Training Log Archive: Bash

Annual Chuck Norris Challenge at Leanimal & Phatty's New Year's party in Orillia. A fine race course designed by Slice & Leanimal, with clue sheets written in poetry and clever little questions hanging in various places around the neighbourhood. As 2005 champion and 2006 runner-up, I was feeling pretty confident going into the event after learning that none other than Hansel himself had been selected as my partner in the random draw.

It turns out that he runs just as fast as he has always claimed in his Attackpoint log entries - maybe faster - and our on-the-fly teamwork was good. The only problem was that our brains contain very similar sets of general knowledge, so we were both able to answer the same trivia questions along the race course - with the corollary being, of course, that if one of us couldn't answer a clue, it was unlikely that the other one could get it. Hansel put in a formidable effort on front of the tow rope (aka Salomon jacket) in the 2nd half of the event, and our finish time was good, considering the big chunk of time that we wasted looking for the "T akin to North Bay" bus stop. But we got a few too many questions wrong and allowed 3 lesser teams to knock us off the podium - alas! ;-) Even worse, the overall winners were 'Bent and his partner La Femme, so I will have to listen to the gloating for a full year. Woe is me.

The prizes were awesome - customized undies with an iron-on "Chuck Norris Champion" on the crotch - and for the runners up, undies saying "First Loser". Great party as always, even though the men prepared unfair clues for the female team to perform in charades, while the women prepared clever, challenging clues in the spirit of fun and friendship. (Yeah, we lost...)

Woke up this morning with a pain in my upper back that got steadily worse through the day. I'd felt a twinge in the same spot a couple of weeks ago after using free weights. It hadn't really gone away, but it was no big deal. Now it's a big deal. :-( I guess I aggravated the same muscle with yesterday's upper body workout.

Twice around the Meadowlands loop at Hardwood - the perfect place to practise skating technique without much elevation change. There were a few things to work on today:
- Pole toward the uphill side of the trail, now that I've figured out the mystery of poling on both sides.
- In 2-skate, shift weight to other ski when poles reach hips.
- Keep elbows close to body.

It was the 3rd one that nearly did me in. It was icy, and the skis didn't always go exactly where I wanted them to. While going along at a good clip, I planted one of my poles firmly into the snow just inside my ski - instead of outside where it belonged. SPLAT. Ouch... Otherwise, this went really well.

We put sticky wax on our classic skis and did all the trails in the Olympic system. As Slice pointed out yesterday, these trails are icy with some steep hills. I would also add "rutted in places" to the list for today. For the most part, it went pretty well, but I did crash hard at the bottom of a roller coaster dip when I was bringing my skis from partial snowplow to parallel position in preparation for the next uphill. It was a twisty kind of fall that I was certain involved a field appendectomy, but luckily the effects weren't lasting.

Unfortunately, my upper back pain came into play while classic skiing more than while skating. I was enjoying myself, but I went the last few kilometers with my face in a permanent grimace from the pain. I was feeling kinda down because I probably couldn't get to a chiro appointment for 3 days, although I might be able to corner Leanimal or Slice at the New Year's party, much as I hate to do that sort of thing. Then Dr. Wells miraculously appeared on the trail in front of us! After a few moments of polite chat about skiing and the holidays, I said, "Really sorry to do this on your day off, but what part of my body is hurting, and should I use ice or heat on it?" After a 10-second exam and patient interview on the trail, his theory is that I've strained my rhomboid muscle. He recommends icing it and rolling a tennis ball on it as a massage. Nice to have something that I can do for it while waiting to have a more formal appointment!

Best product name spotted in Sojourn - an outdoor store in Barrie:

iPood.

It's a foldable camping trowel.

Rodney Yee's Yoga for Flexibility with 'Bent. I liked this one. After all the skiing yesterday, it was nice to have a full-body stretch. No attempted handstands this time - phew. It was filmed in a beautiful desert location with indigo skies and red sand, but we were a little worried that he might back into a cactus during a Downward Dog. (We often run into actual downward dogs while attempting to do our Downward Dogs.)

Cross-country trek with 'Bent and ThunderDog in Palgrave West. There's a thin crust on top of soft, heavy snow - a bit of a slog at times, but the forest was beautiful, and T-Dog was thrilled to be out exploring. It's sad leaving the youthful BulletDog behind when we go out, but we can't risk damaging her knee any further. Only 10 days till her surgery, then we face the huge challenge of keeping our little faster-than-a-speeding-BulletDog from sabotaging her own recovery.

The final new DVD from my shopping trip - an intermediate Pilates workout with a body band. I've never done Pilates, so I have nothing to compare it to, but it seemed to have a similar effect to a Power Yoga workout. There was more variety in arm strength exercises, e.g. working specifically on the biceps using the band. I liked it - it's going to be nice to have a few home workout DVDs to choose from, especially shorter ones that can fit into busy days. I'd heard that Pilates provides a tough core workout, and there were a few challenging core exercises in this session - but it was a cakewalk compared to the Hard Core Conditioning DVD.

A head start on what's going to be a New Year's resolution. Time to get back to the leg strength exercises that helped me recover from my knee injury two years ago. I'm sure it's good for continued injury prevention, but more importantly, I'm noticing that my legs are less strong. I remember how good I felt in spring 2006 after I'd been doing the exercises religiously for 6 months. I want to feel like that again.
- 100 calf lifts - 1 and 2-legged, regular, pigeon-toed, V-toed
- straight leg lifts - regular, foot pointed out
- left lifts from plank

Hard to believe, but 'Bent and I had never gone XC skiing at Highlands Nordic in Duntroon, so it was high time to fix this unfortunate situation. We carpooled up with Goose, his daughter and her cousin, which made the 1-hr drive go by quickly. Great conditions for skate skiing, and Goose was kind enough to give us some coaching over the first few kilometers. I worked on poling on the opposite side from what I usually do, and it began to feel reasonably comfortable. I tried to balance on my unsteady left foot for long periods of time, and I did drills where I skied with arms like a speed skater, but no poling. I've got a long way to go, but it felt like there was some improvement today.

In between laps, we chatted with VO2Max and Brittany, who had come up for some training. The national team for the Under-23 World Champs will be selected at Duntroon next weekend, so their energy level is high - although Britt's broken leg is still healing, so she won't be racing.

Around the Red Trail - absolutely beautiful in today's foggy conditions with the trees coated in thick frost. Our grip wasn't great in the 0C temperature, but I'd expected it to be a lot worse. A little double poling practice never hurt anyone anyway! Lots of fun and much more comfortable to be back on our classic skis. Ran into Almageddon in the parking lot, arriving as we were leaving.

I was wondering when I'd be able to fit in a workout today... The opportunity presented itself earlier than expected when my car mysteriously refused to start after sitting in the garage for a few days. I finally gave up, phoned to move my lunch date back by an hour, then skied to 'Bent's office in Palgrave to pick up his van to take to Newmarket. I got the van back an hour before he was leaving work, then had a nice ski home in the twilight. The days are getting longer again - yay!

As I was leaving our place, I noticed some big boot tracks coming out of the forest toward our place. Only a few friends use that trail normally, but I doubt that any of them stopped by over Christmas. Strangers occasionally wander in, but they almost always stop at the top of the hill when they see our house, rather than continuing on. These tracks came up toward our house. Did anyone cruise by our place in the last couple of days to offer Christmas greetings?

After an extremely busy day at work, 'Bent needed to unwind, so I convinced him to try my new Rodney Yee "Power Yoga for Strength" DVD. It didn't indicate any level of ability on the package, but the DVD flashed up the subtitle "...For Beginners". We were disappointed, but it soon became clear that a beginner would find this DVD challenging, since Rodney moves quickly and doesn't do a lot of explaining. He also tossed in 2 or 3 handstand-type poses that we'll be able to do around the time that hell has a snowstorm. But we did modified versions and actually enjoyed our short pre-dinner workout a lot more than it sounds like we did!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Hard Core DVD. Can't remember the last time I did this, but it needs to be more often! Let's hope my freshly-toned abs will squeeze my stomach smaller so that less turkey and plum pudding will fit inside.

'Bent and I went to Albion HIlls to enjoy the trackset trails before all the rain and high temperatures - the forecast calls for 9C and showers on Sunday !@#$#!$! It was above freezing, and our skis were sluggish, but there are no bad days on the ski trail. Well, maybe Sunday won't be so great.

Came home to munch on some yummy dukka with macadamia nut oil. Who knew you could get such a thing? This treat was courtesy of our culinary-talented friend, Crash.

Also in the "who knew?" department... 'Bent's sister (a vet) recommended that we order some Dog Appeasing Pheremone for BulletDog as a tool to help calm her down during her recovery from surgery. Amongst other things, we can spray it on her bed in her (detested) crate or put it on a bandana around her neck. The hope is that she might be a little less likely to leap around excitedly on her hind legs every time we return home. I figured it couldn't hurt. That should be an interesting experiment!

I should have gone to Caron's class, but instead I stayed home and did her new yoga DVD. There's been too much going on lately, and I don't want to go home for Christmas feeling totally wired. 'Bent and I were couch potatoes tonight.

Reporting on my 1st day on the coffee / juice / cookie / almond bark diet:

--- Down 2.2 lb. - the lowest I've weighed since September.

Seems to be working quite well. I wonder if nutrition is really all that important in the big picture.

The National Ballet of Canada's Nutcracker is a Christmas tradition, especially popular with families. For the first time ever, they are broadcasting a live HD presentation of the show at 69 theatres across Canada this Sat. Dec. 22 at 2 p.m. My little brother is the Associate Director, and because he comes from a musical performance background, he gets the blood-pressure-raising responsibility of calling the filming of the show, including every camera angle change, for 2 hours. It's very difficult because the timing of every scene has to be absolutely perfect to the second, and the cameras have to be set in places that will not bother the live audience in the theatre. Should be awesome - but I'm going to find it absolutely nervewracking thinking of Dave in the booth!

By noon on the day after my coffee /juice /cookie /almond bark grazing, I am RAVENOUS. Give me pasta! Give me salt! Give me vegetables! Nothing sweet! Not even (gasp) chocolate!

So much for that weight loss scheme.

Gorgeous sunshine and the snow is still fluffy - at least until tomorrow, when the temperature rises. Even though time was extremely tight today, I just had to get out and enjoy it! I went to Albion Hills and did a loop on my own as a prologue. Then I met up with Leanimal and Slice, and we explored the woods in a different direction. It was so nice that I didn't keep my eye on my watch, and it ended up being a rush back to the car, a quick drive home, a 15-minute clean-up and change, then another quick drive to the Town Council meeting. No lunch. And actually, since the the meeting ran so long, and since we were having a get-together at our place at 7:30, I didn't end up eating dinner today either. Much to my horror, my entire sustenance after 9 a.m. consisted of coffee, juice, cookies and almond bark. Is it possible to die of malnutrition after only one day?

Fun group night ski to welcome VO2Max back to Ontario for the Christmas holidays. Crash, Coach L-D, 'Bent, VO2Max, Mike and I did a tour of Palgrave West, including some good steep climbs where we got to use all our herringbone muscles in the deep snow. It was more about being social than about getting the heart rate up though. The moon was bright enough that we were able to turn off our lights after the first few minutes, and it was absolutely glorious out there. We need to do more night skiing.

It's not often that Ontario people get to talk about "a big dump of pow" in their logs, but those were the ski conditions in Palgrave West today. Lots of work breaking trail through the deep snow. Because time was short, I'd decided to take the risk that Saturday's leftover wax would still work. It didn't. So this turned out to be an excellent upper body strength workout in addition to being an absolutely *beautiful* day in our very snowy forest. Nice!!!!

Poor little BulletDog... We saw the surgeon today, and she figures that the ACL is about 80% torn. Early in the new year, she will be getting TPLO knee surgery - a technique that changes the biomechanics of the knee so that the ACL isn't needed anymore. It involves cutting the bone and installing plates and screws - pretty big stuff for a little dog. It has a high success rate in larger, more active dogs, and she's young enough that this might get her back into trail running again. So January and February will be recovery-from-surgery months. When ThunderDog had her back surgery, we had to turn all the furniture upside down whenever we left the house to prevent her from attempting to jump up. It's going to be the same with BulletDog except we'll also need to figure out a way to keep her from standing up to look out the front window.

Stayed at home feeling snug and cozy while snow swirled down steadily for most of the day. We were supposed to go to a Christmas party an hour east of here, but decided that it wasn't worth risking the drive. Too bad, as it's one of those annual reunion parties where we see people that we rarely see anymore. Even worse, I don't know what to do with the ingredients for Unhealthy-but-Yummy Christmas Potato Casserole, which was going to be our contribution to the potluck.

Shortly before dark, 'Bent and I headed out to snowshoe through the deep, fluffy powder snow. It won't stay this nice for long, since the temperature is supposed to rise. Snow is still coming down - absolutely fantastic conditions. :-)

'Bent and I tried Caron's new Power Yoga DVD. It's quite different from the first DVD and also different from our classes with Caron - more emphasis on continuous movement (vinyasas) and less slow stretching time. It's definitely aimed at people with some yoga background who don't object if their heart rate rises a little. Unlike the last DVD or the classes, there aren't detailed explanations of poses or suggestions for making them easier. Because it's a bit shorter, I could see squeezing it into my day more often.

It's beautifully filmed, and it's cool to recognize that the gorgeous backdrops are familiar places - Wasaga Beach, Collingwood and the Cheltenham Badlands. Also cool is the fact that the photographer is a regular attendee of our Thursday yoga class who works for Sports Illustrated, and the original music was composed by his son.

Didn't count the relaxation time or the bonus poses, which we haven't looked at yet.

It's not just yoga that has put me in a good frame of mind tonight. I heard some excellent news about some friends. :-)

While waiting for a big, much-hyped snowstorm to arrive tonight, 'Bent and I headed out onto the trails. I like training with a destination, e.g. running trails to a cappucino bar or riding my bike to an outdoor store. Today we skied through Palgrave East and West, carried our skis a short distance in the Reddington subdivision, then hopped on the rail trail and skied to the Albion Hills Chalet. It was time to renew our annual family pass to Albion Hills - one of our most useful investments, along with our Bruce Trail and Humber Valley Trail memberships.

It was great to see the ski and snowshoe rental place so busy today. We skied around the red trail, then headed home. Trails were *very* fast and hard today, so there was considerable incentive to stay upright and unbruised. I used waxable skis and a wax normally used in warmer conditions, which worked well. For once, I had better grip than 'Bent most of the time.

Now we're waiting for the storm and looking forward to fresh snow to ski on. In anticipation of losing our power, which seems very likely, we've filled jugs of water (the well pump will stop), charged batteries for everything from computers to cell phones, and turned the heat up a few degrees from our usual chilly 14C. Should be fun, but I hope the trees aren't damaged too much.

Our youngest Tree Hugger, VO2Max, has had a great weekend so far at the Haywood Noram XC ski races in Quebec. He finished 9th in the Open Men's skate sprint event on Thursday (1 km full-speed - the event where Chandra Crawford won Olympic Gold). That's the 2nd week in a row where he's sprinted well - and he's not supposed to be a sprinter. Today he finished 10th in the 20K pursuit (10K classic + 10K skate ski). Great results - his hard work is paying off.

A question for all you athlete types... I just read "Polar Bridge", a book about a joint Canadian-Russian expedition where they XC skied from Russia across the North Pole to Canada. It took about 3 months of skiing an average of 8 hrs/day with some rest days. They had heavy packs, but they skied slowly - the ultimate long slow distance training. A paper was published that included the following:

"Post-trek VO2max decreased by 15-20%... while the oxygen economy of loaded skiing improved by 6, 8, and 14% in the three subjects. These two long-tem adaptations appeared to have counter-balancing effects on the relative physical "stress" of skiing, such that heart rate following the trek was essentially unchanged from pre-trek at any given treadmill speed in two subjects and even decreased by an average 8% in the subject with the 14% improvement in economy."

Why would their VO2max decrease so much? Too much LSD and not enough intervals?

'Bent dropped BulletDog off at the vet before work for some tests, so I skied to his office (along with a bit of running along Hwy 50) to get the car to pick her up afterward and bring her home. It was icy from Tuesday's freezing rain, so I convinced 'Bent to trade his skis for the snowshoes in the trunk. His injured knee is making good progress, but there are some challenges that it just doesn't need.

Hard Core Live with Caron. We did some more of those standing-on-one-leg crunches tonight - this time with an oblique twist. If I can get good at these, I'll never feel unbalanced on my skate skis again!

Lots of leg strength needed in tonight's class! Caron's 2nd Power Yoga DVD has just been released, so we bought one to try at home.

Twilight run around Short Bruce, plus Big Hill (down) and Pine Hill (up). Wore my beeYOOteefull new Salomon jacket and felt like a movie star (thank you P&L). Not too much trailbreaking today, but in the places where I had to do it, the thick crust from yesterday's rain made it tough going. Tested the "sunset" mode on my new little waterproof / shockproof / freezeproof camera. I hope I'll be able to get used to the camera being so much smarter than I am. Good thing I still have my SLR to fall back on when I want to be geeky.

Blasting. Did twice as much of whatever it is that Zoolander does, but it only took me half the time. Ha.

Feeling sad that X-rays showed that our speedy little BulletDog (aka Mocha in real life) has some arthritis in her knee, and she isn't quite five yet. We see the surgeon on Monday, and she will likely need her ACL fixed. Adding insult to injury (literally), we've been called in for further testing tomorrow because her pre-surgery blood tests looked a little funny. My fingers are crossed so tightly I can hardly type.

Skied over to Crash's place, then we toured Palgrave East. Trails are in great shape, and even our waxless skis gave us a pretty good ride today. Nice to chat and get in a full-body workout at the same time. Excellent way to start the week! Our dogs were thrilled when I returned home with my tights and gloves bearing the scent of Crash's pooches, who gave us an enthusiastic greeting upon our return to her place.

Event: Wine-O Chase (THOMASS)
 

GHO Thomass at Mount Nemo. About 20 cm of snow, combined with plenty of rocks and logs to scramble over, made this a physically difficult race, even though the course was relatively flat. I felt really slow. Even with Icebugs, I didn't have much traction in the snow, and I was super-cautious with my ankles in the rocky terrain. That might have worked to my advantage, since the controls were all pretty much where I was looking for them - except when I ran past #9 to the trail and had to return a short distance. Slice said hi a few minutes from the end, and I was sure I was going down this time, but it turned out she was headed somewhere else. She and Leanimal are running M-Elite in this year's Thomass series, so they are actually kicking my butt (and a lot of other people's) in these events. Andrea C. and I saw each other a bunch of times on the course, and it was fun seeing whose route worked a bit better to each control.

Dr. Wells and I ran down the final icy trail together, and he was finding it tough on his partially-healed broken toe. I begged him to let me tow him to the finish line, since I could dine out on that story for years. Just as he was seriously considering it (or at least that's my version), Eugene flew into my peripheral vision onto the trail in an attempt to pass us 50 meters from the finish. He hit the glare ice and did a scary-looking cartwheel before smacking to the ground. I slowed down to see if he was OK, but he stumbled to his feet and got his bruised body to the finish control a few seconds before me. Well done! He told me afterward that he saw us there and wondered why we were going so slowly, so he decided to go for it. And now he knows why we were going so slowly!

I think I might have been the top woman, but it was one of those days when the top men dominated the results. Fun course, beautiful woods, cheerful organizers, hot chocolate and a huge crowd of enthusiastic people. Is Thomass the new EcoChallenge?

I'd planned to ski, but my legs were fatigued after this morning (and yesterday), so I joined 'Bent and the pooches for a family hike on snowshoes. I had BulletDog on a leash to keep her from overdoing it on her sore knee. Because of that, I'm not sure whether I should log this as upper body strength training instead, since that was about 50% of my effort!

Wow, I really go all out with my warm-ups, don't I?

Around Palgrave East and West with 'Bent. Fantastic day - loads of fun, even at -1C on waxless skis. Unfortunately, we had to leave both dogs at home. ThunderDog is a senior who needs to limit her exercise, and there is a slight chance that BulletDog may have a torn ACL. We're supposed to rest her for a few more days before we find out if she has joined Team GimpKnee. If so, it is apparently a common surgical procedure to fix a dog's ACL. Because they walk with their knees bent all the time, there is more force on their ACL than on a human ACL. Sniffle - our poor little puppy...

Ran the long way through F&M's, then around short Bruce Loop. Had to break trail in 15-20 cm of crusty snow for about 2/3 of the way. I love my new lightweight running snowshoes, but the binding is rubbing on the platform, fraying it away near an important attachment after only two runs. Not good.

Feeling somewhat freaked out by MEC's decision to stop selling polycarbonate water bottles due to possible risks associated with Bisphenol A. I've been following this issue and have been using Nalgene bottles much less over the past year, but I guess I'd been hoping that someone would determine that they were safe after all. Over my lifetime, I've had a *lot* of water from polycarbonate bottles - and our favourite camp coffee maker is also made of Lexan, so we've been pouring boiling water into it, causing more Bisphenol A to leach out. Yikes.

With the trails covered in crusty snow, Leanimal and I decided to try out the running snowshoes today.We did some off-trail exploration, but mostly stuck to the Humber Valley Trail. Snowshoes were definitely the way to go today, and I'm happy with my new lightweight ones. I felt great, which might be partially attributable to spending time at altitude last week. It was a spectacular day to be charging around the forest - and as soon as we stopped, it was a miserable, chilly day in town. Funny how your perspective changes.

Hey, there's a great deal on 30 used Tomcat inflatable kayaks from Axis Gear - just $595 including tax and shipping. :-)

Hard Core Live with Caron. She's getting meaner. For example, lie on your back with your hands behind your head, and put your legs straight up in the air. Then lower your straight right leg until it hovers about 2" above the floor. Then do a bunch of crunches. Repeat with left leg down. Another good one was "standing crunches while balancing on one leg". Yikes. But you know it's gotta be good for you when it hurts that much.

Power Yoga class.

Warm-up before blasting. 'Bent had set up a movie to record, so I had to watch the channel that he'd selected. Stoooopid boy movie.

Blasting. Still can't believe how much strength I've lost since the last time I was using 'Bent's machine regularly. No *wonder* skiing was hard work.

Note to self: No matter how good the invitation, think twice before going to Toronto on a week day. It took 1 hr 45 min to get there, and I ended up being 10 minutes late for an event where we were supposed to arrive at 6 p.m. sharp. Due to frustration, I confess that I said some naughty words about other drivers in the privacy of my own vehicle. It took less than an hour to get home. Sigh.

Home again after taking the red-eye via Calgary. We sat behind Colin Isaacs, a well-known consultant on environment and sustainability, and former Exec Director of Pollution Probe. I hope he bought offsets too!

It's snowing lightly here, but there is ice and crust underneath from the heavy rain, so the snowshoeing is probably better than the skiing. We've missed our puppies, but they seem quite contented. While we were away, ThunderDog ate most of a cellophane-wrapped, Smartie-studded gingerbread house that was on a high counter. Glad to see her back surgery is holding up so well!

Some final notes from our ski trip:

- Wildlife Watch: I forgot to mention that I spent a couple of minutes along a ski trail watching and being watched by a curious ermine, looking gorgeous in his winter white fur coat. When he finally got bored with me, he stuck his head into the snow, scooped up a dead mouse and trotted off. I wonder if he's available for hire to de-mouse our basement.

- Blasting Note: I mentioned to 'Bent that it's clear I need to do some upper body blasting for ski season. His comment (tinged with sarcasm): "Oh, I thought you did that already." "Yeah, well, it looks like it might take a second workout."

- It was cool to visit Silver Star for early season skiing, which normally isn't possible in Ontario. It was unusual to have so many nordic skiers around - although the down side was that many shops and restaurants were closed until the downhill skiers showed up. I'd go in November again, but I missed Larch Hills, our favourite XC ski spot in the area. It's too early in the season to do much skiing there in early December, so it would be fun to visit in February or March another time.

Not a huge surprise, but 'Bent's knee has acted up occasionally while we've been here, so we've done less skiing than usual, and most of it was classic. It's been a good trip though. There's been lots to keep us busy, including visits with several friends whom we seldom get to spend time with. And I'm developing an appreciation for hot tubs!

The temperature had soared to -1C by 9 a.m., so we took the downhill ski lift to the top of the mountain to get better snow conditions - and also to limit the amount of time spent cursing finicky classic ski wax on uphills. There was no visibility at the top, and we had a great ski down Paradise Trail and out to Alder Point. We were hit by blowing snow, which meant that our skis did this stop-start thing in the tracks, depending on whether they were on new or old snow. Several times I gathered a brick of snow on one ski, bringing me to a sudden, awkward stop. But in between those moments, it was wonderful up there!

VO2Max had given me some coaching in the living room last night, so I was eager to try out a couple of things - improving my posture (just like my running) and doing the "soccer ball kick - squish bug hard with toe" method of kicking my skis. The idea is to think about pushing your feet forward, not kicking them back. He also said that 'Bent's "beavertail slaps" on skis must go. We also practised double-poling, leaning forward until our heels came off the ground.

We skied along the mountain, eventually getting to my unfavourite part where the nordic trail crosses downhill ski slopes (most of them not open yet, luckily) and shares a road-width trail with the downhillers for awhile. I really like it out here, but I think Silver Star needs to work harder at separating their nordic and downhill skiers. Until then, Sovereign Lake is always going to be a far better place to ski.

Ski around Black Prince and other lower Sovereign Lake trails in between cheering for the Haywood Noram Classic Sprint Qualification round and the heats leading to the finals. Unfortunately, VO2Max didn't qualify for the finals, but since his optimum race distance is closer to 50K than 1.1K, he took it well. It was exciting to watch the race, since we could see most of the course from where we stood, and the racers were going at top intensity for about 2.5 minutes. Although it was a Classic race, some skiers used skate skis and just double-poled the whole thing. It was cool to see them come way up on their toes when they double-poled. We worked on that during our own ski, just for fun.

The predicted storm arrived with blowing snow and slippery roads. I wasn't keen on our upcoming skid down the mountain to Vernon in our rental car, especially given all those corners without guard rails. Because freezing rain was in the forecast overnight, we thought about leaving before dark, rather than our planned 5 a.m. departure. Then I logged onto the Air Canada website and discovered a travel advisory warning of delays and cancellations for anyone travelling to central Canada. For a small change fee, they moved us 12 hours later - yahoo! So we have one more day of skiing, but we have to take the red-eye home. Seems like a good deal to me.

Morning ski around the lower Silver Star trails, then climbed back up via the Night Loop. Cold! 'Bent's MCL hurt a little right from the start. Not good.

Went to Sovereign Lake to cheer on VO2Max in the Haywood Noram 15K race. It was a chilly day to stand still for a couple of hours, but it was fun to see how it all works, and they were a little short of cheering spectators, so we were happy to do our part.

VO2Max looked powerful out there, and his technique was awesome. It's so cool to see how far he has come in such a short time. He didn't collapse and lie on his back in the snow for a minute at the finish line though, which seemed to be the most popular cool-down technique, so I'd better let him know about that. I must say that XC skiing at the national level wouldn't work out for me, even if I had the talent. It takes *far* too much confidence to wear full-body white spandex in public!

This was pre-Olympic training for us too, i.e. we were trying out clothing combinations for warmth and testing our new cowbells bought specially in Innsbruck (host of two Winter Olympic Games) last summer. Both of us had cold toes after awhile, but otherwise we were properly dressed. Almageddon says that experienced spectators take little squares of foam padding to stand on. Maybe for $75, the Olympics will even provide bleachers. The cowbells sounded great, but the strap broke on one of them even before we saw VO2Max pass through the stadium the first time. Good thing we tested that! Last but not least, our cameras were both finicky in cold weather. Gotta figure out what to do about that.

Spent a fun afternoon with Urthbuoy. Lunch at the Bugaboo Bakery followed by a scenic ski on the lower Silver Star trails. It's early season for all of us, and we worked on our gliding. 'Bent and I also worked on our front dives - oops, things often screw up when we concentrate on technique! Luckily, 'Bent's knee brace broke the fall as he smashed to the ground. We followed up with a fireside chat with wine back at our place. Thanks for dropping by, Urthbuoy.