No races to report and I have been neglecting any updates, as in there has nothing to write home about race-wise. However, to get race ready you have to do weeks or months of groundwork. Here’s the post-ski season springtime update.
I love skiing and I think it has added years onto my running life and probably a fair amount of cardiovascular benefit, but for the short term it does slow you down. Over the past decade in Colorado I only skied 15-20 times a year on average and any slow down was very short term, just a day or two where I’d feel sluggish. In that time, however, the late winter-spring races were typically my best of the year and I had it dialed in pretty well. During my full seasons in the past (1980s-90s) and the Alaska years (2004-14), it would take about a month to getup to 40 miles a week and then about another month to get my legs back to the point where I even would want to line up for a race.
This was my first year back to the Midwest (since 1997) and for an actual ski season since 2014. I skied about 50 days and raced 130 km in February. I kept on the skis at least a couple of times a week for the first three weeks of March before calling it a year. Ski season was a success and I met most of my goals and I’m looking forward to next year.
The transition to running has not been as smooth as I would like. After the Birkie 50K I took a very easy week and just jogged a couple times and skied a couple more. By March 1 I turned the focus to running. With a good aerobic base I was able to jump into lighter workouts fairly seamlessly, maybe too quickly, but nothing was hard until the end of March when I did a 5K time trial (Park Run) at about 10K effort.
The table shows the miles each week and type of workout, in short hand. The key to the abbreviations are footnoted below the table.
| Week | Miles | Workouts |
| 1 | 36 | skate ski 3X6 threshold ladder (threshold, LT21) |
| 2 | 39 | 4X6 LT12 |
| 3 | 43 | short fartlek (5X1 min) 3X 8, 1X 4 LT1-LT2 |
| 4 | 50 | 8X 1K LT1 2X 6 LT1 5K CV3 |
| 5 | 52 | 3X 10 prog. LT1, L2 1.6K, 1.2K, 1K LT1; 3X2.5 CV |
| 6 | 41 | 4X 6 min LT1 3X 7, 1X5, 2X 1.5 LT1; 4X 45 sp4 |
| 7 | 58 | 4X 1K, 1X 1200, 1X800 |
| 8 | 29 (est. to be 45-50) | 3X 2.5 CV, 2X1, 2X 30 sp |
- Lactate threshold 2 (HR 140s, pace 6:30s/mile) ↩︎
- Lactate threshold 1 (HR 130-140, pace 7:00 to 6:40/mile) ↩︎
- Critical velocity (HR 148-152,pace under 6:30/mile) ↩︎
- Speed (5K to 1500 m pace, pace 6:00 to 5:30/mile) ↩︎
This weekend’s 10K will be the first test of the year and I don’t really know where I’m at. To put this in perspective, over the previous three springs, last year I did 10K at 6:10/mile on a tough weather day, in 2024 25K at 6:26/mile, and in 2023 10 miles at 6:09/mile.
This year, breaking 39:20 (6:20 pace) for the 10K will seem like a big win. I just have to take it as it is and know that although my overall training volume (hours opposed to miles) is right where I have been in previous years, although I’m barely at half of the running miles. So I have to keep faith that know that I have built a solid running foundation the racing fitness will come, be it this weekend (say surprise sub 39), next month, or maybe even later in the summer.
Parting words in short, my philosophy is do the work, listen to your body and don’t overextend, and enjoy the process even when things are not quite where you would want them.
rrunnin234 