Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

First Ski of the Ski camp! Headed down the hill on my classic skis to buy ski passes for Sam, Kate, and me. At the start I was a little worried that I wasn't getting any kick, which is a big problem for me usually, but actually after about 15 minutes things got to be pretty good. Maybe the snow was a bit nicer at the bottom or maybe it was more a problem with technique than with the 2 layers of blue I had put on in the morning.

Started out with Kate doing the 10k loop around the lake. The snow was not great and drifting very quickly to fill in all the tracks, but it didn't really affect me too much. I was going a bit faster than Kate but about the same speed as Swedish couple that started the same time as us. The man would ski ahead then loop back and rejoin the woman. Whenever he came past me we would chat in either broken Swedish or fluent English for a minute before he zipped off again. At the 9k mark turned back to catch Kate again. Skiing "the wrong way" in front of Swedes is interesting. They do not like confrontation, but they also do not like seeing people do something wrong. Luckily it was only a few minutes before I rejoined Kate and the proper flow of ski traffic. After the first loop I decided to do the same track again on my own, and then marched slowly up the hill again to have lunch (premade pasta salad, thanks wife) and hang out with the crew for a few hours.

The evening ski seemed like a lot of work, and a nap was tempting. Most of the cabin went off to ski the 10k limbyspåret but I thought it might be nice to ski something flatter and longer and so I geared up with my headlamp and my techno and skied down to do the 22k loop around the northern marsh. I'd never been on any of our previous visits to Orsa, and it was really great. I was getting the hang of the skiing and the tracks were pretty nice and the calm and solitude of the moment was only broken by the fact that I was listening to incredibly loud techno. Starting to feel pretty worn out after the 18k mark on the loop, and since dinner was scheduled for 6:30, I decided that my stubbornness was going to have to give in to pragmatism, and I walked the last k up the road instead of skiing the whole way.

Dinner was moosewood vegetarian chili with beer bread and dessert was blondies. Pretty much a perfect day.