Ridge Running
There is this consuming fear that if I slow down, or take time off - I’ll lose everything I’ve gained
That fear is very real and in the current landscape, it’s very hard to navigate the trail in front of us. Over the years athletes have struggled to truly take time off “descend” and rebuild before starting to climb towards their next goal. As a coach, I’ve always viewed training for events much like climbing a series of mountains. Each cycle or Mountain has a “climb” in the build phase before you “Peak” occasionally we run a short ridge to tag one or two more “peaks” before we descend and recover form our work at high altitudes. It’s true that you can’t live at the top forever. Unfortunately, many athletes struggle to trust the guide book and want to keep tagging peak after peak with going down for air. This might mean you cliff out or end up sliding off the edge.
It’s always better to choose your time off, being forced to take time off is always a frustrating premise.
Descending with Grace
The work to get to the top of the mountain can be daunting and some times, the path is hard to see and follow. You may take a few wrong turns that lead to small injuries, or you may wander down a path to a different peak further off in the distance.
The view from the top is pretty great, as we taper down towards the top things start to feel easier, and it’s those moments where things feel so easy and relaxed that we forget that a timer has started. This timer is your summit clock and in the grad scheme of things - the few weeks that you’re at the top is really just few minutes or hours at the top. Most of the work of getting to the peak is in the climb and returning to base camp.
Learning how to descend with Grace is something that new athletes often do poorly and is a place where they need guidance. Sometimes this guidance is giving them permission to take a week or two weeks completely off. Other times, it’s giving them permission to feel the guilt that comes along with changing your rhythm or tying your personality and rhythms so closely to your sport. A change in daily activity for some athletes can have big impacts on mental and physical health so finding the balance between structured time off and hard training is a dance down a sometimes technical slope.
Above all we must find our legs and enjoy the journey downhill where there is less work, and enjoy the body we’ve created in the climb to the top. We build fitness for far more than just the climb and what’s better then feeling free and flying downhill? Use your descent to enjoy and “use your fitness” for fun.
Ridgelines can be dangerous
Why can’t we stay at the top? I feel fine! I’ll adjust if I just stay here.
I wish it was just that easy. To truly peak means to push to new heights and that means putting your body under a new level of stress. This level of stress has the potential to injure you, burn you out, and force you to take turns that you didn’t desire to.
I’ve always believed that making the choice to descend is far more favorable than being forced to descend because of “bad weather” (injury, illness).
The belief that you can run the ridge between peaks is one that many lose sight of because you can see the next peak, it’s seemingly a few steps on the ridge. However, without descending you’re choosing the choice to plateau your fitness. In only very rare cases can you truly hit a peak and stay on the “ridge” for another couple of months. This venture for some will be costly, and the ridge will lead them to “fall off” into forced rest because of injury or illness. We’ve seen it time and again at the top of the 100 Mile racing game. Krupicka, Koerner, Roes have all suffered career ending levels of fatigue and burn out. They chose to run the ridge for a long time and it brought some amazing successes but ultimately cut their journey short - the drive to continue was there but alas the energy was not.
Descending isn’t a sign of weakness, especially if your long term goal is to be pursuing these feats for a lifetime.
Peaks &Valleys
Putting this into words after years and years is tough. I spent my fair share of years ridge running in my early 20’s. I was exploring new adventures and always training at a relatively high level throughout the whole year - I never truly took an off-season. I never let myself slide on a run, a swim, or an indoor trainer ride until I was in my 30’s. This discipline eventually lead me to injuries, burn out, an a loss of passion for about 2 years. I was knee deep in building a business and my discipline and mental energy was needed at our offices, not out on the track or trails.
Every training cycle is going to have it’s ups and downs, you’ll make a few wrong turns, or hit a few rough patches. Overall though, you should strive to enjoy the journey - this was the hardest lesson to learn as an athlete and a difficult one to coach athletes through.
Developing an understanding that taking an off-season or recovery period isn’t failure
Setting a timeline for structured time off gives you all the feelings of a training program and still lets you fully recover.
Preserving your mind, body, and spirit for the sport. Burnout kills your love for the sport and can take you down a path far from your greatest summits
Don’t be afraid to live the “low life” for weeks or month at a time. Recovering as hard as you train is a learned discipline.
Give yourself adjacent goals in your off-season. Set goals in the weight room, a new FTP on the Bike, or just setting a goal to keep a regular rhythm.
Enjoy the Climb
I believe that the climb is the part of the journey we do for the longest. Your progress up the mountain will feel slow at times. We rarely start these journey’s seeing the summit the whole time but we must have faith that it’s there! We’ll spend our weekdays, weekends, and months of our lives climbing this mountain simply to summit and enjoy the view. Where we can get stuck is not enjoying the view on the way up - if we don’t find joy in the winding trail, and see how the scenery changes on our way up - are we really going to fully enjoy the time we have at the top?
The top of the mountain feels so good but once we get there we have to realize that we’re headed for the bottom again before we climb a new mountain. A goal fulfilled is no longer motivating. As we descend we can let go and start dreaming of new mountains to climb, new routes to take.
Enjoy the ride down the mountain side and choose your ridge lines wisely, every mountain adventure must first start with a healthy respect for the mountain.
Keep moving, the mountains aren’t going anywhere anytime soon!
