Just Training

So far this week has been pretty straight forward, lots of roller skiing, some running and resting whenever I can. We started the week out with an intensity workout that was a combination of L3 & L4. First we did 12 continuos minutes of 10/20/30 which is 10 seconds all out, 20 seconds at 10km race pace, and 30 seconds easy skiing. After that we did 4 x 5 minutes of L4 switching between double pole and no pole skiing. Finally we did 2 x 10 minutes L3. This was a good workout, I had consistent shooting with only 2 misses out of 40 shots.

The next day we did the French shooting test, if you don't know what the French shooting test is I explain it here. As some incentive to do well one of our coaches, Jean, said that if anyone has a score of 500 or better he would buy them a coffee and a treat in the airport on the way home. Scoring a 500 is never easy in this test but it was going to be even more difficult today because wind was blowing pretty good, about half a flag to the right. Then as soon as we started the first part of the test the wind changed directions and started blowing about half a flag from the left. The precision part of my test was not terrible, but not my best either. After the first part, precision, I took an additional 5 shots to re-zero before the speed parts. This helped me to do pretty well in the test but not quite good enough to get treated by Jean. I scored a 497 only 3 points short of the sought-after 500, none the less it was still a good score.

French test scores

Wednesday we did our second intensity workout of the week. This workout was long! It was also one of those workouts that when you finish you can honestly say this particular workout made me a better athlete. The workout was 6 x12 minutes L3 with shooting. The 12 minute loop included Solider Hollow's famous Hermods hill which tops the limits set by the FIS for length and steepness of hills on a ski course. When it was all said and done I did over an hour of L3 and three hours of total skiing. Below are my shooting scores with times, the first number is the time of the first shot and the second number is the total shooting time. We also used spare rounds like you would use in a relay race. The first number is the number of penalties you have and the second is the number spare rounds you used, for example no penalties with 1 spare round is 0+1. We also had our lactates taken after the 2nd and 4th loop those numbers can also be seen below.

Shooting scores