This may be my favorite training period of the year. Putting in back-to-back 18 to 20 hour weeks with the workouts all staying in a level 1 and 2 intensity, using many different modalities and spending hour after hour in the Methow spring landscape. Most of the last few weeks I’ve been training solo – Erik is currently in Park City at the National Training Group for the country’s top juniors and U-23s, and Torin is happily continuing his on-snow volume training down in Bend. Not that their absences have left me with a dearth of training partners; Alison (Hanks; massage therapist, ultra-runner and girlfriend) is a great companion for long runs and post-workout climbing (good recovery!).br /br /On Tuesday Alison and I took a trudge up Lucky Jim, the local 2000ft gain-in-30 minutes hill that we’ve been using for our uphill ski striding weighted workouts. Fortunately in the spring there is a runoff creek coming down from Lucky Jim which offers an apt opportunity for me to fill my water jugs before taking off up the hill.br /br /div style=”text-align: center;”a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Mg2hQbkHkNs/TBfJbwXkq0I/AAAAAAAAAa4/AuBvcBKx3Tw/s1600/June+10+Lucky+Jim+%2B+Trail+work+001.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Mg2hQbkHkNs/TBfJbwXkq0I/AAAAAAAAAa4/AuBvcBKx3Tw/s320/June+10+Lucky+Jim+%2B+Trail+work+001.jpg” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483072550024293186″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-style: italic;”Filling H20 jugs in the creek before starting up the trailbr //span/divbr /br /div style=”text-align: center;”a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Mg2hQbkHkNs/TBfJckVAcMI/AAAAAAAAAbA/M0qb5rqhbyI/s1600/June+10+Lucky+Jim+%2B+Trail+work+010.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Mg2hQbkHkNs/TBfJckVAcMI/AAAAAAAAAbA/M0qb5rqhbyI/s320/June+10+Lucky+Jim+%2B+Trail+work+010.jpg” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483072563972174018″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-style: italic;”As summer arrives it’s a huge benefit to be carrying water up the hill, because the sun strikes the slope directly on the trail – hot!span style=”font-weight: bold;”br //span/span/divdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2910103639238326543-9124518959958361753?l=methowolympicdevelopment.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div
