Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Sugarloaf USA, with Nancy. Temperature on the way to the ski area hit a low of -17F, though it was up to around zero by the time we parked the car, and maybe slightly more than that during the day. Four runs in the morning before a break for hot chocolate.

And then five more runs with Nancy, and one final black diamond by myself. Pretty bundled up all day, though I switched to the really serious Frostline mittens for the afternoon. No wind today, so the next two days are likely to be considerably less comfortable.

Right around sunset, temp 7F when I started and it dropped a couple of degrees while I was out there. Bundled up pretty well, four layers on top, two on the bottom, fleece beanie and lobster mittens. My chin was chilly for a little bit, but not for long. I was just a tad warm a couple of times, but that beats the alternative. A couple of inches of fluffy snow over a more solid base, but most of it had been snowshoed or skied or snowmobiled already, except for the part north of te Power Line trail, which had just one set of old snowshoe tracks, so I was basicaly breaking trail there. Over all, it was invigorating.

Snow dealings, round 3d: finishing up my driveway. Half an hour or so, mostly with the snowblower. Got rid of most of the snow, and now it's a sheet of thick, solid ice. Not good, glad I have AWD now. Also blowed out the mailbox.

Snow dealings, round 3b: Nancy's driveway, maybe 4" of fluffy snow over an ice layer. We had four people, so we made reasonably short work of this. I dropped them off at the house and drove back to park at North St. Auto, then jogged to the house. Nancy and Rachel cleared off their cars, I went after the plow snow with a shovel while Stephen used the electric snowblower. Did a little scraping with the pusher on the steep part after that, and when we got Rachel's car out, I jogged back down the street to get mine.

Snow dealings, round 3c: my driveway, 3" of fluffy snow over a hard layer of ice. Stephen cleared off his car (he got the key to the Mazda for Xmas) while I blowed as much of the driveway as I was interested in doing that late at night. I didn't have to walk behind the snowblower, it could pull me along on the ice without my feet moving. I'll maybe get out and sweep it to get some black showing so that the sun can work on it, but it's going to be cold. I also had to give Stephen a push to get out because he hadn't cleared in front of his tires very well.

Snow dealings, round 3a: Nancy's parents' driveway. Used the snowblower on the main part, then Doug did the western section. The couple of inches of snow had been preceded by a bunch of freezing rain, so there was a thick layer of nasty ice underneath, and most of the exercise was chopping that stuff with a steel tool and shoveling it out of the way. There's a lot of pavement exposed to the sun now, so hopefully the snow tonight will be easier for Doug to snowblow.

My right leg was bothering me a lot on the drive up yesterday, pain just under my butt cheek, with occasional shooting pains down to my ankle or sometimes up my back. Sounds like the kind of stuff that Peter, Charlie, and Phil complain about, so I'm guessing it's POOMS (Premature Onset Old Man Syndrome).

C • POOMS 4