Kris Freeman

Kris isn’t often sheepish. Today he was a bit sheepish on the phone. It all goes back to yesterday, when he decided to go for a 100 mile bike ride. For his second ride of the year. It’s OK - it all worked out - he didn’t get injured or anything. His mom came to get him.

To be fair, we’ve got to consider perspective. Last year Kris was under strict orders at the start of the training season to be conservative and build volume very slowly. This year he’s coming from a much better level of fitness, and Pete and I have given him more latitude. It’s understood that he’ll be building up to some pretty good volume pretty quickly. The last time Kris checked (last summer), a 100 mile bike ride was really easy - no big deal at all - almost a recovery day. And it’s not as though he hasn’t been on his bike. He did take a ride last week - about two hours.

Also to be fair, we’ve got to consider circumstances. Kris has had his two-week break from training, and he’s eager to get after it. The weather has been fantastic (finally) for the past several days. He had just had his derailleur adjusted and the bike was working perfectly. His plan was to ride a very reasonable 60 miles, but he was feeling awesome. Nice day, nothing better to do, why not go for a century?

He didn’t feel anything but joy, happiness and warm fuzzy thoughts until 70 miles. At 80 miles he knew he was in trouble. At 90 miles he thought his blood sugar might be severely off-kilter. At 94 miles he called his mom.

This is a good and appropriate lesson. Even Kris Freeman can’t train like Kris Freeman without building up to it. No long-term damage has been done - a turkey sandwich fixed most of the problem. Interestingly, his blood-sugar level was perfect. He wasn’t low on blood sugar, he was just completely depleted. His muscles are not fit for a 100 mile bike ride. It’s good to make a distinction - particularly because of the common misunderstanding about differences between glycogen depletion and low blood sugar. Overdistance training is effective because it builds oxidative fiber mass by stimulating the oxidative capacity of fast-oxidative fibers. OD training involves depleting the available oxidative fibers so that additional fibers get recruited in an oxidative regime. The more you train, the longer you’ll have to go to hit depletion. Depletion is not achieved by going hypoglycemic.

Kris doesn’t make many mistakes in training. In fact, it’s been over a year since he made a meaningful mistake in training. This one isn’t big, as mistakes go. Many athletes take themselves out of commission for weeks at a time because of injuries or illness that can be traced directly to bad choices. More than anything else, this is a reminder that it’s April. Superman isn’t due to make an appearance for a couple of months. It’s not a bad thing to be able to impress yourself in training, but it’s also not a bad thing to be reminded of your limitations. And it’s rare that I get an opportunity to laugh at Kris because he did something stupid.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I promised an outline of the training year to come. It’s coming…