Training Log Archive: Ari-o

-10 but wicked sunny out and we were staying on a lake, so let's go out and ski on a lake. Lots of sled tracks but the only other people I saw out were skiers and people returning from winter camping (brr). I guess 8 am on a Sunday is when snowmachiners are all too hungover to ride. Very pleasant, until I turned in to the wind …

First Birkie warm up: a quick job to check out bus logistics (since we had a parking pass).

Second warm up, this time on skis. Then a quick change and bag pack and ready for the races!

Birkie!

Strava Track here, full write-up here. If you skied the Birkie, shoot me a race report (gmail ari.ofsevit) and I'll post it on BirkieGuide.com.

Race highlights:

Soft snow, relatively slow, good skis.
Not too cold.
Started well, but lost time in the first couple km, wasn't able to pass much on power lines.
Skied okay to Timber Trail, lost contact with group ahead but ahead of group behind with two other guys.
Skied with them for ~25k, until the group from behind caught us.
One fall, but stayed with this group, and got ahead of most of it on to the lake.
Bridge fantastic, no morning traffic, great for skiing, spectating.
154th overall.
Drank beer.

See more at BirkieGuide.com!

Nice, slow warm up on and around the Birkie Trail. 3" of new powder to ski in!

Travel and recovery and tapering, and squeezing a week of work in to three days. Did some snow shoveling this morning and went on a 5 minute lunch jog along the river. Then off to Birkie! No cold this year yet (touch wood), prepped skis (blue wax!), and no blizzard to fly in to in Birkieland. Then I have to start running, which will be interested given the four feet of snow on the ground here.

Guys there is so much snow in Boston. The 4' high fence in our back yard is darned near buried, nothing has melted, and the snow piles are ridiculous. My car is properly buried and will not be making an appearance until the after the Birkie at the earliest. It helps that the roads are such a mess that getting to the highways is basically impossible. I'll be on the barely-functioning T, so, hooray?

A few minutes of warm up and cool down.

Worlds. Tempo taper worlds the week before the Birkie. I went out with the lead pack but dropped off pretty quickly; didn't want to break myself. Fell through the second pack and in to the third, nice easy skiing. On the last lap I started pushing V2 on the uphills and passed everyone, and cruised in going fast, but not the usual all-out worlds. Very nice skiing on the tons of soft snow; might be the last powder race before some ice comes out.

After I went off piste down a bunker or something, it was thigh deep.