Cross Country Skiing

[Di bear]

Skierchickie,

Was that you I saw at Tech, tonight? I was wearing the blue and black jacket with the gray cyclocross hat and the gray neck gator that hid my face. I like to keep my face warm.

Di

[Skierchickie]

Possibly, possibly.... I was there from 4:30 until 6:15-ish. Light blue jacket, white & blue hat, off-white hood under the hat, black pants. Seems like I saw somebody fitting your bundled-up description toward the end. I was with DH & my best buddy. Belated "Hi Di Bear!". I think we were deep in a discussion about whether we wanted to actually observe New Year's Eve, and what on earth to do. Sounds like we'll probably go to a movie.

It was fun tonight! My buddy wanted to do some drills, which nearly killed us all (3 minutes hard, 3 easy, 2 hard, 2 easy, 1 hard, 1 easy). Turns out that first 3 minutes at race pace is hard. We ditched the second set. Then we just skied easy-ish down to the Nara trails & stuff. We might try to do increasingly bigger sets of that weekly. I ski a lot, but I don't seem to do drills & intervals and stuff anymore.

I just signed up for 4 races for this season (before all the prices go up after tomorrow).
1) 21km at ABR in Ironwood
2) 25K Noquemanon in Marquette
3) 26K Pre-Birkie in Hayward, WI
4) 26K Bear Chase (home turf)
All freestyle

Whoo hoo!

Anybody else want to share their race schedules for this season?

[Di bear]

Yeah, that was me. I skied from 4:20 to 6:10. I twisted my ankle earlier today, so skiing was a little painful after about 10K.

[Crankin]

Just got back from 4 days in Jackson, NH. Went up New Year's Eve and stayed at the Inn at Thorn Hill. We've been there before and it is the nicest inn I've been too. The breakfasts and dinners are included in the room price, although you can go there and not get the dinner included. Thursday was the coldest day in a long time! We started to ski out of the inn to connect to the Jackson x country area and it was a mess; covered with branches from the ice storm and very icy. After I fell like 4 times we all turned back. I was hurting and not in a good mood when we finally got in the car and drove there. So, we decided to just do the river trail while our friends did some blue trails. It was a good idea, I got my ski legs back a little and didn't fall for the rest of the day. I was very glad our room had a jacuzzi, though. I noticed one little bruise on my lower hip.
Friday we went to Bear Notch, which is one of my favorite touring centers. It is small and has homemade soup and bread for lunch. We did about 6-7K with lots of climbing and a few good downhills, which I managed to stay upright on. And, it was a balmy 25 out. When we got back, I noticed that I now had 3 bruises (2 small) on my right hip, butt, and hamstring. No wonder they started aching after all of the downhill. Today we checked out and drove to Bretton Woods. We did about 10.5k with a little climbing and some nice intermediate downhills. It was freezing again and the wind was whipping across the open field you have to cross before getting into the woods. I was unzipped quite a bit when we stopped at the yurt for a snack, but the last 1k on the way back was brutal, blowing snow on icy terrain. Bretton Woods has a nice locker room with showers, so we changed and cleaned up before heading home. As I was changing, someone called my name and it was SheFly! She had been trying out skate skiing.
A good vacation and I am very sore!

[yellow]

Crankin...a shower after finishing is nice. Sounds like the trip was good but cold. But then again it is winter, right? Sometimes I don't mind storm skiing but other times I stay inside to avoid it and end up getting grouchy about everything. Lawd knows I certainly have all the right clothes...

It's a gorgeous day here but I think I'm going to wait a bit before going today. I'm still beat from yesterday's WRONG WAX skate on cold snow anyhow. It was a green wax day and you cannot make green wax by combining yellow and blue, contrary to what they taught us in kindergarten. So I used blue and c-r-a-w-l-e-d for 18k. I am one day older and wiser today...I will classic ski today!

[Aint Doody]

The area close to me was groomed on Thurs., but more snow fell. A group of us went up, but it was classic only. It was so gorgeous. Lovely fresh snow and no wind. Intermittently is snowed, and then the sun would shine. On the way up, the second car saw 3 big cougars, and we saw their tracks often. Needless to say, we stayed together as a group. Nobody want to be a snack! Great day to be out.

[Skierchickie]

I'm pretty sure I don't want to come face to face with any cougars while skiing. Go ahead - call me a wimp if you want.

So my first race of the season has been canceled, due to lack of early registrations. I'm not exactly heart-broken, since it's only supposed to get up to about 5 degrees that day.

I do have to go to Yuma for work later this month, getting home the night before what will now be my first race of the season. Not ideal - acclimating to 70 degree weather with no skiing for 5 days, then plunging myself into a potentially 0 degree race. Hope it's more like 30. At least I'll be rested.

The skiing is GREAT here.