Kris Freeman

The USST arrived in BC Wednesday for a Spring training camp on snow at the Callaghan Valley. This marks the start of organized training for Kris, and as his training goes, it’s pretty low-key. The goal for this camp is to keep the load moderate and to take advantage of the opportunity to get to know the venue, and to bang heads with the teammates. Full Post »

Sometimes, when an entire season seems to be spiraling out of control and you no longer know what to expect next, or how you’ll respond to a given stimulus, you just wish you could hit the “reset” button. Well, you can. It’s just hard to do before everything is finished, because it means walking away and taking a rest - physically and mentally removing yourself from the cycle of trying hard and failing.

Kris has been in that situation a few times - where the only thing that was going to help is a full reset. He was surely there by the end of this season. Most recently before that, he reached that point in 2006. It doesn’t take him long to get his feet back under him and start feeling some positive responses again. Full Post »

Well, that sucked. After Kris’s very promising 5th place finish in Kuusamo the race season simply unraveled. Even once Kris appeared to re-stabilize, taking World Cup points on four successive race weekends starting in Canmore, his attempts to shift up a gear by reducing the training load and adding a bit of sharpness to his fitness profile resulted in a complete collapse. Lahti, Holmenkollen and Bormio went from bad to worse to non-existent when he woke up with a fever the morning of the prologue of the World Cup finale. Full Post »

I made the wrong decision. I woke up this morning with a fever, a sore throat and a pounding headache. I had no choice but to withdraw from the world cup finals. I have been unable to secure a plane ticket to come home early so I am stuck here unitl Monday. I have been skimming on the edge of decent fitness and sickness all year. I am fried. Kris

This season has not gone as well as I and my coaches have hoped. I can make excuses and rationalize all day if I want to but the fact is that I was not able to ski as fast as I thought I would. I trained as hard as I could every day. Maybe I trained too hard. What I will not say is that if I were more committed I would ski better. I am as commited as you can get. The plan just didn’t pan out this year. There will be some changes next year.

If I can pick out one mistake that I made this year that probably hurt me more than anything else was a lack of caution. Last year whenever I started to feel really tired I backed off and let the body catch up. This year I pushed through spells of exhaustion. It made me tougher but unfortunately it made me slower too. I was able to put together one race this year that was truely great in Kuusamo. The stars aligned and I was able to use all the strength and fitness I have built for a great race. Then I got sick… for a month. I haven’t been close to that level of fitness since. I scored a few world cup points but I had no truely good races.

My race in the Holmenkolen yesterday was just embarassing. I had been feeling sluggish and tired all week. I started out slowly and got slower. Any time I pushed hard my body siezed up and I returned to my pathetic little pace. I debated dropping out after 30k when it was clear that world cup points were not going to happen. However, I don’t drop out of races unless I am sick and I know I am damaging myself. I wasn’t sick yesterday just… slow.

Given that I have not been able to predict when I would ski good and when I would ski bad all year, I have decided to go to the world cup finals in Bormio Italy next week. The night before my 5th place finish in Kuusamo my roommate asked me what I was hoping for from the next day’s race. Given that I was coming off of a 50th place finish and a nasty cold I told him that I was hoping not to embarass myself. In the hopes that history repeats itself, I hope I don’t embarass myself next weekend. Kris

Lahti was bad. Kris had slippery skis. They had a decent layer of klister on them, but upon examination after the race it didn’t even look like they ever touched the snow. These are not monstrously stiff skis he as on - some of his easier kicking klister skis. But he was approaching the uphills with trepidation, and run-herringboning up stuff that other guys were striding up easily (or hard, more accurately). Full Post »

Kris spent the early part of this week in Falun. Julie was in town, and they got to spend some time together. Kris’s training schedule was pretty low-key, so they spent some time walking around town and doing not much of anything. Kris said that it was a nice break. Now he’s in Finland, getting ready for the 15K classic on Sunday. Tomorrow he’ll do some very hard intensity. Short, but hard. The format is pretty much up to Kris. Pete and I have had our suggestions, Kris knows what the purpose of the session is, and it’s up to him to execute the best workout he can under the circumstances. He was pretty tired Monday, after the double-weekend. Tuesday was better, and Wednesday Kris felt quite energetic when he was out skiing around. We’ll see how tomorrow’s intensity session goes. I’m hopeful for Sunday. Kris has had some good 15K classic efforts this year, and his confidence in that event is high. We’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll see. I hate waiting…

Kris has clearly returned to a level of fitness that puts him solidly into World Cup points on any given weekend. This is an encouraging return to stability after a really rocky period beginning in mid-December and extending deep in January. He’s taken World Cup points in his last five races and it’s no longer news. We’ve been looking for a step-up to the next level and we haven’t seen it yet on the results sheet. Kris’s training throughout this period has been marked by a conservative distance based approach - really geared around reestablishing stability and security in his high level of base fitness. The hard efforts have come in races, and nowhere else. Physical sensations have been improving throughout, leading us to maintain the status-quo and let the situation develop. It’s apparent after this weekend that there will be no miracles (darn it!) and that the next step up will have to come in response to an adjustment of the load and stimulus. Full Post »

Kris was unimpressed with himself in the individual skate race in Liberec. He felt strong and smooth, but lacked a 10K gear. He was 26th place (or something like that) and pleased to be there given the effort he felt that he gave. Pete has noted the same thing - Kris looks strong and smooth. He’s the fastest strong and smooth guy out there. But he’s getting beaten by guys with additional gears.

I think Kris took a step toward finding those gears in today’s sprint relay which he raced with Chris Cook. It was the first sprint effort of his season, and the sprint relay format made for a good training session. Kris felt that he put himself into a state that he has not seen in his longer race efforts. He felt pretty hosed for a good five minutes after the race, but recovered quickly enough to be disappointed at not advancing to the final. His lap times held up well throughout the race. He didn’t fade as much as many guys, and he made a pretty good case for being on the #1 sprint relay team in the future.  But none of that makes for podiums without those extra gears that Pete has been looking for.

Kris tends to adapt quickly to a new stimulus. If nothing else, today was a good stimulus - good training. Things are well set-up for some improving results over the next couple of weeks. Next weekend in Falun is a 30K pursuit and a relay. The 30K is the primary effort, for sure. But the relay is something to look forward to. It’s an event where Kris can go out in the first leg, head to head with good competition, and take some risks. There’s no huge penalty if he blows up - the team isn’t likely to be in contention for podium positions under any circumstances. And Kris definitely needs to find ways to put himself into some new territory over that 10K distance.  Between today’s sprint and next weekend’s relay scramble (both classic) I think the Lahti 15K classic the following weekend might represent a good opportunity.

Kris called on his cell phone yesterday morning. They don’t have internet in Liberec and we usually stay in touch using Skype. He had a couple of good training days after the Otepaa races, including a 3 hour ski. Then the team travelled to Liberec where they have apparently trucked snow down from the mountains to make a 2.5K loop of mud, rocks, and slush. For the first day or so once they got there the only skiing option was to head up into the mountains. Kris spent an hour on a full-sized charter bus with 12 other guys getting to skiing that was only 15 minutes away. I guess the driver didn’t exactly know where the skiing was. But all things told Kris is feeling well. His HRs have been running low and he’s looking forward to the weekend. He starts bib number 2 tomorrow - just like last week. It’s hard to know whether his starting position and the 2.5K loop will make for good rides, or just crazy traffic. It could be a real circus. We’ll all find out tomorrow…