Training Log Archive: Ari-o

GAH, so, now on the Wednesday of SkiO WC I now have a can't-miss meeting. If somehow it gets scheduled for later in the afternoon and I can get the first start time, I have a chance of skiing the middle, driving 4 hours south, showering, changing in to a suit, and making it on time.

C • Ugh 2

Went out for a run a few minutes later than I'd wanted, since I was driving a car full of classmates to our professor's house for Chinese New Year. So I had to run my loop fast. Warmed up, then hit my stride for 2 miles along the river at L3. Felt good, and got home pretty fast, too. Now Strava isn't talking to Garmin, so I can't look at my HRM.

Then I drove the kids to Newton without Google Maps and they were duly impressed. One of them is running Boston! Little did I know …

The fast part of the run.

Easy stadiums. Still got 40 sections in. There was something about valentines I missed, but that's okay.

Trying to get out early, got a call from the vice chair of the state house transportation committee, so I took that, I guess. Call went a bit long but still got close to 30 minutes of warm up, with a couple of speeds.

Race out! Guy in a Loppet suit went out real fast, and we were all racing for second. My skis—new Salomons—were fast where it was hard but super slow in the new snow. And I think my legs were tired from the intervals on Saturday. I fell off the pack, got passed by Mark, caught back up with Mark, tried to catch Steven, didn't quite catch him, and took Mark in the sprint, barely. Haven't done a full on sprint like that in a while. Hit 170 on the hrm.

Went out after the race to forerun for the second race. Free pass to yell at people, woo! I yelled at one woman who was skiing the wrong way on the course and some other people who were no-poling to get out of the way. Taking it seriously, and they seemed to clear off. Then I ate sweet potatoes.

After skiing for about an hour, lots no poles, I found a hill off the Eagle Fields and skied up to the top of it to a certain tree, then went down and did it again. A good interval hill, even if my HR didn't get quite as high as I would have liked since it was relatively short and had two little downhills (but still an A climb).

Splits:

327
324
319
321 (some skier traffic)
327
328 (last two it started raining, so I'm not sure I was getting slower, but I think I was)

Skied all the groomed trails of Jackson, several more than once. It didn't get cold overnight so they didn't groom any of the Hall/Keeney/Ellis/Kellogg, where I'd wanted to do a nice loop. They said it wouldn't have groomed well.

Except the grooming elsewhere was amazing. It was 2' of powder with a little rain on the top. Groom that out and you get the retained cold from underneath to set it up really well. Heck, even the classic track looked kickable. The skate lanes were fantastic. But after last night, I wouldn't have wanted to ski much across the road. Kind of too bad Jackson is this judicious with their grooming. Might be a money thing (they don't have Craftsbury funds) but also might just be a grooming thing. And, yeah, it's a close call when it's warm, but when you have so much cold snow below, it will groom well and set up well.

On the plus side, there's a ton of snow up north right now.

Skimo day with Lincoln, Jess, Lindsay and Ben.

They are all good at skiing. We skinned up, lots of powder and a steady, light snow. Got to the summit and Ben showed us a way down. A chute I had very little interest in "sending" so I let them go and then skittered down, until it opened in to very lovely glades.

So we went up again. Went down a different "entrance" which was a little easier. We got to a lip, Ben went down, then Lindsay, so Ben could take a photo of her skiing. She made some nice turns, and then fell in a deep cache of powder. We figured it was a yard sale and she'd pop up, but she didn't We skied down. She couldn't move her leg.

She was repositioned and the leg splinted mostly by Ben. A couple other skiers came by to help. Two hiked down to get a makeshift sled to make out of skis. We got her down to the skin track, basically dragging her down the mountain on one of my skis (I sat on the other down the hill). Then we skinned up and dragged her down a couple of miles to the road, four hours after the break. She's off to Maine Med, doing okay. But ski season is done for her. Total bummer, but she was an amazing sport and it's a sober reminder of what can happen.

tl;dr, I'm not going AT skiing until after the Birkie (and probably ski-o).

After Lindsay was dispatched with Ben for Maine Med, Lindsay, Lincoln and I went to Gorham to get some soup. They were headed back with Lin's rental car to Maine, but I was staying in the valley, so I decided to go ski. Headed to Rocky Branch to ski North Hall. As I got there, a guy was getting out of his car. I asked how the skiing was and he went off. "It's terrible. It's horrible. It's not groomed, it sucks. Worst skiing I've seen here in 20 years."

That didn't sound heartening. So I figured I'd have a short, frustrating ski in piles of knee-deep slush from the day's rain and drizzle. So I left behind a spare headlamp battery and a drink belt and skied out.

And, dude guy was wrong. It was a little slow, yes, and there was 3" of snow fallen during the day, sure, but it was by no means bad. The only issue was down the Keeney where someone had snowplowed a 4' wide track of ice (*) with pretty rough berms and the other option was 4" of powder over the tracks on the side but by mixing the two I was able to stay in control. Similar thing up the Kellogg, but that was just good awkward-skate training, although by that time I was pretty pooped. Then food, fire, bed.

* [rant] A quick word about how they teach people to go downhills with the be-all and end-all to snowplow at all costs. It just effs up the trail. A lot of these people are downhill skiers, but no one ever makes an effort to teach them how to ski downhill on little downhill skis without edges. Cross country doesn't have to be solely about going up hills, but we seem to think that no one learning to go down a hill should learn how to do it stepping or parallel turning, but that "ski in control" should only mean "ski slow and screw up the trail." Downhills are fun! You just have to know how to do them. [/rant]

So. There's been a ski mountaineering race series up Black Mountain this year on Friday evenings. Apparently it started out as a trial to see if people would show up, and people have. Several dozen tonight. Drove up in time to hit the race from Boston, quick change and I was on the line ready to go. Lincoln skinned my skis, which was helpful. Race was straight up Black Mountain, following some groomers, some skin tracks, and a boot pack up the lift line.

I went out hard, right towards L4, but don't have the lightweight equipment to keep up. Being 20 minutes out of the car doesn't help. Tons of powder, great skiing. Jess passed me at some point, the bootpack was dificil, and I was relieved to get to the top. Lindsay and several others pass in the transition, but damnit, I was going to be warm on the way down. Pro Ben shows up and I leave just before him, and the first pitch is down an ungroomed double-black. I try to make a turn and eat shit, right in front of Pro Ben, then get up and gingerly turn down another double black before hitting a green cruiser and going in to nordie tuck and was able to really crouch down and then realized that I shouldn't have been able to tuck and oh right, my boots were not in downhill mode. No wonder I took a digger.

So then transitioned again, went up the hill, had a couple times my boot popped out of the binding and once when the binding back engaged, so I lost a little time. But had fun, and ate food and drank beer.

Wheee downhill!