Training Blocks for 2004-2005

Michigan Weather Plays Havoc with Training Plans

December 24, 2004 - By Mike Muha

Last month’s “Are Intensity Blocks Bad for your Health” generated more e-mail and private discussions than any other training article I’ve written. I wrote that September’s, October’s, and November’s intensity blocks all ended with me sick or whipped. I thought the causes were several: going out too hard on the interval sessions, starting each interval too hard, and still learning how much intensity my body can absorb during an intensity block.

Some of the comments and recommendations: 

• From someone I rollerski with: Following you on the intervals two weeks ago, your pace was definitely falling in the second half of the interval. That tells me you went out anaerobic and overshot the correct intensity. 
• From someone else doing intensity blocks: The problem areas for me were some of what you found: 1) going too hard within the interval set and too hard at the beginning within each interval; 2) choosing terrain that forced me to go too hard early in the interval, or at all. From this, I made sure to start with 1 or 2 minute intervals at upper moderate pace to warm up (beyond just doing pickups). 
• Same person: You didn't mention the upside of these blocks (perhaps they were lost for you): big gains in both long endurance and quick speed reserve, as well as in ski technique and balance. I'm not a speed demon, but the improvements are welcome.
• I have had similar problems in the past, and reviewing your training diary, I have one good observation: Insufficient base. You can adjust the validity of my observations according to my (lack of) credentials and (absence of) high level coaching, but I think your problem can be traced to not enough time spent at Zone 1. I know you have a big block of time devoted to this in the spring but I think you need another chunk and I mean two 15 hour (or more) weeks in the early Fall.
• Sounds like you might want to back off most of the other stuff in favor of keeping the intensity. So what if your hours drop during an intensity block. Drop the hours a lot & stay healthy. It looks like you are doing intensity & a thousand other things, and you get sick. Try intensity coupled with only slow 45 minute recovery work, such as running & easy rollerskiing. No gym. No other work. Intensity, recovery workout, intensity, recovery... And for recovery maybe shorter than 45 minutes if you think that might be too much. It sounds to me like you have adapted real well to the intensity part.

I talked to Torbjorn Karlsen about it out in West Yellowstone during Thanksgiving week. We were hanging out in the lobby, me trying to update the website over the lobby's wireless Internet connection, Torbjorn waiting for others. Torbjorn agreed that I was mostly likely going out too fast, too early in each interval, that my pace was too hard (maybe for all the intervals), and that I needed to "buildup" the level of intensity over the set of intervals. That means the first interval should be at a lower heart rate than the last. Instead, I was being a slave to my heart rate monitor: "I have to go at exactly 90-95% of my max heart rate!" instead of monitoring what my body was really feeling.

I think there may be something to the remark of putting in some long distance at an easy pace for a couple weeks in the fall. Torbjorn's training plan did call for some long distance sessions - not 15 hours worth, but some good, long workouts. I never found the time. Guess I need to move closer to work so I'm not commuting an hour and a half each day. 

December’s Plan

No more intensity blocks! Torbjorn plan says it’s time to work on technique. Intensity blocks are too tiring this close to racing season. If we get on snow, the first several days are to be easy, working on balance and technique. Keep doing two intensity sessions a week to maintain VO2 Max, three to increase it. Do a combination of upper body (doublepole) intervals, full-body intervals, and a race or pace session each week.

My plan has been to get in three intensity sessions a week and at least one long distance session, except for the first week on snow, when I’ll drop the intensity session to one or two while I focus on technique and balance.

The first week on snow came early in the form of the West Yellowstone Ski Camp over Thanksgiving. The five day camp was all about technique and balance – and going slow. I watched a number of the numerous ski teams at West Yellowstone training early in my stay. Most skiers were skating and striding without poles or skiing very slowly with poles. Everyone was moving in slow motion, elongating the recovery movements while snapping the power movements.

Occasionally, a lone skier or a train of teammates would pass by doing tempo training, including doublepole tempo up, down, and between the hills.

John Aalberg watched me ski on the last day and clearly thought I was going too hard for that point in the season, that I really needed to slow down and focus on technique.

Michigan Weather Plays Havoc with Plan

The plan to do three intensity sessions a week got thrown out the window as soon as we had our first snow. Golf course skiing was marginal.  Winds frequently blew the snow off high spots and into low spots on the golf course. We skied in a skating trail the best we could.

Attempting intervals was trying: the snow cover was so thin that you’d break through to the ground trying to go hard or you’d hit a thin, damp sections. In either scenario, one or both skis would suddenly decelerate, threatening to throw you on your face. I tried a doublepole interval session, but the snow was so slow from both warm air temperatures melting the snow from above and warm ground melting it from below that it turned into a hard specific strength session.

Rollersking? Too much snow on the bike paths eliminated rollerskiing. Bounding and skiwalking? OK, that might have been possible. I was a little worried about how slippery the running trails would be, so decided not to run. But I bet I could have done at least one ski walking interval session.  It was hard to even think about a foot session when there was skiable snow!

So what did I do? I took advantage of the slow snow to do a hard doublepole specific strength session one day, skied behind other skiers with different techniques to see which were faster, and increased the intensity of my distance sessions to make up for the lack of interval sessions.

A group of us took a one day road trip to better snow and groomed trails last weekend. It was a two hour drive, but I got in a great classic interval session. I wanted this to be a hard session to make up for the lack of intervals sessions over the past couple weeks. Harder than Torbjorn probably would have liked, I did a warm-up interval at around 85% of max, 4 x 7:00 intervals at 90-95% of max heart rate, plus a later doublepole interval at around 85% of max. Then I had a short break and went back out for an hour easy skate-ski, mostly in zone 1 and 2. My legs were pretty trashed the next day, but I planned on taking that day off anyways to recover – especially since the forecast was for wind and single digit temperatures!

The classic intervals were done under difficult conditions: The temperature was 29 and the tracks were glazed and slick. I had to put on a pretty thick layer of Toko Yellow hard wax to get any grip at all. Most people would have pulled out their waxless skis or simply gone skating. I decided that striding in these conditions would both make me a better kick-waxer and let me practice my race technique with less than stellar kick. You can’t control race conditions – better to learn how to ski in difficult conditions during training than in a race…

Lesson learned? The best laid plans are still subject to the whims of weather. You need to be flexible in your training. Take advantage of opportunities, make the best of poor conditions.