Not Always Easy
· Dec 22, 03:20 PM
I find it pretty easy to come up with blog posts when things are going well. Training is usually interesting enough to write about, and it’s easy to talk about races and tests when they’re good – or bad – as long as there’s a reason. That said, December has been tough. I’ve done three races, and the only one that was anywhere close to expectations was the one I don’t care about (the classic sprint in Bozeman). The other two have been 15K skates, and they’ve been downright bad.
It’s never nice when racing isn’t going well, but when it’s not, it’s nice to have an excuse. Bad wax, tired, sick or something along those lines. It always sounds a little whiny to real off a line of excuses as to why the races were no good, but it’s a nice crutch to have. If sickness is to blame, then I know all I have to do is get healthy and things should go better. The problem is, I don’t have any real good excuses for the last couple weekends.
In Bozeman I was tired, my legs didn’t feel good, but it’s been a bit of a process trying to figure out why I was tired. In Soldier Hollow I might not have had the fastest skis in the race, but there were no other real mitigating circumstances. In neither race did I put together an effort I was pleased with. A couple bad weekends, and now I’m asking questions. What’s wrong, and more importantly, what do I need to do to fix it?
I guess one reason easy excuses are nice is because they make for identifiable problems, which are in turn, pretty easy to fix. Right now I don’t really know what the problem is (some evidence is coming forward that I may have been a little tired and run down during and after Bozeman), so it’s hard to figure what to do to fix it. I’ve done three hard workouts (two TTs and one speed session) since I came back to VT. It’s basically the plan I laid out back in mid-November about how to get ready for Nationals. It’s all well and good, I just hope it works.
Yesterday I had the most positive sensations yet of the on-snow season for a race effort (6 laps, I held the speed and was going hard the whole time). It’s encouraging. At the same time, I have no confidence in my ability to judge whether or not I’m skiing fast right now. I guess it’s time for a little hoping. I still have a ton of confidence in the training I did through the summer and fall, and have a really hard time believing I won’t come good at all this winter. That will happen only if I’m totally fried, and I’m pretty certain I’m not totally fried.
I guess this is all part of the process … it would be less of a challenge if it was always easy. I won’t say it wouldn’t be any fun, because winning and going faster is fun!
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Hey hey, 30 secs off of Bird in a 10k- not a bad day at the office for someone questioning how fit they are!
— Scott Jan 1, 03:37 PM #
I’ll second that, Scott! Even if ZC was making noises about Kris not really “racing” at nationals…still a substantial improvement over december…
Just keep it going!
— joran Jan 1, 04:45 PM #
Great effort Brayt. Good luck tomorrow!
— stephen Jan 2, 12:52 PM #