Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Another couple of inches of snow overnight. The fresh snow plus temps down near or into the single digits made for slow skis today. But the sun was out, the wind was not (dead calm), and it was beautiful to be outside. Skiing and running combined for 3+ hours, and a somewhat chilly face.

The Tie City parking lot was jammed in the early afternoon; it's a good sight to see so many people out and enjoying the forest.

C • Cowboy Football 2

About 3" of new snow, and only the mildest of breezes, so the snow was falling nearly straight down and staying in place when it landed.

I skied longer and skipped running, finishing up after dark. There was a guy on skis at the trailhead gate, and he asked me in a thick accent where the Happy Jack trailhead was. I wasn't quite sure how to answer, because where we were standing was clearly enough the trailhead, and there isn't any Happy Jack (by name) trailhead to my knowledge. After a few questions, I figured out what his purpose was: he and his wife had driven up from Ft. Collins, and, not being sure where to go, had driven past the Tie City parking area where we were, and had parked down below at the Happy Jack Recreational Area parking lot. Somehow they had worked their way up from there, and were now at the wrong parking lot. I told him it was easy enough to get back to where they wanted to be, a straight shot, and all downhill, once they got started on the right trail, and I put my skis back on, and took them out to where the trail started, and gave them a push downhill. It seemed better not to mention the mountain lion living somewhere down that way, and besides they were two adults and the guy was pretty big. Hopefully they made it back okay, but the real problem was going to be driving back home, because by then it was snowing hard, and it was quite difficult to see while driving down the canyon to Laramie. From the time I got on the interstate until the exit, I had almost no idea where I was in relation to the two lanes, except that I was somewhere in them, except for the several times when I hit one or the other rumble strips.
I was surprised the highway was even open, given how difficult it was to see.

Since I tweaked my knee about two weeks ago, I've been taking it easy or very easy on the running front, both time-wise and also in terms of sticking as much as possible to snow trails that have been relatively level and firmly packed. Today, after skiing, I went out for 90 minutes and took in some rougher footing along the way. It all felt fine while I was out, and if things still feel fine in the morning, then I will consider it to be good to go again. Mentally, it's already there, as I realize I just haven't thought of it at all while I've been running the past 4-5 days.

Windy enough today to bring down a few more trees, and at least one new one on one of the snow bike trails I was on today.

Must be some kind of a local ski race this weekend, because there were blue plastic tabs scattered off to the sides of several ski trails, ready to be deployed. Or, possibly, they could be some clever new moose attractant, because moose are drawn to the color blue like FDFs are attracted to silly people.

Really enjoying the longer afternoons, which are already a dramatic 14 seconds longer than this past Saturday. Biked some, skied some more, and then ran even more along some snow bike trails and some snow bike trail augmented by moose traffic. Avoiding the hoof pock marks made the running more interesting.

Ski conditions are excellent and great to see that mid-winter is off to such a fine start.

We were favored with a small amount of unexpected snow overnight, maybe a half inch in town and something like 1"-2" up at Happy Jack. The sun was out in the afternoon and temps were in the low 20s to start out, and dropping. It felt like a proper winter day. Trail conditions on those trails that were open were excellent. I thought if I skied long enough, I would come across a moose or at least some fresh moose tracks, but it didn't work. I must not have skied long enough, is all I can come up with. I took this as a sign that my training has fallen off, so when I got back home, I did sit-ups until I got tired, and then did one more. Three in all, so I should definitely be good again for a while!