Another rest day, another update

By rest day number 2, I had run out of things I really wanted to do with myself... Bread had already been made, house cleaned, errands run.  Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of things for me to do, but instead I made muffins...

While I generally love training, I do look forward to rest days because they can be unscheduled and unstructured.  Like many people relish the weekend, I  like a day off once in a while.  Usually I plan something with friends, do errands, clean my house and prepare for the week ahead, and I always make my bread for the week.  But I find it curious that most often my rest days are never as exciting as I expect they will be.  I tell myself I like the down time, like the lack of structure and the break from routine, but usually my day ends feeling incomplete.  Why?  Because in the back of my mind I'm yearning to go for a ski, a hike in the mountains, a short run or at least a little spin on the bike inside.  The truth is, rest days are the hardest part of the week for me because I really do like the routine of waking early, getting out of the house for AM practice, coming home to stretch, eat, take a nap, and then heading out again for another session.  My day is full, and it is active.  The rest time between sessions is usually pretty much all I need to do whatever else it is that needs doing. I've come to realize that no matter how much I look forward to full rest days, they're just never going to be as glorious as I imagine.  I'm lucky that skiing is what I do...

So on my second non-training day, instead of doing paperwork and errands, I did the next closest thing to skiing.  I worked on skis and prepped them for the week.  Skis love a little love, in the form of wax, and so, in anticipation of skiing, I put a few coats on a few pairs...

 

My fast Fischer fleet

My wax box, complete with Swix kick and glide wax, tools, apron, iron, etc...

Some quality time spent with the ski bench.

I haven't been skiing on most of my race skis in training lately, because I've been worried about rocks on the trails.  With pretty good conditions right now and freshly groomed trails, I decided to pull out a few race pairs to train on.  

The training experience feels that much better when you're on well prepared, fast skis.  Warm temps and fast skis enable me to cover much more ground each session than I otherwise would.  That's important, because a fast training pace teaches the body (muscles, heart, lungs) to tolerate fast skiing, preparing a skier that much more for racing.  Plus, by skiing fast, the movement patterns often are much more similar to those at race pace, again teaching the body (this time especially the muscles) how to sustain itself at that speed.  It's important to ingrain the feelings associated with fast skiing, good technique, power, speed, and agility.  So if you want to ski well at race pace, it's important to simulate those feelings (technique, power, etc.) as best you can in training at any speed.

So I'm looking forward to getting back to the trails, on the freshly waxed skis and logging some fast distance skiing.  Stay tuned...