No More Soccer in November

I wish I could say that I never make the same mistake twice. Apparently, this is not the case. Two years ago I ended up with a sprained toe from playing soccer barefoot on the beach with Fijian locals. One would think that I would learn to never play in another soccer match again, unless I had adequate footwear and shin guards. But if you would've been at the APU juniors practice Monday night, you would have witnessed me playing soccer in a boys vs. girls match in the snow covered field—-without shin guards. I ended up with some colorful bruises and a sprained ankle. (The ankle is actually nothing to worry about; it's luckily a 3-4 day type of deal and it happens to be a recovery week, so the extra rest is probably a good thing).
Even though the injury was minor, I still spent a moment sulking in my own stupidity-- why did I chose to play soccer this time of year? When I sprained my toe in Fiji two years ago at least it wasn’t so close to the racing season. Or was it? I couldn’t remember... so I whipped out my trusty logbook to compare the dates. To my surprise, I discovered late October was spent taking finals, traveling the west coast of the south island (training, camping, and learning how to surf). Early November was the bus and hitchhiking trip up to the Abel Tasman track, which included a 25 mile adventure run along the coast, a kayak trip, and living off orange trees. The "layover" in Fiji wasn't until mid-November. Winter had fully faded into spring in the land down under, and skiing everyday felt like a world away. Looking at my old logbook made me realize that the level of preparation I am putting into skiing now is entirely different from what I have done in the past. The amusing part about the entire situation is that when I was living in New Zealand a few years ago, I *thought* I was training well. To give myself a little credit, I was a full-time student having the time of my life in a foreign country, so squeezing in 45-55hrs of training/month was not bad. But when the facts from training logs are compared, the training I did while studying abroad was far from ideal. Running for 5 hours at a snail's pace is my favorite way to explore a non-snowy area, but if sub-50 minute ski races are the goal, then those epic over-distance workouts will just make a person tired with a limited training benefit. My teammates and I are currently splitting up the training load to 2 sessions/day almost every day to keep the quality and intensity high. Every workout is under 3 hours. I feel like the training I did this summer and fall is exactly the type of training I need to do more of, in order to reach my ski racing potential. The first Supertour race of the year is 21 days away. I can't wait!