Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Yesterday the snow was fast, and today someone had sprinkled slow dust on the snow so the snow was....slow. Of course it was slow--I just explained slow dust had been sprinkled! Or maybe it was just colder, and maybe some new sharp pointed crystals precipitated out of the fog banks that formed overnight. No big deal to me--the sun was out, it was beautiful, and I was skiing.

Of course, while I was skiing, I was on guard as always (on the weekends) for possible trail ambushes by the notorious racer X8A7. But I never caught sight of the elusive skier from Greeley, CO (which some people call Cowtown instead, but you will never catch me doing such an unhorsey thing.)

Followed by some apres' sunset running on snow trails. Fantastic night skies tonight!

C • Slow dust 3

At last, another stint of yowsa! was indicated, and performed. I enhanced my performance by running "Revolution" (the single version) through my head, which led to some surprisingly frenetic yowsa! action. In almost no time at all, the sidewalks were clear once again.

New snow at last, breaking the Drought of the First (nearly) Two Weeks of December 1015, a snow drought that probably will not go down in history. The trails were rolled by the time I went up, and skiing was quite nice with the new snow. I know elite ski racers probably love it when trail conditions are toughest, thriving on the adversity provided by extensive litter of needles, bark, pine cones, twigs, sawdust, and entire trees (very good for practicing your high speed jumping skills), but as more a "commoner" skier, I like it better when it's just snow on top of the snow--and not so much all that other stuff.

All the recent winds had really scungied up the ski trails, so I passed on skiing yesterday and just ran instead (which worked out better time-wise, too). Of course the trails weren't going to be any better today, so I stuck to running again. However, help was on the way by the late day--snow falling again at last, after a nearly 2 week dry spell. Super nice to see some new white erasing all the old moose tracks!

Winds were out of category for portions of the afternoon, and doing pretty good the rest of the day, too. There was much vegetative carnage (if carnage can properly apply to already dead vegetative matter) on the ski trails, and much use of the chainsaw was in evidence.

Time for some more snow, please! ; )

C • carnage 2

2 days of healthy doses of wind have left the ski trails strewn with generous helpings of pine needles, bark bits, innumerable amounts of small twigs, pine cones, and, of course, topped off with the occasional smashed up dead pine tree. The wind continues tonight and is expected to hopefully last through tomorrow. Then it will rest for a day or two. Maybe.

Quite mild today, especially while the sun was out. Great for biking, as long as you didn't get knocked out of the saddle by the gusts, which otherwise served to make the biking more interesting. While biking, I passed a flock of wind birds perched on a telephone line. It looked like precarious balancing in the wind, but of course they manage it with no trouble, being wind birds.

Around here, after today the sun stops passing down out of sight any earlier. After tomorrow, the afternoons will start growing longer again. Reason enough for celebration, so after skiing I came home and had a dinner of festive winter vegetables with delicious sauce, which was paired with an appropriate wine (a hearty 2015 Cheerwine, bottled in Concord, NC--it really doesn't get any better.) Dessert was a tiny sliver of peanut butter chocolate pie, which was so irresistible that I ate the whole thing.

There was some wind in the forecast but the highway advisory signs only warned of gusts of 65+ mph, so not so bad. Surprisingly, there didn't seem to be any new tree blowdowns today.

C • Yum. 1