Ski-O training Long course, hosted at Scenic Caves by Mark and Jacquie Tarnopolsky. After yesterday's long Sprint, we heard that today's Long course was only a little longer. Well, *that's* good news, we smiled, heaving deep sighs of relief. As it turns out, we heard wrong. After visiting the controls in numerical order (which course setters didn't have to do) and obeying all the one-way trail signs, today's course was just over twice as long as yesterday's!
It was a fun course design. There were a few route choices but mostly it was a matter of reading the one-way trail indicators very carefully. We often had to take roundabout routes to get to controls that weren't very far away.
I had a bad fall within the first 15 minutes. The temperature was above zero with some misty drizzle early on so the snow was soft. Coming down a hill, my skis got stuck in soft ruts that diverged, and I couldn't move them over. Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit! In hindsight, I should have lifted one ski and taken a hard fall on the other side. Instead, I had an awkward fall when my legs had wishboned past the point where my body could balance. There was a nasty yank all along my left inner leg with pain in my MCL and gimpy ankle. After I peeled myself off the snow, I was able to keep skiing but I could tell it would hurt later (it does), and I noticed some pain under my arch later in the ski.
Skate skiing is anaerobic for me, and this was my 3rd day in a row. I hit the wall after an hour and had to take some breaks on uphills. I felt dehydrated. I was exhausted at the finish and bought a large a drink before I handed in my SI card in another building. A skier in a Scenic Caves jacket said, "This was the hardest day for skate skiing in a long time." Oh, really? Maybe the soft, warm, wet snow was hard work for other people too! Hours later, I'm still feeling like I was hit by a truck.
I looked back in my log and realized that I've only ever done one longer skate ski session in my life. It was at Sovereign Lake, B.C. in Feb. 2006, and we were doing some ski-orienteering practice with a map that Marie-Catherine Bruno had given us. We'd had an excellent skate ski lesson with her two days earlier so our technique would have been much better that day. It's heartbreaking that someone with so much spirit, talent and joy is gone. :(
Amber, Browner and Funderstorm did most of today's course together on classic skis so we compared notes afterward before returning to Tree Hugger ABC for post-ski snacks.