Week 35
This week might look slightly different depending on your race schedule for the winter. This is the time of year when creating a generalized weekly recommendation becomes tough. Some athletes are focusing on preparing for US Nationals or other important regional races while some masters athletes might be doing less racing with their priority race, the Birkie, later on in February.
This is why NTS week 35 and masters week 35 will have a slightly different feel. On the masters side I have made this week easy on the front end for a bit of recovery, while trying to add in some volume where we can. A lot of folks will have more time off from work this week so it can be a great time to get in a few extra hours of skiing.
The general NTS plan will also start the week with a recovery focus but then shift to a mini-taper before nationals. Weekly hours are fairly low but we keep up with two-a-days and touch on speed training often. This is a great recipe for feeling good and ready to race at US Nationals exactly 10 days away.
It's important to recognize that this is different than a 'peaking' approach to US Nationals. Simply cutting back on volume for a week leading up to the championships will not force an athlete to peak early in the season, we just want athlete to feel healthy and ready to race. A true peaking plan encompasses a training phase with increased volume and also a phase with increase intensity before tapering off. In this case we have simply been focusing on solid training and moderate racing for the past month and will now have a short taper leading up to the US Championships in Houghton Jan 2 - 7th.
Both plans have a new interval session that will be fun to try and great for training race pace and toughness.
NOTES:
- Notice the over distance and longer diastase workouts within the Masters plan to help build easy distance volume.
- See the L3/L4 combi interval session entry for more information on this workout