3000m Test

We're in a rest/test week right now - yesterday was a 3000m time trial on the track. It was a rather odd session. Turns out that the gates to the track get locked at sunset, which is now ridiculously early, so we had to climb the fence to get in. It had been raining all day, and there were small puddles and wet pine needles on the track. Halfway through the warmup it was so dark that I was having trouble seeing the stopwatch, and by the time the test started it was hard to tell who was whom as they ran by. Nonetheless, the team gave a solid effort under strange circumstances. Results weren't quite what we'd hoped for - in hindsight, this makes sense. Our training has been focused on long threshold-level efforts, primarily rollerskiing and moosehoofing - not the kind of stuff that makes you fast on the track. The 3000m is a convenient test, because it allows you to compare results with other skiers, and our team has a history with this test. However, I'm realizing that it's not a good fit for the kind of training we're doing this fall - next year we'll switch things up a bit. For now, we'll consider this a hard workout and stay focused on the plan - more volume and threshold through Thanksgiving Break before getting into the higher intensity stuff. Upper body erg test tomorrow.

Thanks to Ryan Triffitt, ski team alum from '97, for hauling his aging body over the fence to help out with timing.