Training Log Archive: Swampfox

The good thing about watching the Olympic figure skating coverage is that I am getting lots of good ideas from Tara and Johnny for my wardrobe!

I think it's a good move that now skaters can use music with lyrics for their routines. This shows a willingness to evolve and move forward with the times. I look forward to seeing an accomplished pair of ice dancers dancing to the Allman Brothers cover of Willie Dixon's "The Same Thing.". They wouldn't even have to move much or do any jumps or stuff--they would just win practically automatically.

C • Figure skating 5

Mostly sunny today, which made for a nice change from a several day stretch of mostly gray weather, even if mostly sunny also meant no new snow.

I went up to go skiing at midday, and the parking lot was full by then--but I got lucky and found a spot to squeeze into. A half hour later, and considerable amount of parking traffic had spilled out to and along the Happy Jack road on both sides. Things are always busy during Wee Ski.

Winds had done some scouring of the trails, and what was left was fast.

Running followed skiing, and I added in the Crow Creek loop. All in all, I was out for about 3 hours. Quite a few bikers were out, and a number of snowshoers as well. Everyone was friendly, even the pair of snow bikers who snuck up from behind and tried to overrun my position.

Still not feeling quite 100% form having been sick. Close, but not quite there.

First properly crisp day in quite a while, and virtually sunless but for several peeps near the close of the day. I went out to ski with the temps in the low 20s and finished up with some running with temps that by then were in the high single digits. With a bit of breeze, I was glad to have a neck warmer on, which I would occasionally pull up over my face. That did make it hard to see, but if you can't run along a familiar trail for a while without needing to see, well, then you are exactly like me, because I can't do that either--ha!

Strangely, there were no mosquitoes. Darn. But as if to make up for that, when I got home and turned on the TV to see what might be on from the the Olympics, there was ice dancing. An earlier me might have been displeased with that. After all, what does ice dancing have to do with sport?

I am mellower about that sort of thing now. Whatever else you might say about ice dancing, the skaters easily pass the athletic eye test: they are very fit looking, 100% of them. They obviously work very hard at their craft. And if they are judged, rather than timed or measured in some other objective fashion, that's not the fault of the athlete. It's just their sport. (How about synch swimming, then? Sorry, it's still too ridiculous, with those pasted on smiles and glitter and such.)

But most of all, they are not Trump. And by that standard, almost everything looks pretty good by comparison.

C • Trump 6

C • Curling? 8

Still a good bit of corduroy on the trails by the time I got up top, which made me think grooming had been done later than usual (which was the case.) The snow was a little slow at first, and gradually got faster as time went by with temps dropping a few degrees. It was not before I had already been skiing for a while that it all clicked in and I realized I hadn't seen any fresh animal tracks anywhere in the woods, therefore = new snow. It wasn't much, not much more than 1/2" or so, but even that was nice and enough to freshen things up. And it also answered partially the question as to why the snow felt slow at first (it was also warm snow.)

Added in some running after skiing.

Skied longer; decent snow, just not much of it. With the State High School Championships now 2 1/2 weeks away, hopefully more snow will show up soon.

Meanwhile, I am getting super excited, and looking forward to making my high school skiing debut!

After being sick for a week (with, I presume, the flu; the worst aspect of it was a rippin' sore throat that had me ready to say uncle), I thought it was about time to get better. Because, if you've been sick for a while and you're not getting better, then sometimes that other thing happens, and I still have stuff I want to do.

On Saturday I felt enough better to go for a short walk, well bundled up, and that did not send me back to bed in chills, so then on Sunday I went out and tried skiing, at the pace of a falling piece of down feather.

Partly I wanted to check out the Sunday scene at Happy Jack, but partly I wanted to run an independent check to make sure I wasn't fooling myself. I figured that if I stopped and said hi to a couple of different people I know and they reacted in a way that made it clear I looked like warmed over death, then that would be a good indicator.

The Sunday scene turned out to be very busy but I arrived just as some cars were leaving, so I was able to squeeze into the parking lot. Many cars were parked along the highway, so I was happy for that.

I got my skis on, headed out, and almost at once ran into Racer X8A7. He was finishing up for the day, so I skied along with him back to the parking lot, and then left him there and headed back out. Since he didn't attempt to tackle me and insist on taking me straight to the ER, I estimated that I was, as I suspected, doing better, and skied for an hour and a half before deciding that was enough--no sense in overdoing it the first day back out, and *then* ending up back in bed.

Today I skied about the same amount, and then ran some on snow trails, all at an easy effort. I'm not 100%, but feel like I'm somewhere in the 90s and improving.

The whole experience was a good reminder of how much it sucks to be sick, and how truly important it is for a host of reasons and how it just plain feels so good to be healthy and fit.

I always think as I feel something coming on, that if I get sick, then at least it will be a chance to catch up on various indoor things. But of course the reality is, when you get sick, you might be able to think of various things you're going to do, but you never get around to actually doing any of them because of course you're sick.