Kris Freeman

Just kidding. No big news. Kris is back from New York, and just finished a five hour pursuit OD session. In general he has done his OD training for the past several years using one training mode. This is because the intent of the session is to deplete fibers ans stimulate specific adaptations. This year he’s put in some pursuit sessions - starting with classic and ending with skate. There are a few reasons we decided to do this. In large part it’s because spreading the load a bit gives Kris the opportunity to train at a higher pace throughout. Today he was feeling excellent and going fast. This is good.

Kris will do one more five hour skate OD prior to traveling to Lake Placid on Oct 1 for the next USST camp. This camp will be set-up differently from the last one, and we’re expecting a much more positive experience.

Everything continues to look very good for Kris. He did his first OD session since August today, and felt excellent. 2.5 hours downriver (well, downroad on rolling terrain, alongside the river), and then 2.5 hours back. He averaged 108bpm on the way down, and 112 on the way back. But he also went faster on the way back. Hills? What hills? Anyway, the sensations are all very positive. Kris will spend a few days with Julie in New York starting the 23rd, and his volume will reduce drastically during that time. Still, if you’re in the city you might catch him out rollerskiing in central park on the 24th and 25th. After the NYC trip Kris comes back for another five days of solid training leading into the Lake Placid camp which starts the 1st.

Kris had a very minor cold when he got home from Park City. But he’s feeling much better already. Yesterday he was scheduled to have a three hour run up the Bonds, and it was so nice that he threw in an extra peak, and so hot that he threw in a swim. He ended up with an apologetic 3:45, but with more excitment about training and life than I’ve heard from him in weeks. He said that his legs felt better than they have in many weeks. All things told, a good sign. A little exhuberance from time to time is permissable.

Every bomb has some fallout, the Kris’s high blood sugar day on the 6th was no exception. We decided that he would do the test again on Tuesday - three days later. In between he would do some volume training to try to stabilize things. It worked and it didn’t work. Full Post »

Today was the uphill running time trial, and it was rough. Results:
20:43  Noah Hoffman
21:08  Kris Freeman
23:47  Dan Roycroft
24:14  Pat O’Brien

Now, to be fair, Noah is a very fast uphill runner, and Kris and I had already acknowledged the expectation that Noah would be very tough. And Kris’s previous best time was a 21:17 from July. So what’s the problem? The problem is that he finished with his blood sugar over 300, and felt absolutely terrible during the test. Full Post »

Today was Sprint Relay day at the September USST Whistler Camp. This training session is of particular interest to Kris because he’s one of a handful of guys who are on the list as potential members of the two-man team that will represent the US in the sprint relay at World Championships. Today was one of a number of events and training sessions that will be considered in picking the team. Of course, the most important consideration will be who is going fast as the race itself draw near. But the coaches need to see the skiers in the event enough times to know what to expect.

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Kris is back in Whistler - this time with the whole USST. This is Kris’s second intensity camp of the year - the July camp being the first. The program this time is similar, but volume is reduced a little bit, and he’ll take advantage of the presence of the sprint team for some high speed head to head action. Today was day 2 of the camp, and the first big effort of the camp - a classic sprint time trial. Full Post »

Kris exercised appropriate judgment and restraint after his miscalculation earlier in the week, and he appears to have navigated the situation quite smoothly. He had a good five hour double-pole OD on Thursday - a little “off” for the first hour, but then quite good. Yesterday he went to a Motley Crue concert with a bunch of highschool friends - the big social engagement of the summer (Julie’s sister’s wedding notwithstanding). He had one beer and nine hours of sleep. Pretty lame by Crue concert standards, I imagine. But good judgment once again. He’s got one more pursuit OD coming up. Then a trip out to the Democratic National Convention to give a speech (not the keynote), followed by Whistler Camp #2. Updates to come…

Kris is an intensely conscientious athlete and as a rule he doesn’t do things by mistake. With very rare exceptions, he doesn’t miss planned training sessions and he doesn’t do unplanned sessions. Mistake number one of this year was not an exception to that rule. The plan called for a six hour run, and what he did was a six hour run. It wasn’t so much a mistake as a miscalculation. So when is a planned and executed six hour run not the right six hour run? What qualifies it as a mistake? Good question. Full Post »

The last update left Kris at the airport facing a three-hour delay as he set-off for four days of sponsor travel. As it turned out, that turned into a seven hour delay. The two middle days of travel were relatively uneventful, but things got screwed up again on the way back home, and he ended up crawling into his own bed at 3:00 AM last Friday morning. Needless to say, he took Friday off. Since then things have been good. 4-6-3-4 for volume hours Saturday through today, and good sensations throughout. Sunday’s six hour classic OD was particularly positive. Circumstances were a bit unsettled for a while there - with the whistler camp followed by the triathlon followed by the sponsor travel. The last four days have been a welcome opportunity to put in some consistent and uninterrupted volume, and Kris has proven that his feet are firmly on the ground.

That doesn’t mean that the road ahead is free of all distractions. Julie’s sister is getting married soon (fortunately quite near where Kris lives), and then at the end of the month Kris will head out to Denver where he’ll speak about diabetes at the Democratic National Convention. After that it’s back out to Whistler for another go at intensity.