Training Log Archive: Carbons Offset

The Fingers with Revy, C-Bass and Carbon. Took a different route off the start to avoid the xc race course. Again, no people. Skied the fifth and sixth fingers. Snow wasn't as deep, or was more settled, so it was easier to get more speed. Nice open pitches. The bottom was more filled in than when I was here in December, so that made the ski out easier. Soon, we were back at the wider trails/roads and Revy fetched the truck so that the rest of us could just follow the easy groomed route back to the Nordic day lodge. I figured Revy would be quicker without me trying to keep up, so I let him go.

A couple of good runs, and we were still on the highway early enough to do the whole drive in daylight. The Fingers are nice that way. Stopped at the sushi train for dinner :)

Furry Knob with Revy, C-Bass, Atsuko and Carbon.
Crusty at the bottom due to thaw-freeze but once we got a little higher, it quickly became obvious that we would have good snow. Deep and challenging trail breaking, or so I hear: Revy did almost all of it, with some help from Carbon and C-Bass. Great snow, no other people, clear (although some flat light at moments) and calm. A long climb up.
Things skied more stable than we expected - even hitting convex bulges and things didn't seem to be popping. Deep snow, you sometimes had to really point the skis downhill to keep the speed up. Enjoyed two nice laps. Lots of fun. Really great to be out with these great friends again :)

Our trip down through the trees at the bottom wasn't as crusty and bad as we thought it might be and we even had a few fun slopes that provided some additional nice turns on lower slopes. The last section was crusty but still wasn't too hard.

16.4

16.6

Hill repeats on the snow-covered path up toward Silvertip.
4 x (30s, 45s, 60s, 90s, 60s, 45s, 30s) with up to 1.5 times recovery time in between. 2 minutes recovery between sets.
Started with a jog from home to the lower Banchlands parking, then out along Palliser Trail (road) for an out-and-back, then up the hill to the start of the path. Pushed the pace a little going up the hill to try to get some intensity in the warm up, but most of that warm up doesn't happen until the first set. As a result, the first set felt tough, like I was still tired from Tuesday, but the later sets got better.
Pushed about 90 percent on the intervals, not 95 or 100 percent, but this brought me to 95-100 percent by the last set so I probably paced it about right.
Really pretty under the falling snow. The snow on the path added some difficulty.
Amik was there with a tobaggon and rocked the trip back down the hill. Jogged back to the Banchlands parking lot.

C • Amik... 2

The last of my 5 classic lessons before I switch to skate lessons for 5 more weeks.

Got another tip that helps me remember shifting my weight side to side: when we skied past some of the lights and you have your shadow in front of you, you could watch your shadow and it would remind you whether you were shifting your weight or not. It also let you see whether you were shifting properly or just leaning at the waist. Even when we were away from the lights, it gave me a good mental image of what I should be doing, imagining what my shadow would look like if there were lights behind me.

On diagonal stride, I need to keep my arms straighter. I collapse them and give up potential power. I started getting the hang of this and by the end of the night I could feel the arms giving some boost to my speed. Also I need to remember to always follow through and get everything out of the arm/pole.

Also practiced shorter steps and faster cadence when uphills got steeper. That said, if you have enough fitness, you can keep a longer stride length.
Don't start to oscillate up and down when you increase the cadence, stay level and don't waste the energy.

Did a little more practice on step turns, fully moving the weight to the other foot and then stepping onto it, rather than keeping the weight in the middle and doing little shuffles of each foot.

The new natural snow was really nice tonight and faster than on Sunday. I still need new glide wax but the skiing was enjoyable, held some good speed. Air temperature was about -10/-11C but the old man-made snow underneath the new snow was cold and green wax worked great all night. Good grip and no drag.

$#!T just got real. Very real.

Man, normally these spin classes give about 24 minutes of zone 4 plus a bunch of zone 3 and zone 2. This one was much more binary: either fully on and usually in MAP (zone 5) or recovering. Spent about 50 minutes at very high intensity.
This is exposing us to a lot more MAP, in small and doable bursts. Then the training will extend the durations at MAP.

warm up

15x in the small ring:
1 min ~E4/MAP (not specified by coach), 1 min easy

5 min rest

5x (1 min >95 rpm MAP, 30 sec easy)
5x (1 min <75 rpm MAP, 30 sec easy)
5x (1 min any rpm MAP (did about 95+rpm), 30 sec easy)
(learning to recruit new systems quicker; the first couple of reps would feel difficult at the new cadence, and then become easier for the last few reps)

5 min rest

30 min (first 15 min in small ring, second 15 min in large ring):
15 sec spin up to max (usually going well into AnP), 15 sec easy

Cool down.

16.5

At CNC with Carbon and our friends Jenn and Jason. Cold, and the fresh snow was slow, so it was some extra work. Where we are used to gliding quickly down the downhills, we were poling or practicing some long gliding diagonal stride. I need some new glide wax (I could see Jenn gliding away from me on the downhills) but first I need to clean everything off and do some sanding to rough up a longer wax pocket, so this will all wait until I have a little more time. Wax the longer pocket again, with green wax. Had decent grip.
By the end I was getting a bit of the hang of a slower cadence, longer glide and more drive with forward foot on the diagonal stride and it seemed to be helping.
Met up with Myka and Amik. Myka was trying out her new skis and was nervous about how slow they felt but hopefully that was just the slow snow we were all feeling. Amik was there for the tobogganing.

C • Slow ski 2