Exciting new experiences come with the start of a new training season. I jumped into a new year of training in May and strived to meet new challenges and obstacles with open arms!
Apparently, road biking is a very effective training strategy for skiers as they return to spring training after a race season break. Cycling is a relatively low-impact activity that targets the leg muscles on an absorbable level for an athlete’s recovering body. It helps ease skiers into their new season and gives their hips and joints a rest. I personally enjoyed hours of freedom on the bike. Who needs to learn how to drive when you can bike to practice?
Spring Takeaways:
One thing that I learned quickly: training smart is easier said than done. Taking a day off is easy, right? But what about those beautiful mountains waiting to be conquered? What happens when being outdoors is your passion, hobby, and obligation at the same time? What about the freedom of skiing or biking across town under Alaska’s midnight sun for hours? These things give me the sense of being on top of the world and at one with nature. Sometimes it’s just easier to ignore normal human limits and push them a little too far. When the body rebels with sickness or injury, the feeling of entrapment soon follows. The only thing to do is sit, rest, and wait to recover. It’s a full-time job to constantly remind myself that my body has limits. I’m sure I’m not the only one who struggles between listening to the body over the mind.
However, I’ve learned different tactics to maximize the amount of effort and minimize the number of injuries and sickness (which doesn’t necessarily mean minimizing “downtime”). I’ve learned that volume training runs in cycles. Alaska Winter Stars trains in cycles of hard weeks followed by easier weeks, just like any other elite program. This is a relatively new concept for me. It has become an object of my fascination this year.
There is a range of exercise difficulty levels from level 1 to level 5. L1 is when there should be no labored breathing. L5 is full-out sprinting. 90% of any elite athlete’s training time is spent at L1. L4 is the race pace used in training for occasional intervals and time trials. L3 is mainly used during intervals. I have learned that this level is one of the hardest to maintain because L4 is so close! It is very easy to want to push that L3 pace just a little bit faster. L2 is that awkward stage between L1 and L3 that is rarely used for anything important.
Spring Highlights:
Occasionally I was assigned to bike across town for my practice. I loved feeling free and accomplished. Spring was a great sampling of what was to come over the rest of the training year.
Susie Kim on the left and biathlon coach Jean Paquet on right
My sport is my passion, but so is traveling and family time. We’ve all learned to compensate for several busy schedules within the family. So I take my skis everywhere we go.
We drove to Seward, AK, on the weekends to camp out and hike Mt. Marathon in preparation for the Fourth of July Mt. Marathon Race. I skied on the Old Seward Highway bike trail when we stopped for a rest break. The mountains were still covered in snow, but the weather was heating up so I enjoyed some sunny skiing surrounded by mountains. One of my favorite places to be!
Spring Pics
