Kris Freeman

I joined Kris for three workouts last week and had a few observations.

The first workout was a short, one hour run on roads. It was a total recovery day for Kris, but as it happened it was a rare second workout of the day for me. Kris was comfortable running at 7:00 pace, which is faster than I have ever seen him. On a related note, I don’t think there has yet been any mention of the challenge Kris provides to rollerski manufacturers. Kris skis on the slowest wheels, but still skis faster than me or even people who are still fast, and as a result is prone to melting or otherwise destroying some wheels in a single OD ski. I won’t mention any companies’ names but I wouldn’t worry because, frankly, if you aren’t Kris, you aren’t strong enough to hurt your wheels.

The second workout was the five hour OD in the mountains. Zach already wrote it up but I would like to emphasize just how fast we were moving on the flats. Probably 7:15 on the way in and Kris would have been quite happy to accelerate from the 8:15 pace that was all I could manage on the way out. And the little sprint race we had at four and a half hours was probably around 5:20 pace and it didn’t phase Kris at all. On the other hand, Kris isn’t amazingly fast on the uphills, just consistent. He moves along at a pace somewhat faster than a quick hike and never slows down, even after five hours or on rough, rocky terrain.

Finally, Mt Sunapee. What is impressive here is how clear it is that Kris can get faster. I am in impressive running shape; I ran 14:55 for 5 km on the roads a couple weeks ago, and I feel confident that on the track I could run around 14:40, just a little behind the time Aukland got written up for on FasterSkier. Still, Kris dropped me on the first climb. On the flats and downhill Kris wasn’t so fast, not because of poor leg speed but because he needed to recover and clear lactate. Kris came by me fast a few minutes later, but slowed down once he had a 15 second gap. At the top he was clearly spent, and lost about half his lead in the last two minutes. Once Kris starts training the ability to produce, clear, and tolerate race-like lactate levels, he should quickly pick up ten seconds in the middle of the course and ten more at the end. And then, he will be scary-fast.