Training Log Archive: xc-racer5

I love the Far East. Dad told me it had been groomed yesterday, so I had to get out skiing today. Turns out they groomed it again this morning, which was an added bonus. Conditions at Larch Hills are absolutely amazing, the snow is quite cold and really fast, especially in the shade lower down. The snow was a little slower up higher, but maybe there's just more sun there. My route was the shortest way of getting to the Far East, so up the road to Larch Lake loop, out to the first of the Whoopees, down that and then onto the far east itself. My turns going down the first part felt decidedly sketchy, I wasn't sure if I was going to catch an edge and faceplant, but I did stay on my feet, and quickly remembered how to turn on skis. Felt really tired as I started going up the hill, I think I was probably working too hard going up the road (I did make it to the junction with Larch Lake loop in only 21 minutes), so I slowed down, ate some snow and kept going. The snow temperature was very cold, it was almost cold enough is some places to become squeaky snow, but the air, especially in the sun was very warm, I almost took my jacket off. Even going slower, I still made it to the top in under an hour, which is probably much faster than I should be going for an easy ski, but I wasn't working insanely hard, so I think its fine. It was gorgeously sunny at the top, and the views were amazing. The Far East is by far my favorite trail to ski. Going back down was great fun, whoever was grooming wasn't very good at keeping the tracks straight, so they were quite wobbly in places, but it was fun. I only hit 47kph on the way down, which was slower than I hoped, but it was sunny so I guess the snow was better. Also, slower snow meant less danger of not making it around the corner at the junction with Moonwalk and hitting the fence there. After hitting the bottom came the grind back up and out to the whoopees, the only part of the Far East that I don't like, but it didn't feel too long today. I then followed the whoopees over to panorama, down panorama, then I ducked out to the road and just followed the road down to the chalet. Altogether a very nice ski, it was just slightly unfortunate that I decided to go over lunchtime, I didn't bring enough food with me.

Disc golf 1.5hours
definitely not exercise, but kinda like ping pong, it feels like it should be noted. Went with Frankie and Ash and some random guy that Frankie brought back with him for reading week. Very cold and snowy, my feet were soaked and frozen by the end, and my hands weren't exactly warm either. Still fun though. Also, went right after I got back from skiing, so I didn't get very much lunch, despite being hungry after skiing. Oh well.

Not playing great today, but it was still fun. Had a couple of fun games, but I just felt slow and like I wasn't making good shot choices.

Interval training started today!
Warm-up - 2km easy
Fast km #1 - 3:30
walking/slow jogging 1km
Fast km #2 - 3:35
walking/slow jogging 1km
Fast km #3 - 3:45
cool-down - 600m (back to dorm)

Started out trying to run slow-ish for the warmup (2km in 13:05 isn't slow, but I also don't believe my wrist based heart rate sensor, so I'm gonna pretend it was easy). Went out to the greenhouse and then onto the quail ridge trails from there. At the 2km mark, I started running hard, probably too hard, I felt like I was slowing down towards the end of the km. Was initially slightly disappointed in how much pain I was in for running a 3:30km, but then I thought about it, and it isn't actually too bad, considering the trail was icy in spots, I haven't exactly done very much training recently and according to my watch, the fastest I've ever run a kilometer is 3:09, and that was on a track. Also, my gps track was more accurate today than at sprint camp, but it still seems to be struggling more than it should be on corners, I've now restarted my watch, we'll see if that makes any difference. My rest between hard kms was also 1km of distance, because I didn't feel like trying to set up an interval set on my watch, and this way my watch buzzes at me when I'm done. Interval #2 started pretty much right at the junction of the two quail ridge trails. This interval was even icier than the first, but I only slowed down by 5s, which is much less than I was expecting. The second rest km was very cold, that's about all I can say about it. The last interval was slightly uphill, and only 15s slower than the first one, which was dead flat, so overall, I feel like I was pretty consistent on my km times. Now we just have to see if they get any better over the next few months. Also, it was very cold out, for some reason I decided to were a t-shirt and shorts, so I got very cold. By the time I got back, my hands and arms were nearly frozen, and were still exuding cold after 15min in a hot shower. It was so sunny earlier in the day that I thought I would be about the right temperature, especially since I was running intervals, but apparently I was wrong.

First set of solo intervals ever down, just have to make sure I keep doing intervals so I get faster. Hopefully I'll be able to (and remember to) run another set of 1km repeats in a month or two to see if I'm getting any faster
(I probably won't be, but at least I'll know).

As a random side note, it is very interesting to see the difference in stride length between the slow and fast kms, my watch tells me that during the slow kilometers, my average stride length was hovering a little bit below 1m (~.85m), with a cadence of around ~140 steps/minute, while during the fast kms, my average stride length was hovering around 1.6m, with a cadence of 180. I've just never looked at that data before, so I thought it was quite interesting.

One more final note, to get a sense of how cold I was, my watch also has a temperature sensor in it, and garmin connect gives me an average temp for each km. Today, it started at 20°, during my first km, and then dropped to 16° for the second km, and then dropped a steady 2°/km until it got down to 8°, where it stayed for the last 2km. Keep in mind that this is the temperature right next to my wrist, I'm pretty sure that the sensor is on the underside of the watch (but I'm not completely sure) which means that the outside of my arms were down to a chilly 8° by the time I got back inside. No wonder I could barely move my fingers. For comparison, during the Reino, my watch's temp bottomed out at 15°, when I ran up mount Ida at the beginning of the year, it never went below 19°, and looking back at some ski races from last year, when my watch was probably exposed, it never got below 16°, except during the sprint in Thunder Bay in -10 where I was only wearing one layer, when it got down to 12° (it was still dropping fast, but the sprint was short).

Both notes were really just me looking at random data from garmin that I've never looked at :)

Ping pong- around half an hour with Jack and Eli. Doesn't feel like it was intense enough to put down as training, but it was still movement. Hadn't played any ping-pong for around a month, was missing the table a lot more than usual, and not moving very fast, but it was fun to play.

Nice relatively easy evening run. Didn't want to get started, but figured two rest days after sprint camp was enough and I should at least do something. Started out going across the bridge to academy hill, and then went around the fence and onto the trail just below the school fields. Followed that trail along until I hit the useless gate next to a big hole in the fence. I then followed the trail which ends up between the two hills in there. I heard a coyote howling right around the gate, which was cool, but also vaguely unnerving, since I was running on my own. Later on, I think I also heard an owl hooting, but otherwise there was no noise but my feet. I then continued up past some fence, then I turned right following the fence, and accidentally came across the back of somebody car graveyard, which was creepy in the dark when my headlight suddenly hit the reflective hits on the back of a schoolbus when I thought I was in the middle of some farmers field. There didn't seem to be a way to get past the cars without hopping a fence, so I just followed the edge of the fence back until I hit a trail. I then wound my back to the university mostly staying on trails. I need to start doing some intervals at some point, but tonight I really didn't want to force myself to run intervals, so I didn't.