Ski 40:00 [2] 4.5 mi (8:53 / mi) +306m 7:20 / mi
OH MY GOD it was so worth waking up at 7 (but really 6) to go to Windblown. I was the first one on the freshly-groomed snow which was either transformed and fast ice or, in places, powder. I self-embargoed myself to the mountain after Aims told me to ignore the controls I saw (no way I wasn't skiing) and had a very awesome 40 minutes of skiing up and down hills before the Ski-O race. I made my dad do Ski-O too. And I bought a map-holder from Larry and Sara Mae. Nice to live down the street from them (although I picked it up at Windblown). Ooh, new toy!
Ski-O race 42:00 [4] ** 5.0 mi (8:24 / mi) +200m 7:28 / mi
Ugh, forgot to start my clock until about a mile in to the race, so no full track. I know Windblown's trails pretty well but the snow was great for Ski-O and deep, and the narrow trails were sketchy and deep and narrow, although much of the course was on the wide.
Skied 1-3 pretty easy, starting my phone just before 3. 3-4 looked like a nice go down the narrow trail then go through the deep sort of crust but maybe powder snow, except the downhill on the narrow hadn't been dragged but was just a straight snowmobile track and there was NO WAY TO STOP. I yardsaled and picked my way down and through the woods once I stopped, and pretty well spiked 4. 4-5 was an easy off-trail. (Aims said that when he hung the controls on Thursday, there was good crust everywhere. Then it snowed 18".)
5-6 was easy, but I shot down a narrow trail to 7 and overran the control, and yanked it off the tree where it was perched (punch controls) so that cost a few seconds. I went on trail to 8 and then decided not to try to go through deep snow uphill but take a longer, on-trail route to 9, since the first half was fast down a hill and then up the Open Slope which was good skating. No idea if that was a good idea. 9-10-11 I stayed on the trails, and then 12-13 was pretty easy. 13-14 was awkward skate up a narrow trail (I started calling narrow trails "awkwards") and I stayed on big trails rather than careen down the awkwards and shoot across beginner trails blindly on a busy day (also I would have crashed lots. 17 was in the wrong place, but apparently that was the same for everyone, except Aims who insisted it was in the right place. 42:15, which might have won but I didn't stay around long enough for everyone to come in.
No big mistakes this time, no getting cutesy and losing lots of time (this is my second Ski-O this year, both at Windblown). Lots of fun, and I felt like I went hard. Even though I don't really care since it's March.
Oh there are no results, so no way to know if I won or not. Last time I lost by 15 secs, but last time I made about 6 really dumb mistakes. Still can't find results but apparently I won. Success?
Ski-O 22:00 [1] 2.5 mi (8:48 / mi) +80m 8:00 / mi
My dad was on a short course and I went to try to find him. It seemed like Harry Potter marauders map O, since I had to guess his route choice in the other direction. Oh and he'd never done O before. I must have missed him at some point. The snow slowed down a lot and it was time to go, but I got a fun little cool down in, so that's a thing.