Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

Woah, skiing in butter cream frosting would be just as hard, and my estimation would be that it might be more delicious.

We went skiing at Trapps and Sam and I set out up the hill to meet our friends at the Cabin. I had the beginnings of some sort of illness that was making my nose and head stuffy, plus the skiing was hard, which probably made me less than perfect company on the way up. The snow higher on the hill was nicer and it was all very pretty. We got caught by Katia and Giovanni and then skied with them a little bit until our break time.

missed some of this on the garmin, but this is close enough.

We had a goal of skiing for another hour so as to bump Sam's weekly mileage, but morale was low (even after a coconut cookie bar) as we set off down the 40 year trail with Brendan and then looped back along foxtracks to telemark. There we meant to cut over on luce to sleighride. Instead, we cut over on luce to haul road and made it most of the way to the top of the hill again before we realized that we had gone the wrong way. Our moods had lightened considerably by this point, so it turned into a fun adventure. We briefly discussed how we should lie on AP and claim that we meant to climb back up the mountain. We skiied up over oslo, then down and back to the lodge.

Skiing at Ole's after a large breakfast (especially by Ross standards that claims any breakfast is a big breakfast). Ed helped me get some new straps on my poles (this was kind of an amusing debacle really) and I used my new wax scraper (again, it's good to have ski friends like Ed and Alex) to finally scrape the wax off my skis from Switzerland.

We were all excited about the idea of the paintball biathlon so we wanted to get warmed up for the skiing. The snow was hard to skate on because each stride you sunk in a variable amount, and the track was quite rutted and uneven which was challenging for those of us with poor balance (the snow has been described as squidgy). Ali gave us some pointers but I was concentrating more on just staying upright and didn't really practice any of the poling rhythm things she was sharing until later in the weekend.

Took a long break over by the shooting range to learn how to aim the guns and to take some film footage of Alex and Ali, and Cliff and Dan. Then the bell tolled for Sam, Ed and I and we took off around the field loop. I wish that skiing was a sport where putting more energy in resulted in more speed out the other side. I hit the backboard on the shooting range all 5 times which I consider a win ( I think they even marked one of them as hitting the plate). Sam was much better at both skiing and shooting, but she wasn't as fast, I managed to edge her by 5 seconds in the adjusted total scoring!

We also watched Eric and Brendan on the course. Brendan was the only one to hit all five targets, so woot woot CSU.

Then we went out to ski on some of the other trails, catching up with Katia and Giovanni and generally working hard.

After a lunch break and awards ceremony we went back out to ski some more. The tracks were much nicer and had firmed up a bit. We did some great loops and I was having a really fun time skiing. Sam was probably getting sick of my singing the lyrics to the Sound of Music, but Ali referred to the loop #4 trail as "the sound of music loop" so it was stuck in my head.

I was still energetic and wanted another shot at the field loop, so Giovanni and I raced around the field one more time. I had a little bit better form and a little bit better snow. A nice way to end the ski day.

Then it was home for banana grams, and a large dinner. good times.

Boo hiss. I choose the one moment of the morning with the worst downpour to run to work. The rain soaked into my coat pocket and managed to assassinate my iTouch. The rain also infiltrated my garmin and left a big puddle in my display screen. so, in the words of my big sister, and as I have already said once before, boo hiss.

legs feel good though. The track workout was good for resetting everything.

From the lab to the grocery store where I picked up stuff for a pre-drive salad and stuff to make a large dinner up in VT. waddled home with too many grocery bags, then held everyone else up by still needing to pack :)

Played breakfast combo on the drive up. Alex and Sam guessed my word in 2 tries, but I got Ed's platypus equally fast.

Legs still a bit tired I guess. Got to work and found that, of my 10 male mice set into breeding pairs with 2 females each, none of the 20 females were successfully mated with. That's just lazy. Next week I'm going to set them up with another 20 ladies, which just feels like rewarding sloth.

C • weird 11

Heading to the track for CSU running practice. Feeling sleepy.

After warm up and strides did 800-1200-1000-800-600-400-300-200. SGB was there, which was exciting, and he was running way fast which was motivating. I was pretty happy with the workout, but I struggled through so GI distress and I think that slowed some of my times. On the bright side, my legs feel great now, after the fact, a little speed helps get the soreness out from Tuesday.

Times ( roughly) 2:27 - 3:46 - 3:09 - 2:33 - 1:54 - 73 - 52 - 29 (this was a fun all out sprint after SGB)

Stomach still fragile which turned my commute home into a bit of a plod. By the end of the commute I was feeling way way better and listening to some of my favorite songs helped the mood too (this song contributed to me skiing past the last control at the Balsam's ski-o, as listening to it just me psyched up for skiing fast all the way home). Capped off the evening chatting with mom and then dad while making some very passable risotto out of the remaining mushrooms, shallots, wine, and parmesean from the other recipes picked out for this week. I consider this day a success.

Super sleepy, hard to crawl out of bed and get the day moving. Quads sore from yesterday and that made the run in a slow affair.

Trying to pick up the pace on the way home. Sam made turkey burgers for dinner and they smelled delicious from the moment that I walked into the building. I was sorely tempted to walk right past the mailbox and head straight to the food.

To work.

I had a groupon for a pair of glasses at Perle Vision, and I looked and found one nearish to CSU training tonight. So I printed out the groupon, spent about 45 minutes looking for my latest eyeglasses prescription in the morning, changed the expiration date on that prescription with a similar looking black pen so as to not have to deal with getting an eye exam, and was ready to go. I wended my way through Cambridge to find the store and was pretty pleased to find it without too much trouble.

It took a little longer to get things sorted at the store, so I was pushing pretty hard to get to Ian's on time for the street-o. I was 5 minutes late but that's pretty much on time for CSU trainings :)

Fun Street-o with CSU tonight hosted by Ian. Giovanni, Katia, Magnus, Brendan, Lori and Presto, with SGB joining for dinner.

I started out with a poor route to the first couple but did pretty well after I got past the campus-y stuff near Harvard. I caught back up to Giovanni going up the hill at the end of the course and out sprinted him back to the apartment. A fine high speed chase for most of the course in fact, because I saw him just ahead of me at every control from 2 onwards.

Was a little cold and a little tired but I knew it would be faster to run home than to take the T, so I took at easy jog home. I think I might have gotten a full 26.2 miles in today, depending on how much of my runs happened before I finally got satellites.

To work. Warm enough over the weekend that I decided on shorts and a thin coat. Spring hasn't quite sprung, but it's lying in wait somewhere nearby ready to pounce.

After a long day of ELISA at work I was very ready to jet home. My iTouch ran out of batteries just as I was leaving so no techno to guide me home. As I was running through Cleveland Circle I came upon a race walker out training. He was quick! I started asking him question and found out that he used to race with Nike Boston and a club up in Somerville, and since he was wearing an olympic development coat I think he was a pretty good racer in his day. He still walks between 2 and 9 miles each night.