Welcome to Spring
· Apr 6, 09:36 PM
It’s spring here in Central Oregon, which does not mean crust skiing, mountain biking, boating, climbing or any other outdoor recreation – it means winter. I went up to the mountain today to see how the snow pack was holding up, and I’m pleased to report it’s doing just fine. The snowbanks down low are gone, but current base depth at the XC lodge is only 165 inches. We should have skiing for a few more months. Too bad we’re going to only have grooming for another week or so…
Anyways, today was my first ski since the 50k that ended the ‘08 season. It was pretty fun. I was on rock skis, because all I brought down from Canada were my warm skis. At the time, I was thinking that since it was spring it would be a good chance to get to know my klister skis since we didn’t have much klister skiing this winter. Good idea in theory, but it didn’t really pan out today. I skied on Special Violet covered with Super Extra, and the only problems I had getting kick were from snow shear, not any sort of glazing.
It snowed hard while I was skiing, on and off. When it wasn’t snowing it was sunny. The clouds were moving incredibly fast. The only bummer was that while I skied from 9:30 to 11 the groomer was working on Oli’s, Leslie’s and Divecka’s and they were all roped off. So no lower trails – too bad. It was actually very nice to be skiing (err, shuffling) along in a snowstorm though.
I have a bone to pick with ODOT too. Yesterday was the mandatory, required by law, take off your studded tires or else day. (My studs aren’t very good, but the tread pattern is a little better at dealing with snow than my all seasons). Today I was in a line of cars going up to Bachelor, and most people were sliding around the corners. It was a little disconcerting.
That’s about all for now. Maybe I’ll have some pictures sometime soon.
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Recovery Week
· Mar 30, 03:59 PM
It’s now been a week since my season finished with 50k in the Callaghan Valley. Since then the closest thing I’ve done that resembles training is riding my bike to work. And I’ve only done that once – on the day there wasn’t snow in town. It’s definitely been a week of inactivity, but one I certainly needed. I’ve been getting in some time at the office (off today though) and not doing much else.
The good news is I’m starting to feel a little bored and antsy. I almost have some spring in my step. I barely feel my legs walking up stairs anymore, and in another few days I might be ready for a little bit of activity. The only goals I have for the next month (April) are to get totally recovered and be ready to go at the beginning of May when it’s time to get ready for next year.
Right now I’m watching live splits of the 50k in Fairbanks. Not wishing that I was racing at all, but Violett’s having a good one, at least through the first 25. If he holds on he’ll be National Champ, which would be pretty cool!
... and that's the season
· Mar 26, 08:50 AM
This season is over a week earlier than initially planned, and I have to say I’m kind of excited about it. I made it back to Bend last night after a couple relaxed days of travel back down from Whistler. Today is going to require some serious unpacking and car cleaning and tidying up the ends of travel season before the true relaxing can start. I was also planning on being able to bike commute my way around town, but there’s about half an inch of fresh snow overnight, so that might not be an option quite yet.
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Canadia!
· Mar 18, 08:43 PM
I’m back. Well, sort of. I think this is my first trip north of the border since I was at Ste-Anne with Dartmouth late 2005, and there will be no visits to the shelf on this trip. Ah well, race season is back and it’s time to go. The drive up took a couple days (we took a little break on the drive up – check out the XC O blog for pics) but we’re here and going now. No pictures from the venue yet, but the sun did come out today, so maybe I’ll get the camera out soon.
Today we had the 10k classic. 3×3.3 on the Olympic Classic trail. A lot of good skiing out there, if good skiing is to be had. Today was not one of those days. I ended up on hairies and they were decent. They weren’t good, but they were fast and they were better than what a lot of people had. I could pretty much run up anything as long as I was out of the track, but I couldn’t really kick the tracks. It was just a tiny bit too bad, because the hills were just barely skiable, so running definitely wasn’t the fastest thing to do out there. But I have to think my skis were above average.
As far as the race went, it wasn’t bad. Wasn’t great, but I haven’t done anything in the last month really (5 weeks if you don’t count the Birkie), so I’ll take it. I started 15 seconds before Robin McKeever and 15 behind Roycroft. (15 second intervals and 3 laps made it feel like roller derby out there on lap one, then it thinned out a little – there might be more of the same tomorrow, I’m not sure sure, no start lists yet). I lost time to Roycroft on the first lap, and McKeever caught me at about 2.5k. I didn’t hang on for two long, but skied a good second lap and stayed close. I pulled Dan back a little and was feeling pretty good for the last lap.
Then McKeever caught Roycroft and they really put the hammer down on last lap and really buried me. I struggled with kick and suffered my way through. My legs were wobbly enough to make me want to get out of my tuck on the second to last downhill, so that was a good sign at least for the effort. I skied the bottom half of the last climb like a champ and the top half not so fast. But, all told it was a real good effort to get out of the way. Here’s hoping for tomorrow!
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A Good Week
· Mar 9, 10:48 AM
Well, I have to give Mt. Bachelor credit – they’ve made phenomenal skiing this week. I don’t think it’s a stretch to call it the best skiing and grooming of the season (with the probably exception of Soldier Hollow), so I’ve been pretty pleased. The sunny skies and temps going from 20 at 8 to 40 at 11 haven’t hurt things either. Makes for pretty perfect classic skiing on violet like kick wax for an hour and a half or so each day. Then I throw a t-shirt on and drive back to town.
Return of the Blog
· Mar 2, 08:40 PM
As you may have guessed, I haven’t had much to say on the skiing or ski racing front for the last few weeks, so I haven’t bothered. The Owl Creek Chase was as hard and bad a race as I’ve had in a long time and I was pretty much ready to call off the season at that point. Well, really what I wanted to do was to hit reset, but the reset button takes 6-8 weeks and that would have left me in a good position to get ready for the last races of the year right about April 1 … just after the last races of the year. So instead, I’m in a bit of a holding pattern. Sort of reset, but mostly trying to give me the best chance possible to be fast in March.
A large part of the plan has been trying to get recovered, because my biggest problem this season has been recovery. Usually I like the second day of two-day weekends, or the second weekend of race series. Not this year. After floating a lot of possible explanations all season through January, the best one we (the collective group I’m analyzing training and racing with) can come up with is that I overdid it a little this summer and fall. Not overdone a lot I don’t think, but just enough so that every time I get a few solid workouts in and feel like I should be getting myself ready for a good string of racing I end up tired with no go instead.
Since Owl Creek I’ve been on the hour and a half a day/one intensity a week plan. It’s hard to say if it’s working. The Birkie was definitely interesting. Much slower pace than last time I skied it, and we brought a pack of 30 up to about 30k. It was a real mess skiing out there. Broken poles, people skiing like donkeys, impossible to move in the pack and all that. Basically everyone was waiting on Babikov, and it took him three tries to get clear, but he finally did. I was great until about 38k, then my triceps started to spasm. I skied the long gradual uphill to Bitch Hill basically legs only, drank my entire third feed, and then had to hammer over Bitch Hill. At that point my arms stopped seizing, but I’d shot my legs too, so the last 10ks were a matter of faking it. I made the cut for 2-9 when Babikov went, but it came back together on the lake and I had no game in the sprint. I kept telling myself I should be going faster, but just couldn’t do it.
I did my first post-Birkie intensity today, classic intervals. I haven’t gone hard on classic skis since the race in Aspen 3.5 weeks ago, and I didn’t feel real comfortable out there. Given that there are 3.5 classic races out of 5 in the second half of the month I’d best fix that I think. My legs are pretty tired now and I feel like I went hard. The idea is to take tomorrow off and hopefully bounce back well enough for a light speed day on Thursday. If that all goes well then I think a TT Sunday or Monday, another speed session before Canadian Nationals and then truly race and rest.
We’ll see how it goes, sure would be nice to finish with something decent.
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Ski Town, USA
· Feb 8, 08:24 PM
Between getting back from the midwest, going to the Boulder and now being in Aspen for the Owl Creek I’ve had a whole three days at home in between the last three trips. Traveling is easier when I’m on the road longer and at home longer. Being back in Bend for just enough time to do laundry and decide not to buy groceries is not really that sweet. But the racing is still fun (usually).
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