Home Sweet Home

After three weeks in Tignes it is nice to be home for a little while if only to enjoy the comforts of sleeping in my own bed. Tignes was a really good camp but I was ready to go home for the last couple of days mainly because I was knackered. Since I've been home I have been keeping busy with a couple of trips down to Stirling to play on the roller ski treadmill and helping out some of the Huntly Ski Club Juniors.



Testing in Stirling went really well with a big improvement from my running test in May which is of course what I was looking for. We did 3 different tests in the form of a threshold running test at 10% gradient, Double pole speed test and a horrible Ski-erg test. The running test is a fairly standard test where the speed is increase every 5 minutes until you're lactate level gets to threshold or just above.

Running threshold test results

This was the first time I have done this particular ski-erg test as I was injured for the one in June and I can tell you it is not very fun. Basically you have 15 minutes to go as far possible which after double poling on the treadmill for an hour before hand meant my arms were piped!

Next weekend I am off to Torsby ski tunnel for a week with the British Junior & Youth squads which is a win win for me because I get to do two things I love doing, coaching and skiing on snow. Straight from Torsby I'm off for another altitude camp in Italy which includes two weeks of skiing on the Val Senales glacier where I was last year. Finger crossed the weather and snow conditions are as good as last year because I could do with a top up on my Vitamin D levels before we head to the darkness of Scandinavia.



Cheers
Alex Standen