Base training, we all know what it is right? Riding or running, or whatever our sport is, plenty of it, usually performed in the Winter, when there's no pressure, and no races coming up, and little need to pay proper attention.

Or is it?

I’ve had the initial conversation with myself, and I’ve made it real by sharing it - HERE - now I need to set my mind on the right path (so that the body can follow) and do some research. 

This week is a good time to do that. My race season has finished, my new campaign is just starting, and any big mistakes right now are easily absorbed. This week is low risk. If I knew nothing about the Marji Gesick now would be the week to do all my homework. If I was new to Marji this would be my cheat sheet: 

Me, Marji and coaching…

I’ve been official coach of the Marji Gesick since 2018. I’m a full time endurance coach, with the best part of 3 decades experience of coaching and preparing athletes for races and challenges just like this. As an athlete (previously retired, more on this shortly) my background was primarily in mountain biking, initially in what we now know as XCO, before developing into a long distance specialist, 24 hour solo competitor, and long distance trail record breaker. I retired from racing officially in 2008 but always dabbled (addicted to races would be a good description) and many years later, after working with Todd and 906 Adventure I tried to get back to training regularly, and racing a bit more, as part of my commitment to our shared #TRAIN4LIFE philosophy. 

FTP - Functional (I'll come back to this) Threshold Power.

I love FTP. What a metric. It took us out of the labs and onto the trails and roads to do our testing. We could do it any time, at our own convenience, we could check it regularly without having to count the cost of another trip to the nearest good sports lab to find out our lactate thresholds, and no one was going to stab holes in us and take our blood while we were testing for it.