Kris Freeman

Kris is nearing the end of the fourth training period of the season to date. This block will be 23 days long with 21 training days and 2 travel days (to and from Utah), and will comprise a bit over 90 hours. That’s a very similar volume to the last training block. The big difference is that in the last block Kris had a number of “extreme” sessions, where he went significantly beyond depletion. In this block we’ve been very conservative, holding those OD efforts to within 30 minutes beyond depletion. The result is a difference of about two training hours over a 90 hour three week block. But in terms of stress load it seems like 20-30%. Kris has felt better and better throughout this block.

A couple of scheduling notes. During the week in Utah the USST schedule was geared around double-sessions for the most part. So, in five training days, Kris did three double sessions, and only one OD, with total volume of about 24 hours. When he came home, this past week, the scheduling demands shifted. His girlfriend Julie was home from New York City for most of the week, and when she’s around Kris likes to get more training done in single sessions. So, he went five training days without a secondary training session. In general the past week has been easy, but it turned hard yesterday (with a triathlon), and will finish really hard on Tuesday.

Because of the two travel days built into the three week block Kris decided to extend the training block by a couple of days, and they’re big days. Monday and Tuesday will be back to back six hour ODs, and will represent the biggest load of the three week-week block. All things told, Kris is feeling better now than he has at any point this summer, and he’s ready for the load.

Yesterday’s triathlon was a good test because it’s an event that Kris has done before. It’s a mt bike/swim/mt run event with quite a lot of vertical involved. It’s not terribly long - Kris won in in 1:04:14. The good news is that his time was nearly two minutes faster than his time from last year. That doesn’t carry the weight of a more established test, but it’s an encouraging benchmark nonetheless. Sunapee is coming up on the 17th, and that will be more telling…