Back in October, well before the curtain of winter descended and thoughts of couch-bound hibernation set in, Outside inaugurated something we call "The Perfect Fit," a five-month training program designed to whip you into the best shape of your life, and to have you there in time for spring training (whatever that training may be). With this goal in mind, we assembled a coaching staff of fitness sages — the ones who coach the pros, the Olympians, the ones who now coach you — and asked them to mastermind an all-encompassing plan for getting and staying in peak condition.

"Most expert advice doesn't take you through month by month the way that we've done," says writer Paul Keegan, who has guided readers through their physiological paces. "A lot of people can't afford to hire a personal trainer, or won't, and without one you can be left at sea. But the answers are out there, and once you know them, you can be your own trainer."

Since the program was designed from the get-go as a life plan, readers have learned how to do everything from gaining raw strength to grabbing a psychological edge to finding the very heart of their own athleticism. It all culminates this month, with an explanation of how to use this newfound juice in your chosen sport. That's basketball for Keegan — who previously in these pages has revealed the secrets of triathlete Mark Allen and Zone-diet guru Barry Sears, and who's now dominating the point in his New York City pickup games. But whatever the pastime, your time has arrived: Prepare to step out onto the field (or slope, or scree, or ... you get the idea) and face down the competition. Even if the competition is just yourself.

One last note: If you're arriving late, don't fret. Earlier installments can be found online (outside.starwave.com).

"My grandfather helped build Ross Dam up on the Skagit River in the north Cascades," says Seattle writer Bruce Barcott, whose article on dam decommissioning ("Blow-Up,") opens a window on the vitriolic national debate surrounding the future of dams that, as a boy, he grew up visiting. "Whenever my family went north, we'd take a boat tour of Ross Dam," continues Barcott. "In fact, pretty much every Washington kid gets the elementary school tour of the friendly local dam. You wear hard hats, see the turbines, the whole thing." The editor of the literary anthology Northwest Passages, Barcott took on another Washington icon in his most recent book, The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier (Sasquatch Books).

Photographing Snake River dams for "Blow-Up" reminded Craig Cutler of the nuclear power plants he recently visited in Bucharest. "There's this mass of structure," he says, "and absolutely no one around. All you hear is the hum of the turbines. It's eerie." Well-known for his studio photography, Cutler also chases assorted photo essays around the world. Just back from Argentina capturing portraits of farmers, he heads to Istanbul next month for more of the same.

The author of Hope, Human and Wild, frequent contributor Bill McKibben transformed himself last year from a mild-mannered environmental writer into a hard-bodied ski racer, a metamorphosis he lived to tell about in his report. Training in the central Adirondacks, McKibben's biggest challenge was roller skiing on the rough roads. "For the first time since I was seven," he says, "I spent a year with scabs on my knees." Those falls should pay off next month, when a leaner, meaner McKibben competes in Norway's 58-kilometer Birkebeiner, the sport's most venerable race.

"Terje Haakonsen is more like a rock star than an athlete," says Karl Taro Greenfeld, who profiles the world's best snowboarder. "But there's a lot more to him than cool." Like Haakonsen, Greenfeld is an avid soccer player, and it was on the field "that I really got a feel for him as an athlete," says the author of Speed Tribes. "I play in a league in Battery Park. It's as outdoorsy as you can get in New York."

When former senior editor Alex Heard began following millennial subcultures 10 years ago, he says, "There were only two options: It's either science and it's true or it's weird and it bugs me." This month, Heard collects his findings, some of which began as Outside articles, in Apocalypse Pretty Soon: Travels in End-Time America, published by Norton and excerpted in Field Notes. "I still find humor in this stuff," continues Heard, now a Wired senior editor after two years at the New York Times Magazine, "but I've begun to sympathize. It's just their thing."