I'm within the second high volume week of the period. I completed 22 hours last week and will do about the same this week. I started off this week with the infamous 15sec on/15sec off hill bounding workout. It always takes some getting used to, especially for the first time of the year. Instead of going for 12 minutes straight we tried shortening the duration of each interval to 8 minutes but increased the repetitions to 3 to make it simulate a race (a sprint race has three loops). I have two more tough interval workouts to go, and this isn't even a camp! It's going to be much easier once I'm in Lake Placid and have a group to train with. Pacing a volume week with three interval sessions can be tricky. The spacing is such that you do intervals every other day with distance workouts and strength sessions in between. I have found that it's especially important to keep the distance workouts within level 1 if I want to be able to do high quality intervals.

My schedule this week is packed not only with training, but also final exams. It's not the hours that you spend training that could otherwise be spent studying that make the combination such a challenge. The hard part is resisting the urge to nap in the afternoon between training sessions, and the low level of concentration that is a result of such fatigue. Once my productivity begins to decline, I usually give in to a short "power nap", just 45 minutes or so. What I've found works best for me, though, is to get as much work done in the morning before I start training and the eyes get sleepy.