Weekend Skiing

It's February, and amazingly it's one of few days we've had where the conditions have been conducive to decent skiing. 

Last weekend was a total bust.  Saturday started with a short and very icy ski, then a very windy and equally unfulfilling road ride.  I was determined to get a decent workout in somewhere, so after three hours of driving I had 20 minutes of very slick, muddy riding.  

And then there was yesterday.  After snowing much longer than expected we were treated to almost a foot of new snow.  

Spinney and I took his Subaru up to Trapp's, and I was encouraged to bring a helmet for the "rally". 

A friendly landmark.

We took the back way up, and it was as amazing as it looks in these pictures. 

Parking lot with a view.

Right outside the touring center the trails were in pretty good shape, and as the groomers made the rounds they got even better.  Out skiing around we bumped into local fastman Jake and fought to hang with him for the next two hours.  After finishing top 20 in the Stowe Derby earlier in the day he was out to get some more time on snow.  Any other year that would be odd, but considering the conditions were the best they've been in six weeks. 

Spinney getting ready to pin it.  His Garmin wrist computer stopped counting accumulated ski time when he stopped moving so it had a very pessimistic view of how long we actually skied.  I was ready to throw that fucking thing in the woods about halfway through.

No pics of Jake- I was too busy trying to keep up or get some tips on handling the numerous off camber, twisting or rolling sections where I seem to lose speed.

There's the top of my hat covered head, just to prove I was there.

Review- Fischer RCS Skate

Like most cyclists I have a complicated relationship with winter.  Over the last ten years I've changed my tact to go with the grain rather than against it, and around here that means using the snow instead of fighting it.  

I've put a lot of effort into skiing and have been working out with an organized master's group twice a week for the last three years.  Between that and skiing both weekend days (usually at Trapp's, but not always) I usually get 4 days of skiing per week as long as there's skiable snow on the ground.  In a roundabout way I'm offering this up as a means of explaining my position before I offer my first review of a ski product.  

So with that out of the way here are my thoughts about the venerable Fischer RCS Skate.  These skis are a common site at any Nordic Center and are one of the most prevalent models on the market.  

Fischer athletes essentially own the Nordic World Cup, but as in pro cycling what the elite use is not always indicative of the what the best option is in the marketplace.  Obviously equipment needs to perform to be used at that highest level, but I usually find the best indicator to be top amateur or regional pro athletes who are still paying for their own stuff; amongst that group Fischer has a solid following.

For a long time the RCS was the top of the heap, but the recent introduction of the RCS Carbonlite (referred to universally as "the hole ski") with its distinctive hole in the shovel has moved the RCS down a step in the hierarchy.

See- no holes.

So now there's the RCS Carbonlite halo ski (you heard it here first), and if I had the opportunity to get a set of those I would have, but honestly this is more than enough ski for me.  

Fischer offers two base treatments for this ski- Cold and Plus.  The plus base has a moderate linear grind and a graphite treatment intended for humid conditions like we see here in Vermont.  The cold has less graphite and a flatter base grind so that it handles extreme cold and dry snow more effectively.  The flex and sidecut are identical between the two models.

Truth be told I got 2 sets of these this winter- one set to be run with the stock "Cold" base treatment and one that I had ground to be more of a New England conditions all-rounder.  This particular set pictured here was ground at Edgewise in Stowe, VT with a grind used by many of the VTXC ski team members.  These two models were intended to round out my quiver by replacing my Hypersonics, but more on that later.

So how do they ski?  In a word- amazing.  They're both faster and more stable than anything else I've ever used, and I instantly felt comfortable on them.  They are exceptionally good when the snow is firm.  

Underfoot the RCS seems to find its edge more easily than other skis in firm conditions.  Interestingly there's not much of a trade-off when the going gets soft.  It doesn't spring off the snow or float on top like a condition-specific soft snow ski, but they do still outperform other all-rounder and middle of the road models I've tried.   

The all-around set of skis with the Edgewise grind are the ones I use most often.  When running those I can hang with or out- glide most of the guys I ski with using just normal hydrocarbon wax.  I find myself reaching for these skis in every condition regardless of the snow conditions or temperature because they are so predictable and reliably fast.

The stock Cold set also has its place, but since this winter has been so mild I've only used them a handful of times so far.  When it's below about 10 degrees they really shine and are palpably faster when the snow feels like sandpaper.   

Also I'm running them with the Salomon SNS Pilot bindings.  They come stock with the plate for the Rottefella NIS binding, but since I'm already committed to SNS with boots and binding on all of my other skis there wasn't really another option.  Although I was chided by an NIS fan for using this setup it's not at all uncommon even at the World Cup where athletes could theoretically have better access to a special run of standard topsheet skis. 

The bad news is that I like my all-around RCS skis so much that I'm running them pretty much everyday.  So much for rounding out the quiver.

For more information visit www.fischersports.com.

A Breakthrough, a Letdown and Power Tools

Since New Year's I've been able to get out and ski a few times, and now I'm starting to feel like I'm getting my ski legs back.

In previous posts I've mentioned how I've been ramping up my midweek activity, and believe it or not it's been easier for me to do that than to reliably get in solid workouts on the weekends.  That effort feels like it's starting to pay off, and even though I feel like I have to fight harder to keep up with my master's group I think it's worth the trade-off.

Saturday I got out for a couple hours with Spinney.  It had been below zero overnight, and after some debate I managed to get my skis waxed and out the door.  He wasn't doing much better and couldn't find his iron, then needed a scraper, etc.  It was like two old women getting ready to drive to bridge club.

Once we got to Trapp's we hit some of the usual trails and made our way down through the race course to Skater's Waltz and across to Aither for the first time this year.  That's not a flat route, and Spinney was hell bent on skiing to the cabin so after chasing him around for an hour and twenty minutes we made our way up.  I didn't set the world on fire, but I skied steady and felt like I was making solid time.  I'm not sure how much faster he was, but I stayed in contact for a good section of the climb and didn't stop at all on the trip up. 


More remarkable than that was a completely smooth descent back to the lodge- and the first time ever I made it down without falling.  It was then that I realized that this was a breakthrough day for me.  I'd never made it to the cabin so early in the season, and certainly not chasing somebody with solid fitness.  When we got back to the car it was hard to believe, and although I'd gotten seriously chilled from the long, fast downhill I was pscyched.

We piled our gear back into the car and headed home.  At that time I was still thinking that I was going to ride the rollers so I didn't actively work on my recovery plan, which was a big mistake.  When I got home I was starving, and after not eating enough immediately after my workout I was starting to get the cold shakes from getting chilled and low blood sugar.

Of course to combat that I had to eat almost everything in the house, which pretty much completely canceled out the caloric debt of my skiing effort.  This is all after Spinney was telling me to be careful about refueling if I was going to try to ski again on Sunday.  In retrospect I wasn't aware of how deep I'd dug, so I wasn't being proactive in refueling. 

After I'd crashed, rebounded, showered and gotten dressed Carrie and I picked up our replacement dishwasher and went out to dinner.  It was clear that having an enormous box in the living room wasn't going to be feasible for more than a day or two and that I had to get this thing installed soon.

Sunday morning it was hovering around zero when I got up, so knowing that it would warm up about 15-20 degrees later in the day I figured I'd take advantage of the situation and start working on the dishwasher. 

Having installed and removed one defective dishwasher already I was pretty familiar with the basics of the install- in a nutshell it's connect the water, the drain and the electric and test it for leaks.  Of course it's never quite that simple for me, but with directions in hand I got out the tools and went to work.    

Among my tools are a large number of hand-me-downs from both sides of the family.  Over the summer my Dad cleaned out his father's wood shop, and these pliers were among the twelve pairs that I inherited.  I've never seen anything else like them with the 90 degree head, but I've already used them three times this week on the upstairs electric outlet replacement, the dishwasher and the tC trunk handle.  

Also among my tools is this- a Craftsman Impact Drill my brother gave me for Christmas.  If you've never used and impact drill you're missing out- these things are awesome and not just because they make a ridiculously loud SNAP SNAP SNAP as they switch from standard drill to impact mode.  Using this to secure the two dishwasher mounting screws was the highlight of the install.

After that I decided to tackle replacing the trunk lid on the tC.  After three years of regular use, the old handle had snapped off and was only hanging onto the rest of the car by one retaining clip and the wire for the release button.  It wasn't that I wanted to keep procrastinating, but I don't have many options to get things like this done in the daylight so I decided to get it done.

The trunk handle is a story in itself, and after an extensive search I opted for a carbon one because it was more cost effective than buying one unpainted and trying to paint it myself.  After some searching on the Scion forums I found some semi-coherent instructions on how to replace it.  Turns out this is a common problem for the tC and dealers charge up to $400 to install a new one, which makes my $65 eBay special look that much more appealing.   

Overall it went fairly smoothly and my hands didn't get too cold although it was only about 18 degrees and I was buoyed by the idea of being able to use the trunk lid again.  As you might imagine it's a real pain in the ass to carry skis, boots, poles, spare clothes and water and have to put it down in the snow to open the trunk because you need to use both hands to lift the tailgate.

When I finished the handle install it was 3 PM and I was nowhere near being ready to ski.  After a protracted period of bumbling, fumbling and swearing I finally got to Trapp's and had my skis on at 4.  So much for seizing the day on the skiing front.

As soon as I set out I could tell the conditions were great- and for the second day in a row my skis felt awesome.  These Fischer RCS with Graham's base grind have quickly become my favorites.   

Although the skis were running well I wasn't- with yesterday's breakthrough/bonk combination and my extended project time earlier in the day I felt sluggish and slightly off-balance.

I did throw some Pro-35 stickers on the skis- it had to be done.

I'm a terrible classic skier, but the tracks were so fast and crisp that I found myself jumping in double poling on the flats and downhills. 

An hour later it was getting dark and went home.  It was a beatiful night, and I wished I could have taken advantage of it more than I did.  

Live and learn I guess- there's always next weekend. 

Ski Season Retrospective

Now that it's April my ski season is officially done, and with that in mind I thought now would be an appropriate time to post my end-of-season retrospective. 

It's no secret that cycling is my main focus.  In some ways it's an accident of circumstance that I got into nordic skiing, but I've grown to really enjoy it.  Previous posts have given you some insight into my usual ski workouts, so I won't retread the day-to-day details. 

In no particular order here are the things that were noteworthy about the season, either because they were of some minor significance or because they offer some interesting anecdote.

I skied with the top skate group in my weekly master's training.  Last year I started in the beginner category and moved up through the categories until I found myself skiing in the top category this winter.  Somehow I didn't consciously get into that group, but the guys I normally ski with were doing it and I knew I could keep up.  It was a great experience, and I think I really improved a lot because of it.

Classic skiing is still an anathema to me.  I made a concerted effort on several occasions to pick it up, and I did make some progress, but it's still not natural and I don't consider myself very good on classic skis.   I've gotten better, but I still have a lot of work to do. 

My worst skiing related injury this year was smacking my left knee cap on the top of my ski while attempting to learn classic.  It wasn't terrible, but it did slow me down and make me hobble for a couple weeks.  During that time I seriously contemplated ditching classic altogether and working on biathlon on classic weeks next winter.  At this point I could go either way on that. 

Every year for the past few years I've skied up to the Slayton Pasture Cabin at Trapp's at least once.  That streak ended this year primarily because I always found myself more interested in skiing for distance on rolling terrain rather than shelling myself on the long slog to the cabin.  I'm a little bummed about that, but in my mind the cabin route is more of a tourist's rite of passage than a true milestone.

I broke my first ski.  It was kind of cool to feel like I was pushing it enough to cause an equipment failure like that, but it's not covered under warranty and made my last day out a very expensive.  Fortunately it was my condition-specific Madshus X3's and not my Atomic World Cup all-rounders, but it still sucked.  Those things were hardly used and ran really well in soft snow.  It looks like I'll be replacing them with another set of Atomics instead.

For the third year in a row I didn't get my shit together to ride to the mountain and then go skiing.  Yes, the Hampsten has indeed proven to be elusive, partly because the conditions need to be just right but also because it's a logistical headache and nobody cares other than me.  There were a few days when I seriously considered it, but instead I opted to keep skiing for an extra hour rather than screwing around with windproof bib tights, two layers of shoe covers, icy roads and frozen water bottles.  

I didn't enter any ski-related events, including a winter triathlon or the Stowe Derby.  This one I feel semi-bad about.  Last season I did a winter tri and the running section almost killed me.  It wasn't that the 5k was more than I could handle, but I legitimately hadn't been running in the six months leading up to the event and I dug myself a deep hole in the 30 minutes it took me to complete the run course.  Out of 50 or so racers, I finished the run in about 48th position.  This year I had been working on running more often and made some real progress, but the winter tris are expensive to enter and the amount of gear required for them is ridiculous.  For the six hours of driving and the $100 entry/temp license fees I decided to stay home and get some real skiing in on real terrain instead of circling around a flat, Boston-area golf course for 75 minutes. 

Next season I'm seriously considering doing some longer ski events like the Lake Placid Loppet, the Keskinada Ski Marathon in Gatineau, PQ, or even the 10k Valley Cup at Ole's.  Maybe it'll happen, maybe it won’t, but I think November is going to be my down time since I won't be racing 'cross.  That way I can start preparing for ski season in early December and be ready for some racing in late January or February.

Like most things, my goals could change at a moment's notice, but I expect to do more mountain bike racing this summer, take it easy this fall, and then get an earlier start on skiing.  I won't have a trip to France next year so maybe I'll plan on doing the Craftsbury Spring Fling or some other late season race to keep me motivated.  Remarkably I can go uphill reasonably well on skis, primarily because I can actually use my upper body instead of just dragging it along. 

Maybe I'll even do another winter tri, but probably not.  I do see myself becoming more of a winter/summer guy and taking my time completely off in the fall.

Trapp's Photos, Saturday

As you can see from my broken ski picture from Sunday I have been skiing.  HAD been skiing, more accurately.

Here are some shots I took over the weekend.  It wasn't all bad.  The skiing was actually quite good.  

The parking lot on a normal winter day.  Despite the cars more often than not most of those "skiers" are hanging out in the lodge.  If you know where to go you can quickly get away from the people who do make it out onto the trail.

My mobile service course, aka my trunk.  I brought both the Atomic World Cups and the Madshus Hypersonics  It was pretty soft, so I started on the X3's.  

The skate lane was groomed but soft, so a measured effort with a focus on gliding was the order of the day.

Looking back across Skater's Waltz where it crosses the road.  It was a pretty nice day. 

Every time I see this road I think it would be cool to ride on...perhaps as part of my Hampsten?

The same road, going up towards the lodge.  This is the back way that most GPS navigation systems send tourists.  This part is pretty tame, but it gets twisty and steep before too long.  With summer tires or god forbid in a rental car it can be a harrowing ride.

Ironically enough I had a semi-miserable classic ski day on Thursday.  During that time I mulled the idea of becoming a skate-only guy and skiing with the biathlon club on classic weeks.

So what's ironic about that?  While the skating was marginal and slow the tracks were absolutely pristine.  At the right of the frame you can see some classic skiers.  It looked to be a mother-daughter pair and they parked right next to me at the lodge.  The mother clearly didn't like me, perhaps because I was skating on a day that clearly better for classic.  She gave me the stink eye every chance she got. 

In the nordic world people who only skate can be treated like second-class citizens by the purists of the sport.  In cycling terms it's like a 50 year old ex-racer who rides a Nuovo Record equipped lugged steel bike and looks down his nose at everyone who rides a nefarious carbon bike. 

It was a pretty good day weather-wise.  Remarkably it was clearer at Trapp's than it was at home.  How often does that happen?

Are You Training for Something?

 

Like most winter weekends I spent most of my time outdoors last Saturday and Sunday on skis at Trapp's.  Saturday was an interesting day and although it was 24 and sunny at home it was 17, snowy and windy at Trapp's.  That might not sound like a big difference, but it was a little more than I was mentally ready for when I got to the parking lot. 

Fortunately I stay pretty warm while skiing and I brought enough extra layers to stay comfortable.

As I headed out on my first warm up loop I could hear that someone was skiing behind me.  Traffic is common on the flattish loops around the touring center so I didn't think much of it.  When I stopped to take a drink a woman skied up next to me to ask for trail directions.  After some quick recommendations she asked if she could follow me on my route.  She wasn't interested in talking, she just didn’t want to ski alone and didn’t know where to go. 

The snow was surprisingly good given the extreme temperature swings we've had lately, but I took care to avoid the downhills I knew would have icy skied off corners.  She kept pace as we wound our way around the race loop, down Skater's Waltz and across to Aither. 

When we stopped at hilltops or to take off our skis to cross the road we'd spend a minute or two in polite, general conversation.  As we skied into the second hour together we talked more and more about some things we discovered we had in common, which isn't surprising when you consider the general priorities of the endurance community in Northern New England. 

She'd just moved to Vermont with her husband and two daughters and just started a physical therapy office in Essex.  She had a background in mountain biking and road racing.  She also had trouble with depression in the winter and needed to get outside.  We were more alike than she knew.  

At one point she asked "are you training for something?"  I gave my usual polite elevator response along the lines of "I enjoy skiing, but my main focus is endurance mountain bike racing."  At the time I didn't realize how profound her question really was.  Several hours later I was still pondering.

What struck me was that most people I meet on the trail usually ask topical questions like whether or not I'm a racer.  I'd like to think that my skill on skis is what prompts those thoughts, but really it's probably my goofy hats and Swix drink belt.  By design there's usually nothing easily distinguishable about me to say that I'm really a cyclist moonlighting as a skier. 

Her question was deeper than the kind of superficial conversation you'd expect from a first meeting.  I could tell that she had her own stories to tell and her own reasons for getting out to ski.  Talking to some endurance athletes about their training is about as engaging as asking a teenage punk how many ponies his Camaro has under the hood.  Fortunately that wasn't the case here.  

"Are you training for something?"  Long after her simple question and my knee-jerk response I considered my real answer.  Yes, I'm training, but it's not for something, it's for its own sake and its own merits.  It's about the workouts, the fitness, and the journey.  Five years ago I would have given you a different answer, probably with an event name, date, category and target placing.  I could have given her the "yes I'm training for mountain bike racing because I think I want to be a pro before I turn 35 and I have a blog and I'm blogging about what I do to try to be pro and you should read it because I update it a lot and my mom says I'm special."  I didn't.  I'm glad I didn't.

Are you training for something, or are you enjoying the ride?
 

Weekend.

The weekend didn't go according to plan. 

It got off to a great start Saturday morning when I awoke to yet more pristine snow and bright sunshine. 

I ran around and gathered my gear.  The overnight low was around 5, but the high temp was supposed to be around freezing, so I loaded a lot of gear into my bag before I left.  This is just for the ski.

Then I had to choose which glasses to wear.  Decisions decisions.  I went with the new Zyons, which are on the bottom of the picture. 

Then I got all of my bike clothes ready.  I had planned to make this ski and outdoor bike ride happen, so I wanted to put myself in the best spot possible to actually do it. 

Then I got my drinks ready.  Again, this is just for the ski. 

I met up with Spinney, friend/coach/ironman triathlete/nutritionist/semi-pro motivational speaker.  The first half of my ski with Spinney was great.  

I got to Trapp's an hour early because I wanted to get warmed up and ski for 3 hours.  The idea of doing the 30k Gatineau Loppet was still rattling around in my head, so I decided I needed to test my legs a bit. 
After 60 solo minutes I met up with Spinney and we headed out.  We decided to ski the Trapp's- Mansfield Touring Ctr connector and hit some of the trails at Mansfield before coming back. 

The last couple of years there has been some discord between Trapp Family Lodge and the Stowe Mountain Resort operated Mansfield Touring Center that has kept the connecting trail from being maintained.  An agreement has been reached and the trail is now open again.

Our plan was to ski together for two hours, yet somehow my preparation meant that I only had 1 small 100 calorie energy bar and about 1.5 hours worth of water, both of which were quickly consumed within the first 20 minutes of skiing with Spinney.  Dammit.

The connector trail has a set of fairly long and steep rollers that make the 5k journey take much longer than you'd expect.  As we got to the top of the last one I could feel that I was running out of steam and that I was about to drop anchor.

 

This was right before we started back to Trapp's.  

We made a quick pitstop at the lodge, then started to head back to Trapp's.  I was smoked, and even small-ish hills were giving me a lot of trouble.  I ate the last bite of the small granola bar that Spinney had given me and readied myself for the vertical onslaught ahead. 

It wasn't pretty, it definitely wasn't smooth, and I made every effort to block out the little voice of ski coach Jim Fredericks as I bumbled my way up the hills.  "Push your skis out!  Get your weight forward!  Bend at the ankles- don't sit down!"  My goal while climbing became simply to keep snot off my relatively new jacket.  Anything actually related to the act of skiing was too embarrassing to consider.

In spite of myself and my poor planning I made it back to the car and promptly inhaled all of the food I'd brought with me.  My plan was to ski again on Sunday and I had to refuel if I was going to be able to even get out of bed. 

On Sunday morning I met up with fellow Grass Moots racer Jason and we made our way up to Trapp's.  The races that had started on Saturday were still rolling, so we had to take a more interpretive route than normal.  We hit the usual Sugar Road/Telemark/Russell Knoll warmup, but the race course blocked us from being able to head down to Skater's Waltz and across to Ayers.  After crossing the road and taking off our skis almost half a dozen times we finally decided to ski up Parizo to County Road.  

My normal route heads down Skater's Waltz past the pasture where the Highland Cattle chillax.  

After about 90 minutes of mostly skiing we started up Parizo.  Fortunately my revised breakfast and thoughtful fueling plan made the climbing much more tolerable, so much so that I could actually pay some attention to Coach Jim's instruction within my internal monolog.  Thanks, Jim.  

After we crested Parizo we bombed down County Road, then zipped down the steep descent to Russell Knoll.  The steepest section was mostly free of chuckleheads, but I managed to find a couple camped out right in the apex of the turn at the bottom.  We made one more run up Telemark, then headed back to the car after 2.5 hours of solid, endurance pace skiing.

This hillside is where the tourists decided to setup camp.   

The real fun didn't start until I got home.  I'll spare you the details, but basically Carrie and needed to clear some snow off the roof and it took almost 4 hours.  That's 4 hours after skiing when I really just wanted to go inside and take a nap. 

All of this has set the stage for today.  I can summarize my feelings in two words.  Fuck.  Everyone.  Not necessarily everyone, but everyone who's been pissing me off today.  Like my neighbor who clears the snow off of his driveway by blowing it into the road.  Like the guy at the Rental Center who couldn't have been less helpful when I was there to return the shitty overpriced roof rake with the short handle that we picked up yesterday.  Like coworkers who still don't understand a pretty straightforward process right before implementation even after months of discussions.  Like the guy who's been maintaining the salad bar at the local grocery store for 6 months and still hasn't realized the appropriate sizes to cut lettuce, ham and onions respectively. 

But I digress.

I shouldn't be in a bad mood at all.  Overall things went well this weekend.  The only negative is that I didn't get to ride outside in the mild temperatures.  Stupid Hampsten.  Maybe next weekend. 

The Hampsten

Maybe this is the weekend that I finally make it happen.  

I read Will Frischkorn's Velo News Fresh 'Korn segment in 2009, and since then I've been preoccupied with the workout he describes in this post. 

http://velonews.competitor.com/2009/01/rider-diaries/fresh-korn-swapping-bike-for-boards-in-a-blessed-boulder-winter_86537

When Boulder resident Andy Hampsten was preparing for the Giro, one of his winter workouts was to ride his mountain bike up to the local XC ski center and then go skiing.  The ride was mostly uphill, and on a mountain bike the speeds were low enough to stay warm.  

Trapp's is a reasonable ride away, and it's perched atop a sizable hill.  I happen to have more knobby tires than I know what to do with, and several bikes at my disposal.  The yet-to-be-released Moots Psychlo X RSL would be perfect for this, but I'll have to wait and save for a few more months.  

Winter of 2009/2010 I even put together a beater mountain bike with the express purpose of riding in bad weather.  On my few test rides I hated the bike and sold it shortly after I got it built. 

With any luck this is the weekend that I can make it happen.  It's mainly an issue of lining up the logistics with favorable weather conditions so that I don't freeze on the bike portion.  Making this happen requires a staggering amount of gear, and if I can put it all together I'll be sure to write it up. 

Successful Training Procrastination Strategies, Saturday Edition

It seems that either I've failed to learn from my mistakes or I've been able to perfect my procrastination strategy when it comes to skiing.  There are a handful of weekend activities that can get in the way of skiing.  Individually each of these obstacles is easily overcome, but when I have to clear more than one of them the odds drop for me to getting out the door with enough time for a decent ski.  This morning I awoke faced with 3 of them, 4 if you count my poorly thought out plan of tweaking my 'cross bike so I could ride outside and take advantage of the "mild" January temperatures (it was in the 30's).  Actually I could argue that it was 5 obstacles if I count my fueling plan, but I'm getting off topic. 

Short winter days are partly to blame also.  When it's pretty much pitch dark at 5:15 there's less room for error than over the summer, so starting out later than 3:00 is means spending more time in the car than on the trails.  Over the summer I can still get a 2-3 hour ride in even if I start after 5, but I digress.

The first obstacle was a going out for drinks last night.  Normally alcohol isn't a big deal for me as I know my limit and don't go crazy if I plan on getting anything done the next day.  Last night was the 4th Waterbury Pub Crawl, so with 15 of our friends we spent time at all of local watering holes.  It was a lot of fun, and this time of year it is critical for me to things like this so I don't feel deprived when the snow melts and my mileage ramps up.  While I only had a few drinks I was up late, and often that takes more a of a toll on me than the booze.  Fortunately I picked up a new toothbrush to knock the "beer fur" off my teeth this morning.  I did a pretty poor brushing job last night and my old brush had gotten pretty haggard.  


The second obstacle was not having my skis waxed the night before.  The weather looked a little variable so I could say that I was hedging on which wax to use, but really I just couldn't get my shit together beforehand.  I've gotten to the point where I can wax, scrape and brush a pair of skis in under 20 minutes, so it's less about the time and more about having one more thing to get done before I can get out.

Third, I opted to make a large breakfast for Carrie and me.  Somehow I'm able to stretch the simple task of cooking eggs into taking over an hour.  This also by itself would be fine, but after getting up late and needing to work on my skis I was setting myself pretty far behind.  At least the eggs were good.

Third plus (or fourth if you're actually counting) I've been really trying to tweak my diet so that I can get lean for the upcoming season.  So far the results have been good and I'm getting very close to last season's race weight.  My goal is to start this season below my lowest weight from last year it looks like I'll be able to do that.  There are many reasons for doing this, most notable is the obvious needsfor cyclists to have an optimal power-to-weight ratio.  If I get lighter, I get faster, end of story.  In prior years I've tried to lean up too much during the year when I was putting in big miles and it backfired.  If I undershoot my nutrition this time of year it just means that I have to push through some workouts feeling like I'm close to bonking or that I cut down my hours a bit.

Lastly I thought this would be a great day to get out on my 'cross bike, and I had just gotten some sweet BBG chain guides (technically they're sold as bash guards, but if you need a bash guard for cyclocross you're doing it wrong) and wanted to install them with some knobby tires to make the 'cross bike more of a 'cross bike and less of a tranny road bike with odd gearing.  After I stripped one of the bolts trying to swap out the carbon brake blocks and realized that the rear derailleur cable and housing were crimped I decided it was time for me to walk away and come to grips with the fact that any riding I did would be inside.

At 3:15 I finally hopped on my skis and started my workout.  I got two hours in and felt like I was fighting it the whole time.  I was tired.  I was weak.  My form sucked.  My skis felt like they were waxed with pine tar.  My stomach felt empty and like I was pushing a 200 pound carcass with 150 pounds of energy.  But I pushed on, and two hours in things clicked into place as I made my way up the last long, steep climb.  My form came around and things finally clicked into place.  

And I still haven't gotten either Redline up and running.

Skiing Update- Guest Coach Details

A few weeks back in this post I mentioned a guest instructor at my masters ski group.  After geeking out on fasterskier.com (it's like cyclingnews for the nordic set) I ran across some links to the collegiate nordic pages for teams in the Eastern Conference including Middlebury, Dartmouth and my alma mater, UVM.   

The links to the Middlebury page feature a post by Noah Brautigam, and he even mentions skiing at the range.  Mystery solved.

He leaves out the part about towing around a group of masters for 90 minutes.

The full post is on the Middlebury Nordic blog.

Weekend Workout Report- Skiing at Trapp's

For nordic skiing on the East Coast it's hard to beat Trapp Family Lodge.



Saturday morning this is what I saw out the back door- sun and a foot and a half of pristine snow. By the time I got my act together and made it up to Trapp's it had clouded over and started snowing.

I made two trips to go skiing yesterday- one with poles, and one without, which meant that I was ready to go in the parking lot then realized I was missing my stupid poles and had to run home to get them. After spending the morning removing decals from my YBB and packing up two sets of skis I was distracted when I was loading the car and left my poles on the front porch. Dammit.

When I finally did get there with poles I was glad I made the effort because it was pretty incredible conditions. All 100k (63 miles for the metrically challenged) were open and buffed out.

Heading down Telemark towards Foxtrack.

Skater's Waltz near Johannes' driveway.

This is the part of the descent on Skater's Waltz just after the driveway. It looks flat but it's a pretty quick drop then a sweeping uphill into a slow curve.


I opted for the Madshus Hypersonic C3 today. In my quick tests they were running better than my Atomic World Cups with the same wax. The C3 is their powder ski so the flex and sidecut and are palpably faster in soft snow. Generally I go for the Atomics since they are lighter and better on packed snow, but it's always worth it for me to take a couple minutes to see what my best option is before heading out.


The Hypersonics have a flex rating decal on them, and if you look closely you can almost read the part where it says "these are good skis if you're a fat fuck."