When I turned in my log on Sunday I noticed that I had completed my 26th week on my training log. 26 weeks down means half a year has gone by since I started training for this season. With almost four weeks to go until our first race in West Yellowstone there's SEVEN months of focused, ski-specific training before any ski races happen. I'm not as fast as I am because I'm talented. The US census estimates that on Oct 30 there will be 303,243,030 people living in the US. I'm going to estimate that there's about 100,000 women who have more athletic talent than I. Which would be troublesome except that not many of them have been training for skiing for the past 6 months. Not to mention the prior years, which all accumulate.

Now that I have six solid months it's time to back off the training regimen a little bit and start training more by feel. Time to be less concerned about getting in X hours per week or Y interval sessions and more concerned with how well I'm skiing and how my body's feeling. It's time to really start being FAST and fine-tuning for the race season. And I say it's about time.