Training Archive: jimaIn the 31 days ending 2008-01-31:
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| T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | |||||||||||||||||
Tuesday Jan 29 | ||
| XC Ski (skating) 55:00 [3] 12.25 km (4:29 / km) +245m 4:05 / km | |
| shoes: Peltonen Skate Skiis | ||
| Evening ski at Gunstock. Temps still in the mid-30s, which was nice. Snow was still soft - if it had been frozen would have been a bit precarious in a few spots.
Night skiing on the downhill slopes, which provided quite a bit of reflective light on the south side of Cobble. Using my back up headlamp still, as the Photon Fusion is still in getting the broken battery cover replaced. Hope I get that back before the night ski-O at Weston in 2 1/2 weeks. | ||
Monday Jan 28 | ||
| XC Ski (skating) 43:46 [3] 8.7 km (5:02 / km) +200m 4:31 / km | |
| shoes: White/Red/Black Fischer Skatin | ||
| Gunstock by headlamp - trails in pretty good shape - mostly groomed after yesterday's 4" dusting, but even the parts that weren't were satisfactory.
Much smoother on skis than on snowshoes - but I didn't attempt the up and over Cobble on skatek sis in the dark. No AOWN sitings, was looking for the moose that I remember seeing one evening last year on the south logging road. Andy Howe from GNA was out with his tractor and trailer, hauling in snow to cover some of the thinner spots on the race trails - but with the forecast for warm weather and rain later in the week, it might be a futile effort. | ||
Sunday Jan 27 | ||
| XC Ski (Skating) 1:20:00 [3] 14.5 km (5:31 / km) +250m 5:05 / km | |
| shoes: Peltonen Skate Skiis | ||
| Skating in 3" of unexpected new powder. Feeling some muscles from yesterday's snowshoe excursion. | ||
Saturday Jan 26 | ||
| XC Ski warm up/down (skating) 40:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Peltonen Skate Skiis | ||
| Warmup and cool down before and after the snowshoe race | ||
| Snowshoe race 47:15 [4] 5 km (9:27 / km) | |
| shoes: Axis 930 Snowshoes | ||
| Cobble Mtn Classic Snowshoe race - 5K - about 70% on hardpacked groomed XC trail, the other 30% on single track snowshoe trail up and over Cobble Mtn.
A different and humbling experience. 95% of the racers had on "racing snowshoes" much smaller and lighter than mine. They also had much less aggressive claws than I did, which I discovered makes a tremendous difference on hard pack. | ||
Monday Jan 21 | ||
| XC Ski tempo (Classic) 1:06:00 [4] 12.65 km (5:13 / km) +250m 4:45 / km | |
| shoes: Fischer Classic Wax | ||
| Miss my heart rate monitor, which would tell me how hard I'm really working.
Cold and breezy. Not too bad in the woods, but the stadium was a bit nippy, as were some of the downhills. Blue klister day - trails haven't been touched in the past couple of days, so they remain fast and icy. Tracks weren't too bad, enoujgh other skiers, some with fishscales to keep it loosened up. Started thinking about ski-o course setting - will be really weather & conditions dependent, so I'll need to have a plan B and C thought out also. | ||
Sunday Jan 20 | ||
| XC Ski (skating) 53:00 [4] 11.9 km (4:27 / km) +220m 4:05 / km | |
| shoes: Peltonen Skate Skiis | ||
| Tracks set up very hard. Some spots a bit chunky, which made control a bit difficult.
Lot's of GNA kids out, making me feel old and slow for the most part, although I did have some inspired moments. A bit chilly, but the wind hadn't picked up too much yet. Think I have GPS tracks with distances adn elveations for all the race trails - will be nice to get that project done and off my mind. | ||
| XC Ski (skating) 56:00 [1] 3.6 km (15:33 / km) +70m 14:11 / km | |
| shoes: Peltonen Skate Skiis | ||
| Knocking around with Tim and Jon.
Jon's first time on ski in several years - I am not a good teacher. Other than saying relax, bend your knees and hips more, relax, balance on one ski then the other, watch what I do and try to imitate it... Wind had picked up so it felt a lot colder. | ||
Saturday Jan 19 | ||
| XC Ski (classic) 1:00:00 [3] 10.25 km (5:51 / km) +250m 5:13 / km | |
| shoes: Fischer Classic Wax | ||
| nice conditions, missed the wax a bit. Snow set up nice and hard. Some sections must have been groomed while it was still warmer, and they iced in as-is. Had on Extra Blue over just a bit of old violet klister. Needed more klister - was slipping a lot. Less of a problem in the sun where it was starting to warm up and loosen up a bit.
Talked to Jane - many trails still had gaps with water still flowing across - needs a bit more time to re freeze and then get some new snow on top. They finally started roping off trails - sounds like they had a few complaints from folks running into bare spots... Some of the downhills almost scary - hard fast tracks that weren't very forgiving. Get going a bit too fast, pop out of the tracks (generally on a steep downhill curve) and be as graceful as a cow on ice. Didn't seem to be a lot of folks out on the trails, but the downhill area was packed - sending folks to the overflow parking lot at 10:00 am... | ||
| Snowshoe 38:00 [3] 3 km (12:40 / km) +140m 10:16 / km | |
| There's going to be a snowshoe race at Gunstock next Saturday - thought it would be good to get out and "train" at least once. A bit awkward at first, especially on the hard packed ski trails. The claws would grab with no glide - duh, they're snowshoes, not skis.
Couldn't seem to take long strides, felt more like a shuffle. My snowshoes are probably bigger than a good racing one would be - although I did splurge this fall and pick up a pair of artificial ones. Have been a purist, snow shoes are supposed to be made with ash frames and rawhide webbing, with leather bindings. Aluminum frames with a plastic/rubber fabric "webbing" and plastic and nylons strap bindings just seems wrong... Felt that way about plastic XC skis at one time too. Got over it... Went out the stadium, and around the east side of Cobble Mtn, then up and over the top of Cobble - it's very different on the singletrack snowshoe trail. First, it's pretty damned steep going up, and there was a bit of crust. One person had been through already, but my snow shoes were wider, so I was hitting on both sides. Interesting coming down. It was a lot more forgiving on the softer snow - the claws had a bit of give, so it was less of a hard plant. Could be fun in a race situation. | ||
Friday Jan 18 | ||
| Note | |
| Other than shoveling some not-so-fluffy white off the driveway just as it changed from snow to sort-of freezing rain.
Working from home today as the plumber was suppoed to be here first thing to put in the heat in the new bedroom, and hopefully also finish the plumbing for the new master bath. He got here about 1:30, and left before 4:00, having only installed the housing for the heat - laid out the heat elements, but didn't even start sweating them together yet. Matt and Nicole and the kids stopped by. Had to do some outdoor time with Ryan - a lot of energy for two years old... | ||
Tuesday Jan 15 | ||
| XC Ski warm up/down (skate) 46:00 [2] 6.75 km (6:49 / km) +150m 6:08 / km | |
| shoes: Peltonen Skate Skiis | ||
| Easy evening ski under a partial moon on the 12" of new powder.
Pretty good conditions, a few spots where the thaw was still evident - a few spots starting to freeze over (or under) again, but some spots, particularly coming across 2 where it was still pretty wet and warm. Tried to get some better elevations for my GNA project - feeling guilty about how long it's taking. I think I've been rushing when I've been trying for clean runs, where the FRWD has a good lock and seems to follow the terrain on the elevation piece. Also need to cleanly define the intersections - those seem to be fuzzy. Head lamp working much better, figured out how to get it off the "turn off in 3 minutes automatically" mode, but the the batteries ran down. Did the last half almost exclusively by moonlight and had a blast. When the swapped out the batteries back at home, the cover broke,so need to send it in to the PhotonLight folks for a warranty repair. | ||
Monday Jan 14 | ||
| Note | |
| 10-12" of new white stuff - a welcome change from the January thaw we've been in.
Spent too long clearing the driveway and other areas - didn't have time to get out and ski or snowshoe. | ||
Sunday Jan 13 | ||
| Run (trails) 31:00 [2] 3.3 km (9:24 / km) +175m 7:26 / km | |
| shoes: Gray Nike XCR | ||
| Trail run on Mt Rowe. Gunstock trails were mostly washed out and/or glare ice, except for the few GNA groomed for their race this morning. Took a wuss pill last night, so didn't go over to race.
Wish I had left my studded O shoes in the car from yesterday. In the shade it was very hard and slick. it did soften up where the sun had been hitting it for a while. Went down on my ass a couple of times. On downhills, tried hitting with a straight leg right onto my heel to bust into the crust a bit. Worked for the most part, except once. I went right on my butt and started sliding down the trail. lifted one cheek to avoid a potentially disastrous encouter with a protruding chunk of ice... Worked my way over to the side of the trail and got into the stuff that the snocat hadn't touched - was able to drive my heels into that and stop. Snowshoes, with the claws, would have been a good thing. There's going to be a snowshoe race at GUnstock on the 26th - 5k, including an up and over Cobble Mtn. | ||
Saturday Jan 12 | ||
| Orienteering race 37:07 [4] 3.8 km (9:46 / km) | |
| shoes: Falcon spikes 2007 | ||
| Orange Course at Urban Forestry Center. Fairly warm, but still a lots of frozen left on the ground. Trails varied between open, mud, hard packed snow, unpacked snow, hard ice...
Glad I had on studded O shoes. Some bobbles, but a good workout. | ||
| Orienteering warm up/down 30:00 [2] 3 km (10:00 / km) | |
| shoes: Falcon spikes 2007 | ||
| Limited warm up, then ran a replacement control out to where one seemed to be missing, only to find the original control slightly mis-hung.
Control pickup after the UNO meeting. | ||
Orange - Splits | ||
Tuesday Jan 8 | ||
| Run (pavement) 28:10 [3] 4.8 km (5:52 / km) +85m 5:23 / km | |
| shoes: Brooks | ||
| Evening run - wanted to ski, but with the temps at over 45F, would have been very wet and slow.
Felt OK - we'll see how my knees do the next couple of days. Was a bit overdressed, there were some pockets of cold air, but some area felt like I was running in a sauna. Lots of sun out today, beating ont he pavement, and it was slowly releasing it as I came by. Ran by the polls on the way back - still some valiant sign holders out by the road for Clinton and Ron Paul. We'll see how the whole kerfluffle ends up - back to the normal mindless adds. | ||
Sunday Jan 6 | ||
| XC Ski (skating) 1:10:00 [3] 13.5 km (5:11 / km) +275m 4:42 / km | |
| shoes: Peltonen Skate Skiis | ||
| Rapidly warming conditions, although the trails were in great shape considering. Did the Cobble Mtn loop clockwise, then my verison of the race trails where you hit almost all of them - take 2 across the top halfway, down 4 looping around back to 2, u turn onto 6 back to the stadium, hard right onto T, then R, up the Chute a little bit, then S back to the stadium. About 6.2 km. Just the Cobble loop is about 3.6 km (with none of the side loops).
Did a few passes back and forth in the stadium with no poles - technique seems to be OK. Reversed Cobble, then took 9 up and over to the meadow, up 7 and back along 8. It was warming up considerably - could feel the suction under my skiis. Continued the reverse on Cobble and in. Thermometer at the XC center said 40... | ||
Saturday Jan 5 | ||
| XC Ski (Classic) 1:44:00 [3] 15.5 km (6:43 / km) +400m 5:57 / km | |
| shoes: Fischer Classic Wax | ||
| Think I missed the wax - not a lot of kick. It was warming up, some of the tracks were glazed a bit, others were still dry powder. Got a lot of workout on my arms.
Must have been having a good time though. Hit most of the upper Cobble Mtn trails - they were in pretty good shape, although the center of the trail was a lot softer than the edges where the snocat tracks had packed it down. | ||
| XC Ski (Back-country) 1:50:00 [2] 8.4 km (13:06 / km) +380m 10:41 / km | |
| After classic skiing for an horu and 45 minutes, took a short break, changed my boots and slapped on my back country skis.
Headed up Alpine Ridge from the ski jumps, and went up, and up, and up... Groomer had been through on all of the trail up to the towers. Continued on along the ridge that had only seen snowshoe traffic and a few skiers. Just past the cutoff for the snowshoe only trail, it really narrowed down - branches almost touching and many covered with snow sagging down to about face level. Saw more folks than I expected to up there. Came down a wide groomed trail from the radio tower - no face plants, but a couple of preemptive backwards falls. | ||
Friday Jan 4 | ||
| XC Ski (skating) 41:45 [2] 8.2 km (5:05 / km) +185m 4:35 / km | |
| shoes: White/Red/Black Fischer Skatin | ||
| Evening ski at Gunstock with an intermittent headlamp. Must have been a HS race there this afternoon - some of the race trails were double tracked and showing signs of some heavy use on the uphills and the sharper corners. Brought back memories of my racing days - what I would have given for a trail in that good a shape - very different from a single set of tracks set by a couple of guys on snowshoes and the rest of the team behind banging in the tracks on skis in the morning so we could race on it in the afternoon.
Headlamp was decidedly unfriendly - would cut out just before asharp corner on a downhill each time it seemed. Had fresh recharged batteries in it - maybe it was too cold - upper teens doesn't seem that bad. | ||
Tuesday Jan 1 | ||
| XC Ski long (classic) 2:10:00 [2] 16.75 km (7:46 / km) +375m 6:59 / km | |
| Long classic ski in a snowstorm. Probably got 4-5" between when I started when I finally headed in. Could tell where they groomed earlier in the day, but it was hard to follow the tracks at some places. The new fallen snow was very slow - a few times when I circled back and was skiing on tracks I broken 10-15 minutes previously, it was a lot faster.
Using an old pair of Fischer skate skis - had markings on them from the '88 Ski-WOC (Finland?) They're still in pretty good shape. Seemed to have the trails pretty much to myself - only saw a few folks and they were mostly in the area right near the XC center. Hard violet extra kcik wax was perfect - good grip and the glide was OK. Had a great time... Wish I didn;t have to go back to work tomorrow and could spend more time out on the trails. | ||