terrific for the first time this year. It’s so good that I took my newly stone-ground race skis out today. Man, how the time flies by when the skiing is good. I’ve been hitting the intensity pretty hard the last two weeks so I went home after 90 minutes to stay fresh for some classic intervals tomorrow.

Only In Alaska Forum

After 6 months of success with the OIA mailing list, I finally launched the OIA Forum at onlyinalaska.org. OIA is a growing community of nordic and backcountry skiers here in Alaska, and the forum is a way to connect on everything in the area from training and racing to gear and beer.

(more…)

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Faith, the Unknown, and Some Technique

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Faith and The Unknown

I know, it’s a bit dramatic huh? After a long ski with some abnormally long L3 intervals I felt myself going back into that unknown zone from this summer. There is a certain workload that says “you’ll be fine if you stick with this,” another that says “you won’t be fine if you stick with this,” and then somewhere in between is a spot where it’s harder to tell. I resign to work hard and then apply a little faith that my body can handle it. If it can’t, I guess you’ve learned something. I find this interesting and strangely glamourous, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if the idea was leaning a bit towards burnout.

(more…)

Posted in Training | No Comments »

Journey Through Rest

Monday, November 24th, 2008

Trippy

Step…away…from…the keyboard

There’s is some seriously funky stuff happening here in my house. The words on the screen and the contours of the keyboard are pulsating and bubbling really slowly, and everything seems to be moving around me. My body is tingling from the week’s intensity, and now it’s festering in that middle ground between breakdown and buildup. I picked up a pizza from the Bear Tooth and watched Siddhartha at home, then spent the last hour meditating to light piano music on my couch. Needless to say, I’m reading some mega body signals.

(more…)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Training | 1 Comment »

Warm Fuzzy Routine

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

Training self-motivated and alone, the biggest challenge I face is to design a workout routine that is 1) interesting and challenging, and 2) logistically efficient. After that I can squash some goals and available energy together so I can focus well enough to make the most of the workouts that I am able to fit into the week.

(more…)

Posted in Training | No Comments »

Greatness

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

Something is happening here. I think it’s that I can feel competition coming. I stopped in Title Wave Books today and was caught by the cool looking cover on Laird Hamilton’s book Force Of Nature. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book is a terrifically well-rounded view on the path to excellence in sports and life. I know, I know, this blog isn’t a bleedin’ book group review with crumpets and thumbcakes, but these books I’m posting rule.

(more…)

Posted in Racing, Training, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Flow

Monday, November 10th, 2008

Depletion

We don’t rollerski here any more. Actually, I haven’t roller skied for three weeks because we’ve got snow everywhere! Last week was solid with lots of threshold intervals and technique work, so I took Friday off to get some work done, then did a huge 5 hour day up at Hatcher pass where the skiing was perfect and there were plenty of other nordies out there to ski with. It sounds a little crazy, but it’s almost 3 hours of driving and a 1/4 tank of gas to get there, I have a van with a bed and a heater, and the weather was beautiful and I was into it, so I decided to get up early to ski for 2:45-3 hours in the a.m. with UAA, then eat some food and nap before heading out to ski until I passed out. The goal was to work on technique the entire day with a properly elevated heart rate and get a 100% depleting workout on good snow while I had the chance. The result? I was totally tripping out on the way home, which was really fun and everything, but I had to punt and call in a pizza and a beer in Eagle River half way on the drive home. What a sweet day! Thank You Stella Artois, you rule.

(more…)

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Racing, Training | No Comments »

Friggin Laser Beams

Friday, November 7th, 2008

Bye Bye, Training log

A couple of days ago I threw my training log out, or rather, I threw out the idea of making some statistical training paghetti and decided to just slap my workouts into an ever-lengthening txt file. I missed most of the chunk from mid July after Crow Pass until last week, but screw it. I guess if you are spending too much time keeping a log when no one is going to see it, and you actually *could* use that time and energy to reflect on what’s happening to your body right now, then do it. I think I developed a pretty good feeling for my body in the last twelve months, and I’m just going to trust it for the foreseeable winter.

(more…)

Tags: ,
Posted in Training | No Comments »