Happy Monday!

Welcome to your recovery week and the end of the first block of training. Even though the volume is a little lower this week, make sure you’re eating regularly and getting enough protein to help rebuild muscle. Here’s a post our RD Abby wrote about nutrition for recovery.

The intent for this week is to prepare you for the next phase of training that will have a little more intensity and volume. If you’re used to doing more volume, feel free to add a little extra EASY time, but having a little less volume gives you extra time to sleep, catch up on chores, work, friends, or other activities in your life. It’s always fun to log a massive week of training, but without easy weeks to absorb it all, your body won’t adapt the way we want, and you’ll increase your chance of injury, burnout, or illness.

Sleep is one of if not the most important things for maximizing recovery. If you’re choosing between an hour run or getting an hour of sleep, unless you already get at least eight hours of sleep, choose sleep! There are times when you might need to prioritize getting in certain workouts, but recovery weeks are the time to catch up (overall sleep habits are a whole other topic!).

This can also be a good time for food prep for things like granola, muffins, and other quick snacks for later. Here’s my go to granola recipe that I’ve been using for years. It’s not too sweet, and you can mix and match ingredients since they’re measured by weight. These superhero muffins are awesome to freeze and have as needed (though they might not last long enough to freeze). They’re also a sneaky way to add veggies into your day.

This is also a great time to try yoga, as well! Remember you can use the code SKIPREPYOGA for 50% of three months of Motive Yoga Online.

For anyone in the Methow (or anyone needing a reason to visit!), there are some fun events happening this weekend! Saturday morning is the ski swap in Winthrop at the red barn, and then we have a free ski touring clinic with Sam and Alan Adams, another of our coaches from 12-3. There will be food and festivities at the Mazama courtyard in the evening, and then join us Sunday for a fun run up Driveway Butte at 9am. More info here. If you have any young athletes in your life, join us (and Abby Bange Pattison, RD) next Tuesday at 5:30pm at the Winthrop library to learn how to support them nutritionally through this stage of life. More info on that here.

Looking ahead, we’ll have our next Zoom meeting next week, on Tuesday the 6th at 8am. We’ll use the same invite as last time, but I’ll post it again in Slack and in next week’s email. We’ll chat about nutrition, the next block of training, and anything else that comes up between now and then. Let us know if you have a particular topic you want us to address, or any specific questions!

Finally, I posted a mobility and myofascial release video below that you can try this week to increase range of motion and hopefully release some tight muscles. Let us know what you think. We hope you’ve been enjoying what seems to be the last of the snow free alpine, and hope you have a great week!

-Alison and Sam