In this Workout of the Week section, we have given you lots of workout ideas so I thought, this week, I would give you an idea as to how to plan a week that incorporates some of the workouts for this time of year. Since we are racing in just over a month, our training focus has shifted from lots of volume and strength to intensity.

In a typical week in October, we will have two intensity workouts, one hard zone 4 and at low zone 4. Generally one will be longer intervals and one shorter. We also will do a sprint workout and 1-2 weight/strength workouts in addition to some ski specific strength. We also have a long workout, some regular zone 1 and of course stretching and balance work. This long list can be a bit intimidating. I will give you a few rules of thumb to follow and an example of how I might plan a week. Besides the ideas mentioned below, it is also important to think of other commitments that you might have when planning your week.

1 – high intensity work is a priority right now so you should always be rested for it and recover after it.

2 - you should always try to take a rest day each week

3 – try to plan things so you don’t have too much left to do at the end of the week! This can be hard if you work a regular job like most of us.

The first thing to schedule is the intensity. In our case, that is the easy part because we do it at team workouts on Tuesday morning and Saturday morning. Tuesdays we do hard zone 4 ski striding up Penguin hill and Saturdays we use the closed parkways and do rollerski intervals. On Sundays, we usually do a rollerski sprint workout. At this time of year we take lots of rest between sprints and focus on speed rather than draining ourselves.

Strength is the next thing to look at. You want to spread it out from the intensity as much as possible. This is always a bit tricky and depends on your schedule. What I usually do is do one weight workout on Wednesday night and one on Sunday afternoon. On Friday morning I might do rollerski strength or light plyometrics, which isn’t as likely to leave me feeling tired and sore as something like weight training.

Now for the long workout. Since we are doing intensity and strength on the weekend, it is a bit difficult to fit this in if you are working during the week. Sometimes, we do a long workout after the interval session on Saturday and sometimes after the sprints on Sunday. If you do it Saturday, it makes for a long hard day so be careful! If you can fit it in on Thursday or Friday that would also be good.

Here is an example of a fall week for me:

Monday - day off
Tuesday - hard zone 4 intervals, ski striding (eg. 5x4min/6min recovery)
- easy recovery jog in the evening
Wednesday - morning off, weight workout in the afternoon (focusing on power)
Thursday - easy distance day, either one long workout or two shorter ones
Friday - specific strength (plyos or rollerski)
Saturday - zone 4 rollerski intervals followed by an easy ski walk/run
Sunday - rollerski sprint workout with weights in the afternoon