Training Log Archive: Swampfox

I did it all today: I biked, I skied, I ran, I ran in snow, I got grappled while running in snow. But I think this is where I end my ski season; without another major storm very soon, the forecast indicates the trails will likely be brutally attacked by a sweltering sun and will feature significant gapping within the next 2-3 days, and that's good enough for me. No doubt some of the folks who ski for the college and a few other diehards will extend their season for another few months by trekking over to Snowies on the weekends.

C • grapple 6

Biked around town and saw a new cul-de-sac is being cut to add to the neighborhood just under the north prairie; I was surprised not having seen the slightest indication of anything (ie--construction stakes) the last time I was by there.

But I was even more surprised when I went up to ski at the end of the day. Despite the day having been cool and almost entirely overcast from the midpoint of the day, there was practically no sign of all of yesterday's new, deep snow--it had totally gone over to mush. All I can think is that it must have been much warmer higher up and that colder air was trapped in the valley. Either that, or else maybe it stayed sunnier for longer up top.

At any rate, won't be many more skiing days left without another big snow soon.

It snowed almost all day long, and while the snow didn't stick to pavement in town, up top the new accumulations were deep--so deep there were almost no traces of any grooming, even though supposedly everything had been groomed in the morning. Well, it probably had been groomed, just a funny choice of timing, to do so before the bulk of the snow was on the ground. I skied for about 2 hours and made lots of fresh tracks for the moose to puzzle over.

C • Skate or classic? 16

Got out and biked a bit; gray skies and some fine winds put things on the nippy side, but if you don't go out and simulate Antarctica conditions now and again, then how else could you be sure you could survive an actual experience on Antarctica, in the event you were captured by aliens and dropped off there to live with penguins?

Ski trails were softened sugar snow and maybe a bit of slush here and there.

Goes down as spring, even if lacking totally in any sun, flowers, and bees.

Complete flip from 100% fun sun yesterday to 0% sun today--as far as I know, not a single millisecond of sunshine here. Supposedly it hit a high of 51F but I'm skeptical--that must have been measured right by the UW steam plant. The clouds plus big wind all day long made it effectively feel about 20 degrees cooler, and there was no sign of even the slightest softening--let alone any melting--anywhere on the trails I skied or on the bike trails I ran on.

Definitely winter.

It got cold last night, enough so that it was slow to warm up today despite 100% sun. It was surprisingly late in the morning before the temps crept above 16F. Definitely winter.

That meant yesterday's soft and somewhat thawed ski trails froze up hard as a rock, and didn't soften up a bit today. It did snow a tiny amount last night up top, so that helped, but there were wind swept patches of ice that could have doubled as armor on a naval cruiser. Still, it was pretty fun skiing, as there were no frozen ruts to contend with. Ran afterwards.

Linked up with Tyler and Harper for some mid-day biking around town, and kept going after they had to depart, out for a bit under 2 hours, Windy. Skied later on, taking advantage of softening/melting trail conditions--probably just a few more days at most before I put away my skis again.