Training Log Archive: Ari-o

So I dallied this morning and walked out to the car to go to rollerski, and then to a college alumni gathering in Sudbury (15 minutes from the usual parking lot!). And I saw a control. Apparently there was a mini park-o in Dana Park two doors from my house. I figured I'd go say hi to Barb and Dave and then an Alex came running out of the basketball court. A few minutes later she was telling me to go ski or I'd miss my college alumni thing.

Drove out, saw another skier, and skied. And I felt great. Other than it being 55˚ in the middle of December and the nearest skiable snow being in Colorado, it felt great. Poles up the big climb, then down in to Harvard, whee, then down 110 (very little traffic along there) and past the Bare Hill cutoff and to Vaughn Hill.

That was a climb; made back my fast downhill times. Road is okay, pavement isn't great but narrow and the tiny bit of traffic that might come by is slow. Then I made a left at the end (sketchy on a short downhill) and then a left on to Old Harvard Road. A little nasty gravely pavement, but then it was okay.

Turns out I'd meant to go right; I wound up at Brown Road and then followed the normal long route for a while, and this added a mile. (What I had done was mainly to avoid the terrible pavement on Slough Road; mission accomplished, although this could conceivably also be done with a couple hundred meters on Route 111 to Bolton Road.) I'll check out right next time (since it ain't gonna snow by next weekend, or probably not the weekend after; I might take up drinking).

Then normal route to Borroughs Road, where the stupid crappy pavement after 111 had me go another way, to Stow Road through Boxborough. Fine except for one super sketchy slow downhill left turn which I just looked through the trees and saw a clear road, but wouldn't take a junior down that. Might be doable via Chester Road (this looks on a map like it would work); will have to check that out. Much more pleasant than that road of terrible pavement. Exact same distance.

Then kind of bonky down Middle Road to Depot to the end. Not a bad ski. Just wish it had been on snow.

I kind of feel like we need some sort of Wikimap thing for rollerskiing. Give people the ability to rate each segment of road from 0-5 (0 = death, 1 = dangerous/icky, 5 = great) by traffic/shoulder width, downhill skiability and pavement. And the ability to note spots (good place for sprints or drills, dangerous intersection) and note hills that should only be skied up (Vaughn Hill today would be deadly going down, for instance). Then people can plan their routes based on that. This might work. Or if it snows and people stop buying rollerskis from Ed, and Ed might work.

C • Craftsbury 2

Well. If that had been in October, I would have been ecstatic. However, being a December rollerski, it is tempered by the fact that this time last year was my third week on snow.

Boo.

In any case, 23 miles went by quite nicely. Rolled with Frank and Andy and two or three juniors. We did a couple of drills but mostly just threw down 4-7 minute miles. I double poled the no pole hill because my ankle didn't want to no pole, and it was just a glorious day to rollerski around in a t-shirt and shorts.

Yeah, that kind of sucks.

Then we went to buy Alex a new bike, and that to a number of minutes. Had I been a bit more with it in the morning and taken the bus I would have probably double-poled the bike path home or at least taken the 62/76 which goes right by there. But I hadn't, so I got to go to Russo's instead.

Back on the bike. It was dark, and I wanted to go fast and not have to worry about dying with cars, so it was off to the two mile stretch of the bike path with no roads. This worked very well. 6 minutes up at a threshold pace, then a cruise back downhill. Three times, and certainly getting the heart rate up, for a total of about 20 minutes of work. Less overhead than rollerskiing, and with a nice bright light, less scary than rollerskiing at night. Path looks rollerskiable even with wetness, so the DP might come out soon.

Not a good week. Ankle means I can't run. Dark means I can't do anything, because I only have time after work, maybe, to do anything. I am at least biking 10 miles a day to and from meetings.

Last night coming down Cambridge Street I sprinted up a hill, got my heart rate up for the first time in a few days and it felt friggin' great. I need to get out on the skis some morning, or go out and ride repeats on a long section of the Minuteman some evening.