S2 E1: Rewriting the play book. Stoking the fire. - Timothy Cunningham
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- By Timothy Cunningham
S2 E1, Rewriting the play book. Stoking the fire.
Hello Finn Sisu Readers! Lots has happened since we last spoke: some good, some weird, and some routine. The 23/24 race season was a doozy for me; I had a substantial leg injury before trials races and six weeks later got long COVID which took the better part of six months to recover from fully. The race season moves fast and its easy to get caught in the fray once well laid plans start to derail with sickness and injury. One off setbacks are seldom complicated, even if they are severe, and can be bounced back from in due time if the mindset stays strong. What gets very hard, very quickly, is when setbacks start piling up. An injury happens just before you get sick, and a competitive race schedule leads to stress injuries from being over loaded and poorly recovered. This season, the goal quickly became to just make it to April so I could get a break from it all. Coming back from both of these incidents combined tested my character in familiar ways, and reminded me how important it is to be able to reset and restart. With that in mind I wanted to write to you all about the skill of reflecting on a training year and using what you learn to build a plan for the future. While I will be describing this skill in the context of a yearly review, it can be applied just as easily to any shorter time frame.
April is well know as the spring break month for winter athletes. It is a time to let go of strict training regiments, long travel days, and a chance to recover from all the racing. For some, myself included, I need the spring time to let the events of the past season calcify in my mind, hindsight is 20/20 after all. Good and bad seasons alike need to end and eventually be accepted for what they are: opportunities to put our year(s) of training to the test the clock. Regardless of what the winter held, every race, travel day, and packed bag is an event that can be reflected on and learned from. Easier said than done. My experience has told me self reflection is an exercise in humility foremost, as it teaches me to celebrate the victories and mourn the losses equally in order to gain insight about the season. In the following sections I will go through how I process an entire year of training effectively, and use the tools at my disposal to form new goals, dispel doubts, and write a new playbook for the coming year.
Finding my legs one week out from December trails in Craftsbury, VT.
Step one: Escape your routine and reset.
Convincing anyone to take a vacation typically isn’t very hard, especially if you’re tired and need the break. So when a friend reached out in mid-winter asking if I wanted to dog sit in the Methow Valley for two weeks in April I had very few reservations. Having grown up in the Northeast I’ve heard time and time again how the Pacific Northwest was “the place to be.” Skeptical, but excited to see what all the hype was about, I bought sunscreen (and then forgot to pack said sunscreen), cleared my schedule and accepted the offer.
Even though this was my vacation, I felt it was important to have goals for my time away from routine. Training had become an unpleasant chore this winter, almost constantly recovering from injury or COVID from November through March. Being in Craftsbury watching races happen every weekend that my body wasn’t healthy enough to participate in built a negative association between what I wanted to do and how much it hurt my body to attempt. With no training plan and no race schedule I was free to do or not do whatever I wanted. As such I made escaping routine my time to accomplish these three goals:
1. Keep the dog alive and happy. This is obviously the most important item on the list.
2. Exercise for health and fun. My rule was I could only exercise if it was part of my PT recovery plan or if it was intrinsically enjoyable. As soon as I started to change my mentality from playing with
exercise to training I would make myself stop the activity (or head back to the car if I was in the woods).
3. Make some new friends.
The Methow Valley made accomplishing all three of my goals incredibly easy. The town offered myriad opportunities to recreate and exercise the puppy, and my friends who invited me to dog sit helped set me up with gym access to keep up with my PT and strength introduction. I also had many peers who lived near where I was staying, and they introduced me to some locals who played pop-up volleyball after work once a week. Fortunately the volleyball games were competitive, so I fit in perfectly despite my staggering lack of ball skills. My New England pride is strong, but I have to admit here and now, the west coast is worth every bit of the hype when it isn’t on fire. I still recorded my training data with my watch, just to keep an accurate idea of my load for future reference, but to the best of my ability, I let the Strava heat map tell me what my day to day activities were going to be. Being honest I’m glad I wasn’t training in a serious manner for this trip: the 1.5 year old dog was more than willing to put me to work by playing tug of war with him as often as possible. If each of us got a point for every time we wore the other out the two week total would be 9-5 in favor of the dog.
The first week passed slowly as I maximized my time spent gawking at 9000’ mountains lining the valley. Back country corn cruising one day, mountain biking the next, running the dog and swimming in seriously cold rivers all rapidly shifted my focus away from the past year. Thinking back over the highs and lows of the competition cycle was no longer accompanied by strong emotions one way or another. My mindset started shifting back to a place of growth; The “what ifs” and “I could haves” changed into statements like “that happened” and “what can I do differently next time?” How long it takes to make that mental shift is highly dependent on the situation and the individual, for me it took a little more time than usual, but the entire point of step one is to give your self the opportunity to get back into the driver’s seat with confidence, without the pressure of a deadline. Let it take its time. I don’t ever advocate for dawdling, but you simply can’t rush recovery. Whether it’s from a cold, and injury, or a bad experience the only way through is to do what you can in each moment to keep the wheels turning until eventually you realize you’re back in action.
Step two: Thinking simply and honestly about the facts.
Week two of my Methow escape was much the same as the first: I had established a schedule with the dog that included running/walking for an hour in the morning, playing tug of war for 10 minutes, before I would then depart for my main outdoor activity of the day. With step one of the process completed, the new objective became clearly outlining what happened and how I could have handled my situation differently. Here is a “little” anecdote to help illustrate.
Halfway through the happy puppy morning routine.
Early on in the trip I had scoped out an enticing ridge line up the Washington highway, something called Cutthroat Pass, and budgeted myself three hours to complete a run up and down. I woke up early several days later, took Dog for our usual morning outing, then made my way to the trail head. The records show the only dry part of the trail was dirt on the side of the road where I parked. Everything else was under several feet of abrasive, uneven crust, and the dark clouds overhead promised a consistent snowfall for my entire run. Conditions weren’t ideal, the crust would crunch and give way to me, abrading my ankles and shins where my pants got lifted. Light wind and snow kept me cold, and had me slipping on the crust as the trail got steeper. In many ways it kind of sucked to be out here. In just as many ways I was grateful for the challenge. Dramatic peaks surrounded me on all sides, and the light snowfall muffled all sound save the crunching of the snow underfoot. On a few occasions I buckled down and trudged on in spite of how uncomfortable I was; a sentiment that diametrically opposed my goal to enjoy exercise. Remembering I came to the West to reignite my intrinsic fervor for athletic endeavors challenged me to re-frame the entirety of that run. I was excited to try another big run/hike, despite the adverse conditions. I ended up needing to bail on this as well, reaching my time cut off before breaking the ridge, but I was hardly bummed out about it this time. For this moment, doing what I did that day was worthwhile.
Much of the winter lacked the sense of satisfaction I felt on that run. Recovering from injury and illness is a huge part of the sports world, and not all of it is enjoyable. I was frequently confused by what I was doing, not really understanding the road map I had before me. Being able to reset mid adventure and realign with the purpose of the outing is exactly the skill recovery demands. Now I was ready to get a satellite view of my past year, and make actionable observations about what went well or not. Because I am a man who likes to analyze things, I have a worksheet I use every year to help myself be frank about the highs and the lows. I have attached it here as well, and you will need your immaculately kept training log handy, but the gist of step two is outlined as follows:
- Identify periods of high and low quality training. What happened in the days/week prior that may account for these periods? How many high quality sessions did you plan for and successfully execute? What happened that caused the high or low to end?
- How did you feel going into key moments like trials races, championships, indicator efforts? What would you change?
The entire purpose of step two is to look at the context of your training and think critically about how to improve the quality of your next training cycle. Fully and completely filling out a year review should take some time. I spend about an hour on it and its one of the best hours I spend all training year.
Step Three: Make the plan
The secondary benefit of step two comes in sharing your reflection with your coach to make a plan for the new year. At this point it’s the end of April heading into the Nordic new year, May 1st; New training logs roll out, the year’s training volume is published, and rollerskis are dusted off in anticipation of the long sessions to come. I find myself in Craftsbury now, but the team was set to travel to Bend, Oregon for an altitude camp on snow at the end of the week, making that the perfect week to discuss a plan with the coaches. Step two showed me the obvious areas for improvement in my preparation, so I was able to approach my meetings with my coaches prepared with a list of key points I want to address. Ultimately the end result of step three is having a set of actionable steps you can take to remedy any short comings your previous training year had.
For example some ways I could improve over last year include:
· Prep training clothes and equipment (water belt and fueling needs included) the night before.
· Review the purpose of each workout before hand.
· Keep my easy days very easy so the hard days can be very hard.
· Emphasize recovery/preparation before increasing load.
· Regular and early bedtimes.
· Engage with friends and family more.
You should leave the step three feeling confident that you have a new and improved plan. All the good from last year will hopefully stick with you this year, and the parts that held you back have been addressed. Ideally, the actionable steps you have developed on your own or with a coach are ones you truly believe will bring you closer to your goals. If not, try step three, one more time.
Me and a friend sharing a knuckle bump before our race.
Step Four: Commit.
That brings us to the end. Once it is all said and done the only thing left to do is act. Get out and commit to the plan you’ve made. Remind yourself about it regularly and try not to change it unless you need to. The only way you can reap the benefits of a new process is if you give the plan the all in try it needs. Get out and get after it!