Redline Alpine

In January, I started using Anki, spaced repetition software, to study for an exam. My first impression was negative. "This is too easy," I thought. "This can't be helpful." But as I read more about spaced repetition, my initial reaction reminded me of how people get sucked into HIIT training.

If you run all out for 10 kilometers in 30 minutes, does that mean that you can run all out for 20 kilometers in 60 minutes? No, but there is a way to make a decent estimate of a goal time.

"More is better" is almost never the case. Like nutrients, the body can only absorb what it can absorb. Anything more than that dose is wasted or, worse, counterproductive.

To maximize performance, an athlete needs to do some anaerobic training. But to optimize the anaerobic benefits, an athlete needs to have an aerobic foundation. The bigger the base, the bigger the benefit. The bigger the benefit, the better the performance.

Many athletes get suckered into believing that physical potential is a genetic lottery. That's only partially true.

Training causes fatigue and fitness to appear in sequence. Then athletes confuse the degree of fatigue with future fitness. Sometimes, it’s the opposite. I’ve had a sinus infection for three weeks. On day 17, I started taking antibiotics. The next day, I felt much better. Did

Climbers feel fear but cannot act on it. Practicing forced restraint widens the gap between stimulus and response. What was a tunnel becomes a decision tree. — “If I fall here,” I thought. “I could die.” I was way above my last piece of gear on

Most mornings, I make pour-over coffee. I weigh and hand-grind 20 grams of whole beans. I pre-rinse a filtered V60 cone. Then I put the grounds in the cone on a mug on a digital scale. When the water reaches ~93 degrees Celsius, I start to pour. First, I saturate

“Uh oh, you’re not going to like that,” my wife said. We were in a bookstore, and I had picked up a copy of The Sports Gene. I often sneer at discussions about genetics in sport. It’s not that I disbelieve that genes set

When I introduced an allowance to our oldest son, I used three jars: Spend, Give, and Save. The three jars represented three big-picture elements of managing money. After describing the first two, I got to the one that I was most excited about, the Save jar. “And with this

Performance in an endurance event comes from the highest average speed. Training determines what the highest average speed–“race pace”–will be. The higher the race pace, the faster the time. The faster the time, the better the performance. So the more race pace training an

The 2018/2019 skimo season was my best ever. I finished the season sixth in Canada and went to the World Championships in Switzerland. A lot of factors contributed to that outcome, luck included. My 2018 training cycle was a big factor. It was much different than in previous years

After a ten-year hiatus, I’ve started rock climbing again. I “remember” how to move–thank God for engrams–but I started with zero climbing fitness. My forearms felt pumped and acidic within seconds. Even after two months of training, I’m just starting

“I’m bored,” my son often says. He uses it as a justification for distraction. Boredom is bad, he thinks, so something external should be sought so the boredom can end. But the mind is a muscle. And boredom can make it stronger. In rock climbing, aerobic

In 2005, I went with three friends to get our first VO2 max tests. I didn’t know what the results meant. But fourteen years later, that first test is a good benchmark, and I can make some unfortunate conclusions. When compared to two more tests that bracket six

Between 2005 and 2010, I focused on sport climbing. I redpointed 13c and flashed 12c. A key part of my progress was avoiding 5.11. When I was sport climbing, I learned a lot from my friends Jay Audenart and Simon Villeneuve. Simon in particular has a fun, irreverent attitude

I recently discovered that my treadmill doesn’t report its actual speed. At first, I was disappointed. Then I calibrated the machine and found that it under-reports its speed. Phew! The other day at the gym, I warmed up on a treadmill that I had used many times in

When I “fill the bowl”, life is too jam-packed. Everything in the bowl competes for space. When the unexpected happens, the important things suffer. The solution? Don’t fill the bowl. — Most mornings, I eat eggs with lentils, bruschetta, and hot sauce. This morning was no

Last month, I started using a Whoop. I hoped that it would guide me toward better recovery. Unfortunately, the Whoop's activity tracking is too inaccurate and imprecise to be of much use. I sent it back for a refund.

On September 18th, I did my fifth lactate test for the season. As with previous tests, I did both the aerobic and anaerobic portions on the same day with a break and some food in between. In mid-September, I completed my fifth lactate capacity test of the season. The results

This morning was my second workout with a Whoop on my wrist. In both cases, Whoop’s data is inaccurate and grossly overstates the intensity of the workouts. I recorded both sessions with the Whoop and a Garmin Fenix 2 with an HRM-Run chest strap. The workout was a

Over a month ago, I did my fourth lactate capacity test of the season. I did both the aerobic and anaerobic portions on the same day, albeit with a break and some food between them. Since my last test in early July, I’ve been doing a lot of

In early 2018, I bought a treadmill. Training on a treadmill sounds horrible to most–and for long, steady sessions it is–but for high-intensity training, it’s perfect. Yesterday, I wrote about the big impact that gradient has on climb rates. While writing, I looked online

When using climb rates as benchmarks, make sure that the grade of the terrain during tests is consistent. Small variations in gradient will create big differences in climb rates and misleading results between tests. I often use a treadmill as part of my warm-up for strength sessions in the gym.

I loved The Matrix. In my favorite scene, Neo straps himself to an archaic dentist’s chair. He’s learning martial arts by “downloading” them into his brain. Once installed, he can use them in the digital world. To make the downloads, Neo’s colleague plugs a thick cable into