Training Log Archive: Ari-o

Finally go to go "orienteering" but really orienteering! Venice is amazing for it. I should have a) packed a compass (would have been very useful) and b) a better map, the b&w print I had was fine, but telling roads and water apart was confusing at times.

I went between a number of controls, running where I could, slowing down when it was narrow and congested. There really should be a good map of Venice made for visiting orienteers. I'd buy that in a second! It's much easier than Google Maps (for a bunch of reasons, including readability) and other maps they have here (don't show plazas and road widths well, and often have road names rather than more important information, which muddies the whole thing up). But it was so much fun! Rain tomorrow, so I may go for a map free run and just use the signs to get from point a to b. They have signs pointing towards about 8 major locations in the city on some buildings, they're pretty useless but a decent way to at least figure out if you're sort of going in the right direction.

Should have gotten this together earlier, but glad I got out at least once!

Well Venezia has been busy, lots of walking, but no training yet. But I did get an O map printed this morning, which has made navigation so much easier (Google Maps is pretty hopeless) and I am planning a run/orienteering adventure tomorrow morning. I have to run off the gelato somehow.

Up at 5 for a 6:15 bus, which was civilized. Ride up to the start in the dark and warming up in the first bits of daylight. Wax was Rode multigrade (when in Rome) with a little bit of green base klister corked in because why not. (The other guys—real serious masters—spent all afternoon yesterday waxing. I did not.) Kick was good, skis were fast, tracks were fast. Ready for nothing.

Marcialonga! This was the entire point of going to Italy (well, this, and the MIT class, I guess, that paid for the airfare) but I was looking at it more as a long, hard-ish effort than a race-race. I got a start in the third wave (basically) so not great, but probably properly seeded given the sheer number of Norwegians and Swedes involved.

The start is downright civilized. You wait in a start pen with your skis, then they open the pen, but instead of charging forward and pushing people out of the way for a good spot, it's a rolling start: you just put on your skis and go. Works kind of really well. I put on my skis and DPed away. No broken poles. (Well, not there, plenty later.) No jockeying for position. Just go.

Of course, the course starts with a herring bone uphill pretty quickly so backs up pretty completely. There was a good deal of this in the first 30k or so; any time there was a hill it was pretty narrow and two (or in some cases, one) row of people DPing; the trail is generally quite narrow (and all on manmade snow; it started snowing in the afternoon. Tracks gone and sugary. But it's the experience, right?

Good kick and pretty good glide up to the turnaround point at 20k, which was mostly gradually uphill, a few little downhills and no crashes or anything too crazy. Going through the towns, as advertised, was great, as was going along the river which flows off the mountains. From there, it was all mostly downhill. A few interspersed uphills, some of them quite steep. My skis, however, also went downhill. It warmed up a bit and my good kick wound up being quite draggy. Yes, my arms were tired. But I was being passed in a tuck on every downhill. The New England skier I'd seen passed me by, and I didn't make any progress catching up to Bob Burnham. Of course, I hadn't waxed my skis, and had probably waxed the kick too long, but I figured that it would wear off after 20 or 30k. It didn't.

So I was huffing and puffing and pushing and kept having to convince myself I wasn't really racing anyway and to stop trying to catch people and burn matches and injure myself, since it was a 70k race. I ate two gels and drank some water, successfully, but not really at full tilt. Of course, any hill I could go fast enough to drink without losing speed was scraped down and I wouldn't want to try. But two goos were good.

Down the hill we went. I got a cheer from one of the skiers I've been staying with from across the river (no idea who), a cheer from an American saying "CSU Boston" (I had no idea who) and passed the start area (40k down, 30k to go) and then on towards the stadium (57k down, 13k to go, Garmin still running) and then past the gondola up to Alpe Cermis at the foot of Cavalese.

Sidebar: Alpe Cermis is home to the Tour de Ski hillclimb, so about 4k of the Marcialonga trail is the the route from the stadium to the hillclimb. Alpe Cermis is also home to two cable car disasters. One from a design flaw, and the other, in 1998, from a showboating US Navy pilot who buzzed the valley and sliced through the cable. Really. Look it up. It's horrible.

Anyway, started seeing skiers going the other way so not far to the turnaround. Seems like they put us through some extra skiing just for the heck of it. Turned around and went up the river, crossed it, and then faced the climb in to Cavalese. I'd been told to take the klister, and there wasn't much of a line, so I took my skis off and got in line. Which was perfect: it was just enough time to eat the chocolate they'd given me at the feed and to drink down the rest of my water bottle (the feeds were generally hot, but my water bottle was cold; it was +2 and I did not need warmth). The guys took my skis, ran them over the klister machine, and then put them at my feet to put them back on. Perfect!

And off I went. I had great kick—klister will do that, and seemed to be the only one with fresh legs. I passed a lot of people. People I hadn't seen in 20k. I probably reeled in 100 skiers on the climb, which is about 175m over 2k. Not really sure why everyone else was going so slowly, maybe they'd been able to push harder (yes, arm strength would help in this race a lot). Anyone trying to double-pole the climb did not look happy, and anyone who hadn't take the klister feed also didn't look happy. But I charged by them all.

Finished, got a medal, and immediately ran in to the New England guy and Bob Burnham. So a CSU photo was taken. Then drop bag, and dry top and socks and shoes. Then it was time for Operation Get Ari to Venice to commence!

The first part of Operation GAV is loggable. Word on the street was to just walk back to the apartment, rather than waiting for a bus, so I did. Actually, my legs felt decent enough there was some jogging taking place. I jogged by a woman also walking with skis and she spoke unaccented English and hadn't skied the race and it turns out she's Garrott Kuzzy's wife and lives in Austria and he was the one yelling about CSU and maybe took a picture of me skiing (he runs Euro race tours, which seems to be a big business). Got to the apartment, showered, uploaded to Strava, scraped klister, had a glass of wine (because a) there was no beer and b) Italy), packed my bags and ran down to the bus.

Plenty of time there to decipher the Italian/German (bilingual area) bus schedule, and my bus did come. I'd given myself an extra hour in case the next bus was late as I had a close connection. (It turns out that a) the next bus would have given me 5 minutes, so it would have been close with ticket purchase and b) dinner was delayed an hour.) Had an hour to kill at a lonely train station, figured out my itinerary which included a 9 minute connection in Verona, then bought two tickets because I think TrenItalia won't allow that close a connection (the Swiss would …). To get to Venice by 8 I bought a ticket on a fancy train rather than a local one for 20 Euro, which of course once I found out that my dinner was an hour later I hadn't needed to but there's (some) wifi on the train. Off to Venice!

8 hour "taper" week. 70k CL tomorrow.

The serious masters I am staying with are taking their waxing seriously. I have been hydrating. Put some wax on, a combination of some Toko base klister corked in with Rode multigrade, which should be good for the first hills at least. Then a lot of double-poling. It might hurt a lot by tomorrow around noon.

Then run back to the house, shower, pack, 2:00 bus, 8:00 dinner in Venice, and a week of recovery. And maybe some morning orienteering—have to find a printer! (And a compass, whoops, I think I'll do without.)

Down to Lago di Tesero for the last ski. Today the gentlemen wanted to go 30m, but wound up being more like 50, which is about what I wanted. I toured the stadium and courses pretending I was in the World Cup (not at all, actually) and then went down the trail about 3k and back. Trail is pretty nice, varied, and at 57k I will be tired.

Some teams out testing wax, with two skiers in parallel tracks holding each other's poles to match speeds. The problem was there were only two tracks, and a lot of other skiers out. So if you were coming up they expected you to get out of the tracks. Someone in front of me played chicken and made the wax tester jump out of the track, and was sworn at in Italian/German/Norwegian/whatever.

Was kicking on Rode Multigrade I bought yesterday. I'll probably start with that because it's easy, and figure it will mostly come off once I start downhill. So I'll be DPing these hills tomorrow.

It's going to be … fun?

A bit early, so a quick ski north of the stadium. Race goes through the stadium, which is kind of cool. Then it goes down, and then up a hill in to town.

The older guys I am traveling with are odd ducks.

First we had to meet someone somewhere, so we weren't skiing until afternoon. Then we skipped lunch. I should have put up more of a stink, but it would have taken too long to stop back at the apartment (which is true, they don't move in particularly straight lines). So I went out a bit bonky. (There was only one Commons-esque "you're too thin that's why you're hungry" comment. Although on a Common scale it was about a 1.5.)

Started around 1, and I heard "let's meet back at 2:30." Great, 80 minutes or so once all is said and done. Skiing at the same place, same great views, good snow, although it's a shame there was such a windstorm and most of the trails are covered in blowdowns (entire valleys are blown down). But perfectly good to ski for an hour or so.

Finished around 14:30. Didn't see anyone. Went looking. Realized maybe I'd misheard: 15:30. Not sure why we're skiing 150 mintues two days before a 70k, but then again these guys do as many marathons as they can, so they're not trying to go fast. I went and got a panini.

After the panini, I was chilly, so I went back out to ski for a few minutes to warm up.

Once done, I was very hungry, and ate a lot of food. This might actually be a decent trick a few days out: make yourself hungry and then carboload. Although I think we tried that in 2008 for the Birkie (no carbs until three days before the race) and it was dumb. But I ate a lot of food, so that's good.

Travelogue to Italy …

Red-Green-Blue to Airport Station, then walked to the terminal. Zero line to check bags, or TSA. Empty seat on the flight to MUC.

S8 MUC to Munchen Hauptbahnhof (but paid an S-Bahn fare when it would have been included in my next ticket, also the S-Bahn was 4 minutes late, a travesty) then train through Austria and the Alps to Italy. Nice ride, lovely scenery. Lots of snow in Austria!

9 minutes to make a transfer to a local train in Bolzano. Ticket machine wouldn't sell me a ticket, long line at the person, went to a different office and got a ticket just in time for the transfer, and then the train left 10 minutes late. Which meant I had basically no time to get to the bus to Cavalese, also they didn't take the app, and I had no Euros, but some guy talked me on. Then the bus drove up a road built into a cliff.

Ate dinner. Went to sleep at 8 p.m. Slept 10+ hours. Drove up through the forest, half of which was blown down, to the ski place. Cold, hard tracks. Kicked on whatever was on my skis. Warmed up.

They guys I am staying with are crazy. They travel around Europe doing all the ski marathons, and every race they can find in between. So of course they were doing a local race on a Thursday, why not? I was a little jetlagged, dehydrated and it was starting at the equivalent of 3:30 (so only an hour off the WOahMAN) and I lined up way too far back but wound up feeling okay. Kick wasn't great, but I didn't really try waxing, and I pushed my way through the crowd after a while to ski with a couple of small packs. Course was apparently loops because of all the blowdowns, but was nice, three laps and about 16k. Winners were in 41, I was in 57, but they probably hadn't come from 6 time zones away and 2000 meters lower 24 hours before, so that's something.

Did a cool down, which was mostly to take pictures of the Dolomites and Alps and … I may not come home.

C • Italy 1

This is what SGB is up to these days?

https://sgbonline.com/

Crazy week upcoming …

Tues: BOS-
Weds: MUC, train-train-train-bus to Cavalese
Thu: 22k CL tune up race
Fri-Sat short ski in valley, or maybe a trail run if no snow
Sun: 70k CL Marcialonga, then bus-train-train to Venice

Then a recovery week in Venice, so probably a couple of short(er) runs depending on how things go. "Orienteering" through the streets might be fun!

On the plus side, my entry in to the NYC marathon has been accepted! $295 poorer for that, but it's the experience that counts, right?

C • Venice 2

C • NYC 2

Cold! 0 overnight (65->35 in the OH) and windy, definitely a classic day. Grooming was not everywhere, but the Wave was groomed and I hadn't skied there yet, and the classic track was perfect in the woods. Two laps, including one up the less-groomed (during the storm yesterday) up towards Whitney's. Then down, and met the machine coming up Yodel (luckily not when I was flying down). Hopefully on their way to East Pasture or something, no need to groom the Wave again. Anyway, with new groomed powder, I caught some significant air down the Yodel. 0˚ the whole time, I was dressed well but pretty cold by the end. Drive home was long.

Lots of snow! Slept in, then stoked the fire, then shoveled the porch. Harvard had dug out my car (thanks) so I was able to pull right out on to a snowy 16 and up to Pinkham. Skinned up Tux and came down the Sherbie, quite nice in a foot of powder if getting a bit tracked out. No one else to play with (that I knew) and I passed a lot of people on the way out. Snowing pretty well, a tiny bit of SNPL near the bottom. No issues until I hit a snow hole in the Cutler River bridge at the bottom. Curse words were said. Knee seems okay.

In Pinkham (which someone declared "smelled righteous") there was a group taking an avy class with Mark Synnott and I listened in to a lot of advice (don't be stupid) and that they'd gone up to Gulf of Slides along with a lot of other people. Figured I'd check that out.

Well, everyone else had gone up in the morning. Apparently early in a storm the snow can be pretty stable. I wasn't going down any slide, though. Just to the top of the trail at the first slide, then back. Trail is narrower and steeper than the Sherbie, but I made it down in one piece.

Out for a long ski … half the distance of the Marcialonga (but hillier). Not a super-early start, so three hours was enough (and I hadn't brought snacks, and the snow started part way through so my wax wasn't as good).

Out Hall, over Maple, down Keeney (whee!) out Ellis to the north end, up North Hall, which had been groomed once and needed more snow; nothing showing but super bumpy, really only skiable counter-clockwise, then down Hall and home.

The top of Ellis is just about the grade of the Marcialonga. Really nice ski.

Run to get bike tube.

Decided not to go up for Friday Night Lights, just too much crazy, plus a cold OH is, well, cold.

Turns out someone was there Friday night and it would have been a warm OH!

More ice skating in the Public Garden. So very nice indeed.

Up with parents to WVV; they had a friend along and wanted somewhere you could stay warm, so Dublin was out. But someone else driving, so I could do work in the back seat (and not just check weather models).

Started in town with most of the north end groomed but the trail up was super scratchy with hardpack with a dusting on top; terrible for kick. So I strugglefested up to the North End which had been PB groomed and ooh, nice hard track. I wound up leaving my classic boots at home so kicked in the skate boots, which was suboptimal (the new Salomon classic boots are comfy) but great kick. Kicked all the way up Livermore, then down Beanbender, which hadn't been groomed today but was fun. Had to yell at a couple of walkers to get out of my way but I hope I impressed them with my 210cm classic ski skillz.

Then back up Lower Snows, also older track, and then down in a fast fun track and back in for lunch. Also someone else made lunch. Also tickets were 2-for-1 and my dad paid. Yay!

Afternoon ski was up the North End. Took my skis for the hardpack new skate lanes up Tripoli. Nice trip up, not too hard, then a fun trip down. Snow a little dirty from blowdowns but ready for The Storm, which Waterville is primed to get. Everything will be open for next week and some time thereafter.

Skating in the Public Garden. Just beautiful! Family fun times; took a bit to get my legs back under me but totally worth it.

Run mid-morning, because I was not feeling stairs (knees, congestion, stomach). Nice run. Also, people were skating on the pond in the Public Garden.

Warm up before race. Untransformed manmade, which wasn't bad at all! Guns still going around over Mount Weston, so just a 1k loop, and a bike race course (not really my type of course). Harder skis felt fast on the snow (and cold powder skis still have storage wax) and I varied poles and no poles before the race. Wasn't feeling great; gastro wasn't too happy today. Temperature dropped pretty good, too.

Exactly 1 km per lap, five laps. Went out in the second row, felt pretty good, but couldn't keep up with the front group. Combination of legs still tired from the weekend (I did ski 45k and 900m on Sunday, including some L3 at Oak Hill) and stomach. Fell back pretty hard laps 2-4, pulled it together on Lap 5, passed someone, and almost caught John. Would be nice to have a climb up Mount Weston to push.

Off day, and off to the orthopedist.

Her assessment: bursitis, no long-term issues, but stretch more. So, yay, more skiing! Apparently my body isn't trying to rip itself apart, it only feels that way a couple times a day for a couple seconds each.

Also apparently my x-rays show early signs of arthritis, but that's common for people over 30. Especially people who worked in the huts.

Entry 504 for Seven Sisters out of 600.

Apparently Amy puts on a heck of a race. #YayTeamGiggles!

Oh, my, Green's was great today. Out with John and we wanted to ski to Dorchester, and it was all groomed for classic, and we did. It was basically perfect. A couple of portions over on the race course with groomer cookies where they'd groomed too fast, but amazing striding, beautiful views, and 10˚, so I was in a wool hoodie on the uphills of course (having sent my layers down to Boston with Alex, whoops).

You could run such a fun marathon at Greens …

John was singing the virtues of Oak Hill so I decided to check it out. It was a bit late but I went out to ski the 10k with the goal of hitting the S curves before dark. Conditions were good for rock skis, but I was very glad in the fading light I wasn't worried about the hopefully-mulch. Great trail—maybe the best 10k in the country—and I had light for the S curves. Enough, in fact, to strap on the headlamp and hit the 5k as well. Overall this made for a good day of skiing!

C • Best 10k in the country 1

Loop of the Bogburn to test out wax. Pretty much perfect, lots of powder, great kick, and a beautiful cold day. Not going hard, wearing the puffy.

Quick day out to go retest the wax.

Bogburn! Race is so fun.

Went out as the first M123 after the women. Elissa, Alex and Jess were out 1-2 minutes in front of me, but there were three slower women behind them. I hit redline up the first hill, then had to pass the women on the steep hills. Joel passed me about 1km in, right before I was about to pass the third of these women, so he passed me and then passed her on a corner and she fell, and I went around. This corner was the only rock place. Should have had a shoveler. Anyway, next year, put the women after the men, or put a few ghosts in between.

Got passed by #60 pretty fast (winner Eli Enman, after getting a pole push from him) and a couple others; passed Alex and Jess and by the second lap I was catching up with Elissa (and catching some other people, some of whom were better at getting out of the way than others). Then on the long downhill I was catching up on a CSUer, caught an edge, and went down (my fault, he was well ahead). Would have been fine crashing off in to a bunch of powder but I also raked a branch across my face and split my lip open and was spitting blood the rest of the race, so may have lost some time the rest of the way with that. But the cold cauterized it pretty well.

Finished 30s behind Frank, ahead of Rob and John. So that's … something?

Cool down with Jess and Anna. Very cool. Cold. But lovely skiing.

Midday to Weston after dropping winter tires in Melrose again squeezing things in between things. Some no pole, some DP, some skating. At least there's snow being made!

Was going to go to Dublin, but woke up late and feeling sick-ish. Didn't want to have to deal with traffic, so figured I'd go to Weston after my call. Call went late. Went for a run.

Front bike tire flat; patch job isn't holding after two weeks. Time for a tube, I guess. Found this out at 6:18, so after Hubwaying I was a few minutes late to the stadium, but got the workout (three periods, like hockey) and ran stairs. Knee felt okay, tried to stretch it, didn't go too hard (not a lot of hard downs). At the end, as they counted down from 10, I yelled "DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? YES!"

No bike, slow run home.

Warm up, cool down, and interstitials.

Weston for not Worlds, but pre-worlds training. We went out in groups of four (but really more like 7 or 8) and sprinted, one lap, two laps, three laps. Sort of enough room to do this. No broken equipment and the HR goes right up sprinting against people, especially with the fast, frozen snow: Weston conditions.

Then some 30-30s. Managed an hour without dying of boredom. Maybe they'll make some snow. Apparently the new pump is more reliable (good) but lower capacity (not so good).

Since there were rides to be found, back to Waterville! Hit snow on the way in, and it snowed at a pretty good clip at times. Classic wax, as was communicated to juniors, was anyone's guess. I skated after yesterday's striding. Skied up Livermore, then down with Andy and John. We were going to go out for another lap but their wax was icing something awful in the snow, so they had to go rewax, which maybe helped a little? I did not envy them. Got a little chilled helping juniors rewax at the top, as it was snowing and blustery. But, snow!

Skied up the Pipeline trail to the piner base since I'd never been up. Then down, and a shortcut through the woods. Ski-O, sort of, except with less grooming and more trees.

Up to Waterville for actual skiing. And it was really quite good! Skied from the center of town up to the north end, and right on to Tripoli. Well first out Osceola. I was one wax grade colder than I should have been, but Rode -1 to -5 high humidity was working okay if I waxed long. Dragging, but I was out there to do striding intervals. 3x10 L3, with the last one lagging a bit but my form staying okay. Then a trip up Tripoli, and a glide to town.

Was this better than 3 laps of the Gunstock loop on sketchy conditions in the rain? Probably.

C • Gunstock 2

3x10 L3 striding.

Out to Weston, because I wanted to double pole. I should have rollerskied. Really.

I won't say anything more to keep my log PG.

Out on a run to test the legs and lungs. On the legs front, the patellar pain seems to have moved off to the side a bit. Hey I know what that is, it's IT band! This is good, because I know how to deal with that. The prescription is stretching and less activity. So a lot of double poling? That should get me set for the Marcialonga. Will skip stadiums and hills for a bit. It's pretty mild, so it will probably die off pretty some with some R&R, and skiing, not running.

On the lungs front, I got a cold in the car (probably) or from a junior or whatever, but it seemed to be a cough cold, so I haven't been super-congested. Luckily I've been able to sleep a lot, and have been drinking cough syrup (but not the extra strength cold and flu knock you on your ass syrup) but it still says NyQuil with a giant fucking Q and has alcohol in it so it counts and is Denis Leary- and Lewis Black-approved.

Starting the new year off well with a cold. (Getting work done, and trying to stretch out my knee, while guzzling NyQuil.)