I think the last two weeks in a season are a bit too late to improve your conditioning. If you work too hard to improve your conditioning, then you legs are going to be weak from all the training and your body won't be able to handle it. Basically training too hard in too short of a period of time will actually wear you out more. We'll see if this last ditch conditioning effort pays off, but I doubt it. I guess the last two years, the drive just wasn't there to train the way he needed to?
