Training Log: Swampfox

Yesterday was windy and today took that up another notch or two. Because of the new snow yesterday, I actually had anticipated that the interstate would be closed today, but it never did close.

The parking lot was an utter wind disaster zone, but the temps were a few degrees warmer than yesterday, and the net effect was that once you got past the campground loop it was quite tolerable out. The snow was really good today, and energy levels were back to normal after being dregged out yesterday.

Setting the middle school skiers aside, there weren't really many other skiers out this afternoon, and maybe people saw the forecast for 70 mph and decided to hit the hot tub instead.

I had planned to take it easy today, and the combination of new snow and very soft trails only added to the sentiment. However, the combination of going easy plus cold plus loads of wind meant that by the time I was done skiing, I was pretty much done done, and therefore it became an easy call to pass on any running.

Ski intervals today, followed by some running. Chilly out today, despite it being nearly fully sunny. Halfway through running fog rolled in and that was it for the sun, and immediately the chill registered more intensely.

C • Josh and KenPom 2

Skied; it felt relatively chilly even though the sun was out and with little in the way of breeze. Maybe the temp difference was bigger than usual between town and the trails. Whatever the case, there was thin ice fog almost everywhere--but thin enough so that you had to look out over a distance to be able to see that it was there--along with thicker banks of fog drifting around off to the south. The presence of ice fog at least suggested it really was colder than I had expected, and not just my imagination.

Whatever the case, I wasn't dressed warm enough and once I finished skiing, I was ready to go home.

Classic winter day in the best sense--crisp temps, lots of sunshine, no wind to speak of (there were actually people standing around in the parking lot chatting after skiing), and lots of people out. I mostly skied by myself, but finished up the last 20 minutes with Dan M. I hadn't seen Dan for quite a while, and it was good to run into him and catch up a little bit, since I had known he had had a bad mountain bike accident in the fall (ran into a tree across the trail at speed, and the tree won.)

Then did a nice run along a select set of trails, including running *down* Haunted Forest for the first time this winter. For whatever reason, I hadn't done that while having run *up* the trail many times. Well, running up is more fun anyway. Met a kelpie puppy along the way; it was very excited to see someone new, and I was excited, too--I had never heard of the breed before.

It was late enough in the day that by the time I was climbing up the last gulch you could feel colder air sagging down, which was refreshing.

Officially mid-winter locally, with temps and conditions appropriate to the declaration. Some fine Wyoming breeze furnished the necessary elements to ward off overheating, and not a single person reported seeing a Texas immigrant (ie--an armadillo.) So all was good.

Untransformed and quite cold snow made for slow uphills, at least for my skis. But good glide on the downhills, so I put my low intelligence on full display by striving to stick entirely to the downhills and avoiding all the uphills. Easier said than done, but anything worth doing requires effort.

Was planning to tag on some running after skiing, but blundered into Justin late into the ski, and ended up skiing with him until all my running time was used up. But at least I was able to convince him we should only ski the downhills and avoid all the uphills.