The past couple weeks I have been enjoying some new modes of training. Despite my cautious timidity on a mountain bike, I've been biking more to work on getting over my fear of falling. Luckily, mountain biking is one of those things that the more you do and the more you work on it, the better you get! I am getting better at riding more technical trails and I'm actually riding over all those roots, rocks and stream crossings. I have yet to improve on my downhill speed though.
Along with mountain biking, I've enjoyed a few road bike rides as well. Now, just to give you an idea...there is one highway through town, so you have two options: 1) ride north OR 2) ride south. While the terrain options are few, I've learned that it's a great alternative to running and roller skiing and helps to mix up the training. It probably helps when you are borrowing someone's road bike that's worth $10,000!!!
I've incorporated some swimming into my recovery workouts, although let me tell you....I got suckered into swimming with the masters swim team the other day, and they are FAST!!!! whew! It wasn't much of a "recovery" workout. After a 500 m warm-up, we proceeded to do 5 sets of 3x100m and then 10x50m every 45 seconds! After swimming about 2,500m in an hour, I was exhausted! I am still deciding if I want to go back this week.
We tried some new resistance speed training at practice. Our speed workout on roller skis consists of a 30 min warm-up, then 3 sets of 6x20 sec speeds with various techniques. We tried something new this time...we put a bungee around our waist and then pulled our coach behind us on a skate board. While it sounds and looks a bit bizarre, it was a good way to add resistance while trying to keep the tempo up. Hopefully it will make us strong! Here's a picture to give you an idea...
I am looking forward to a trip to Alaska in two weeks! A couple teammates and I am joining the APU team and skiing on Eagle Glacier for a week. Should be some good training!
Until next time!
