One down

Kris Freeman

Tue, Jun  10, 2008 - By Kris Freeman

I finished my first three week training block of the year. If you are not familiar with my training model, I train three weeks with no days off and then take four to seven days off or easy to recover. I had some distractions this month, namely moving into my new condo. Despite this I still trained 80.5 hours with two intensity sessions in the alotted 21 days. The hard sessions were a 40 minute level 3 pursuit workout (20min classic, 20min skate), 5×3min L3 double pole intervals, and three 100 mile road bike rides.

Yesterday I road the hardest 100 mile loop I could come up with starting from my condo. For those of you familiar with New Hampshire highways, the route included the Kankamangus Highway, Bear Notch, Crawford Notch, and Franconia Notch. My brother accompanied me on the ride. He had good energy for the first 20 miles and we traded the lead every mile. About two thirds of the way up the Kank I pulled away from him, that was the beginning of his demise. He still helped pull over Bear Notch and maybe led for two minutes on the long gradual incline at the base of Crawford. He died a horrible death on the final ten minutes of the climb though. By the time I reached the top of Crawford I had put two minutes on Justin and I pulled over to wait for him. When he arrive he was looking ragged and huge drops of sweat were pouring off his face. He looked so drained and his face was so twisted that I asked if he was crying. He said “no” that the drops of liquid were just sweat.

I don’t know why I enjoy beating the crap out of Justin in training. It must have something to do with my father and the lack of any sympathy he had for my brother and I when we worked out together growing up. My dad never slowed down for me on runs, if he dropped me, he dropped me. If I looked haggard and useless, he would make fun of me. Both Justin and I recall putting infour and five hour ski days when we were eight years old! We would usually bonk horribly around an hour and a half. My father’s reaction, “why didn’t you pace yourself.” There were two reasons, one we were desperately trying to keep up, and two we freaking eight years old! We only had one pace. That being said, I wouldn’t have had my dad treat us any differently. Parents coddle their kids too much on the ski trails. My dad made us tough, if slightly sadistic when it comes to one another being tired on training expeditions.

Anyway, I got virtually no help from Justin for the last forty miles of the ride and I didn’t ask for any. Its very impressive how far past “done” Justin can push himself. He drafted me until we hit the 95 mile mark and then I pulled away. When we got back to my condo we jumped into the associations pool. Before Justin got in he wanted to make sure my lifeguarding certification was up to date incase he was too tired to swim the 30 feet across the pool.