Training Log Archive: AliC

Fun skiing times at Hyland in Minneapolis along with Ari and Colin. We had a great lazy morning in the cabin: oatmeal, coffee, reading about black holes (me), running (Alex - ok, not so lazy) and playing cribbage (Ari and Chris). Scooted off to the Twin Cities mid-morning and lunched at Punch Pizza before delivering Alex to the airport.

Then I tagged along on an Ari-tour of the cities, which started with this ski with Colin. Body was a wee bit tired, but nothing too complainy from yesterday. Skiing was fast and not as cold and we just chatted while winding all over the trails. There's a big new hill as part of their upper trails, totally impressive. Wish I had that nearby for hill repeats!

C • Hyland 7

Sprinting to the start after our bus driver thankfully broke the code and let us off the bus early while we waited in a line of busses. Horrible traffic to done parking lot on the way there meant it was already after our start time when we got off the bus. Argh!!!

The Birkie! Came in 20th despite the ~8 min late start. My time would have put me around 11th had I started on time and maybe a bit better if I'd been able to draft.

Dressed ok for the race, 3 layers top and bottom, but the gels I had were hard to extract because nearly solid. Solution: stick gel packet in mouth to warm up, then bite-strip it out. I took one 15k in and another about 25k. Also had Heed at almost every station.

My race consisted of just trying to correctly pace for me. One nice thing was never being the end of the accordion. Of course, the bad side was I was never drafting. Goal was just to catch as many hot-pinked bibs as possible, which is at least a nice feeling to catch and pass a lot of people. My legs, quads mostly, we're really hurting from Mosquito brook on , but that's pretty expected.

To finish across the lake I really could have used someone to switch leads with- into the cold wind was just brutal. My eyes started feeling cold, so I tried blinking more. My face also went all numb-frozen so I twice tried to pull up my buff to cover up, but failed. That meant I got a bit of frostnip on my cheek, so at the finish I was quickly whisked away to the medical zone in the courtroom to warm up. Fine by me and really don't think the frostnip is so bad!

C • Well Done 6

Ok body, let's do this! An easy-peasy ski from OO after Alex ski tested. Skied a smidge with Alex, then took myself back in earliest because I decided no sprints were the way to go to allow up-to-the start recovery of my respiratory system.

Easy, easy morning joggeroo in the Old Orchard neighborhood. Energy levels feel recovered, but don't want anything to get worse, so just puttered.

Less miserable, but not being fooled that it's a good idea to start training yet. Waiting.

C • Feel better 4