Saturday Feb 2 |
 | X-C Skiing race (Royal Gorge CA) 1:40:01 [4]20.3 km (4:56 / km) | |
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| Snow falling all day, but well groomed in the morning. Course had a few tricky leg choices, but mainly just lots of skiing. Didn't see one trail buried on the map under a power line, and doubled back out of my way for an extra 2-3 minutes. Mostly a good run; hit the wax dead on using MB77 under HF7 with FC8 on top. Had lively skis going up the hills for the first time this week. That plus getting used to 7k altitude helps. |
| X-C Skiing warm up/down 1:00:00 [3]6.8 km (8:49 / km) | |
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| Some warm up, but mostly control pickup in the afternoon. Again, Royal Gorge didn't bother grooming after lunch, so the rapidly falling snow built up pretty deep. It was 4-5" of heavy stuff by the time we were done. We've got a forecast of maybe a couple feet tonight, so will be interesting to see how Auburn Ski club handles it for tomorrow. They're well attuned to racing and I expect they'll do a good job. Fortunately the area is compact and the courses will fold on top of one another. We expect two map exchanges on this one. |
Friday Feb 1 |
| X-C Skiing (Auburn XC) 2:00:00 [3]13 km (9:14 / km) | |
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| Rest day at Auburn checking out the trail network. Legs felt really tired. |
Thursday Jan 31 |
| X-C Skiing warm up/down 10:00 [1]1 km (10:00 / km) | |
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| X-C Skiing race (Tahoe XC) 1:37:00 [4]20.7 km (4:41 / km) | |
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| Another nice racing day -- just in time as the wind and snow moved in as soon as we finished. Nice venue, rolling terrain with long moderate climbs. I was first out on blue, but the crossovers were tracked, so I didn't have to pack them like Greg did yesterday.
Wax ran better, but not superlively. Changed to HF7 with FC1 for temps in the high 20's. Didn't feel drag; just weren't really hot. Had very slight structure. Might have been more aggressive on that. Bought a Toko riller as I liked Alex's in Swz much better than my Swix and need to lean on it a bit.
Clean navigation; stayed close to Greg, but he still got me by 10 min. |
Wednesday Jan 30 |
| X-C Skiing warm up/down (Tahoe Donner) 1:15:00 [2]7 km (10:43 / km) | |
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| Packing out some crossover trails before the ski-o; warm up and then cool down picking up controls. |
| X-C Skiing race (Tahoe Donner) 1:28:00 [4]13.8 km (6:23 / km) | |
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| Blue. Several trips up and down the mountain. Bushwacking across a few trails broken by Greg. They moved one control due to avalanche hazard, but didn't change the control code on my map. Added an extra km looking for the right control before I figured out their error and climbed back up the trail to one I had passed some time earlier.
Weather beautiful -- sunny, high 20's, no wind. More snow for tomorrow, however. |
Tuesday Jan 29 |
| X-C Skiing (Royal Gorge) 1:10:00 [3]10 km (7:00 / km) | |
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| Heavy snow overnight; groomers out. But trails had several inches drifted onto them within an hour or so. Got progressively deeper until everthing had 4--5" by lunch time.
The smart people were classic skiing, but we didn't have that option. Went in with a plan to follow right behind the groomers in the PM so we good get some decent skating. |
| X-C Skiing (Royal Gorge) 1:00:00 [3]6 km (10:00 / km) | |
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| At lunch, Randy found out the groomers had quit for the day because of the continuing snowfall and high winds. Everything drifted as soon as it was groomed. Made sense for them, but kind of left us with very crappy trail conditions for the afternoon. Did one 3.5 km loop that felt like 10 km in 6" new snow, and then found a short beginner loop next to the lodge and just skied in circles for a while to pack it in.
Got a chance to practice the one-ski-double-pole-skate-hop up a snowmobile track, and that was fun, if exhausting.
Tomorrow is the first ski-o race at Tahoe Donner. This should be interesting, as the upper trails are very exposed and no doubt are buried in several feet of new snow. Hope the courses are adjusted for conditions or racers will have a difficult day. |
Monday Jan 28 |
| X-C Skiing (Tahoe Donner) 1:30:00 [3]14 km (6:26 / km) | |
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| Morning plowing thru 3" falling snow on top of 12" that was sort of packed after falling last night. Made for pretty soft conditions and a lot of work. Kept chasing after the groomer, but the new snow built up really fast. |
| X-C Skiing (Tahoe Donner) 1:00:00 [3]10 km (6:00 / km) | |
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| After lunch, more people had been out and the trails didn't punch thru as often. Found a section the Piston Bully had travelled without grooming, so we just skied his 4' tread tracks. Made for good Euro ski-o practice. Greg taught me the one-ski-double-pole-skate-hop he and Alex figured out watching the Swiss last week. Very fast and very physical on narrow trails. Will practice this some more. |
Sunday Jan 27 |
| X-C Skiing (Tahoe XC) 1:19:00 [3]15 km (5:16 / km) | |
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| In California for ski-o races later this week. Greg want to do a 30 km race today, so we headed over to Tahoe XC for the race. Last night's dump forced them to cut the race in half, and make it a loop instead of point-to-point.
I declined to enter the race, since I was not acclimatized to the altitude, had only 3 hours sleep and a case of the plague. Went out for a ski anyway, and the best thing packed was the race trail. Followed that around until it only made sense to do the whole thing. |
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| C • travel diseases 2 |
| X-C Skiing (Tahoe XC) 30:00 [3]5 km (6:00 / km) | |
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| Cool down with Greg after the race and lunch, working our way back to the car.
Lots more snow here than last year. |