Training Log Archive: kensr

Stopped by Middlebury at end of day and got on the trails at Breadloaf for a little while. Marginal snow, but rolled and packed out. Used skis from Sat and they were skied out. Temp was too warm and skis were sluggish. Me, too.

L shoulder still sore. Felt the need to make something else hurt, so knocked off 100 situps. Now the other shoulder hurts for some reason, but that's totally bogus so I take it as a good sign about the L shoulder forgetting to be broken.

On a couple inches of ungroomed sleet. In between grassy patches. Not enough for the woods, but ok for loopy-loops in the field. L shoulder sore from too much V1 on R side Sat. Hope it resolves by this weekend or I'll have to limp thru Rangeley one armed, or even V1 to the other side.

C • Rangeley 10

Event: American Birkebeiner
 

Nice clean race, okay snow and temp. Wax good, but not hot. Temps started at 11F and warmed into mid-20's. Wax matched it pretty well. Never dragging. Didn't have that super fluoro float you get under prime conditions; guess it wasn't to be today.

Lingered at start, before the chip line; let the wave clear out. Then started off in earnest before the next wave was started. Gave me a clear shot all the way thru the powerlines (4 km). Then into the short. chopping rolling terrain. Carried speed well thru that, passing lots of people. Pretty steady climbing to the high point at the fire tower (13 km). Legs just started to feel the work at that point. Lots of downhill for 3 km and gave them a chance to recover.

On to a couple sharp climbs before OO. There the classic tracks merge for a feed station and road crossing, before splitting again for 2 km. Exactly at the road crossing, looked over and saw my long term ski partner Tom Wolski, who started 35 min ahead, but had covered an extra 3.5 km to that point. Said hi and off we went on our separate courses.

Beyond OO the trail has a longer cycle of rolling hills. Here I seemed to lose a little ground, not able to carry speed far into the flats. Okay thru the Bitch and the hills just before it, even though the snow was chopped into 2" of powder.

Sun was on the ending fields before the hatchery, slowing the wax slightly. Onto the lake for 2 km. Had a headwind today. Snow was loose and much slower than the other night. Of course, having covered 48 km just before probably made a difference, too.

Splits + (2011, 2010)
10 km 42.24 (40.26 / 39.31)
20 40.53 (40.13 / 38.33)
30 39.28 (41.15 / 37.11)
40 40.17 (43.34 / 39.46)
50 36.57 (39.45 / 36.25)
Overall 3:19.50 (3:25.12 / 3:10.25)

Interesting comparing splits, that I lost time vs 2010 in the first half of the race and very little in the second half. Certainly didn't feel that way. I did crank up the effort after OO this year and that paid off. Also, in 2010 I was with the crowd at the start and pushed hard to get clear thru the powerlines. I went considerably faster the first 10 km that year, but maybe burned out a bit.

Analysis:
1) Start faster, but don't toast the legs. Did feel strain in the L hamstring after 23 km, but short of a cramp or muscle failure.
2) As before, more strength for the hills. Focused on being efficient with V1; managed to think about that 50% of the time.
3) More speed on the flats. Alternated between V1alt and V2. Not especially efficient and balanced particularly cruising with V2. Yeah, I know, find some balance. But also, figure out how to just go fast, too.

C • Very Nice! 7

Birkie trail at Gravel Quarry Road. Checked skis with morning run on a nice rolling section of trail. Both pairs had same Base, Moly and Marathon wax treatment, plus one layer of Blue HF6. Madshus with S1-0X blue grind were noticeably slower than Peltonens with S2-1X red grind, even though temp was around 20F. So will go with Peltonens, adding a pure fluoro top coat this afternoon and light structure.

C • structure 1

On the Birrkie trail, just before dark. Got in to the hotel and quickly scraped the skis and headed to the supermarket. Around the side and down to the lake. Across to the far shore and back. Exactly 2 km each way. Conditions very good. Hard pack 8" deep thoroughly tilled and aged. Fast on HF6, no top coat of fluoro yet.

Felt good and quit after some short spurts. Maybe check the morning conditions further back on the trail, but wax seems okay. Will test two pairs of skis, but I think the Madshus with the blue grind are the ticket.

1" new snow last night. Stuck where I had made a thin cover of snow Sunday night, but skidded off ice in other places. Maybe better after sun his it and things glom together.

Lots of little loops.

Cruising with Ruthie around trails. Conditions excellent. Skis with Red grind; LF6 over HF8; ran really well.

Off on my own. Twice around the 5 km race loop. Moderate push, but not too hard.

Back on the home trails. Snow on N field only. Hit it with teeth of groomer early when things were still frozen solid and brittle, busted up frozen granular and chipped ice a little. Ended up with convoluted maze of paths, 50% granular, 25% still frozen and the rest water ice.

Yikers! Fast and furious. Fun scrambling between nice granular and squirrelly icy patches. Maybe some shoveling is in order. Or snow creation if temp drops.

C • Birkie Birkie Birkie 5

Afternoon run with Ruthie. Relaxing pace with 10 x 20 sec pickups at end.

Warm, but good conditions on the loops of manmade snow. Coverage extends to almost 2 km, with good hills, so it's not an endless brain numbing circle.

Warmup, then 10 intervals 40 sec L4 with 40 sec recovery. Relaxed 10 min recovery, the another set of the same over mixed terrain, flats, hills.

Legs felt good with no strain. Skis easy to handle since the snow was soft.

Arms, legs, core 3 sets x 30
Pull ups 3 x 8
Been a while, arms hurt

Crummy workout. Felt somewhat sick, upset stomach. Still tired from the weekend.

Trails frozen granular, ungroomed. Icy and unpleasant. Would have been nice if they had at least been dragged with a grooming tool. Ah, when you know you could do it better yourself; just takes time and a little gas.

Went up the hill to the summit loop. Narrow and icy, skipped the long, steep descent and hiked it!

Wicked cold and windy. Lots of layers, which worked pretty well, except it made the day more work as that stuff was bulky and the snow was slowish.

Lap around and up to the Cabin with Alex, working on technique. Realized I was stomping the R foot on V1 and need to shove it, so-to-speak. Not quite hanging close on the downhill plunges.

Then another lap to the Cabin after thawing out and more work by myself.
Finally a trip around the 7.5 km race loop.

Nice day, many from CSU around.

First run in ages. Felt okay, but sluggish.

Right after running. Had filled in a few bare patches and groomed the icy stuff. Not as good as the other day, but still skiing.

Opened another bottle of home estate vintage Seyval that's had a little more time to precipitate the tartaric acid. I must say this was awesome wine. Nice full flavor and clean aftertaste. Too bad there's just a couple left. Oh well, then it's on to maple syrup. And planting another 2 rows of vines for the, let's say, 2018 vintage.

Shoveled a couple spots and then groomed the frozen granular with the teeth down for a few passes. Very surprised, the skiing was fairly good. Will do this some more to extend the 1 km loop tomorrow.

Working on getting oomph out of L leg.

C • one-legged oomph? 1

Walked the upper trails with Casey. Full cover over everything, but 1/3 is boilerplate runoff, 1/3 is tillable frozen granular, and 1/3 is covered with pine droppings and twigs. Need some new snow before anything happens up there. What a crappy season. Have to go to California and find some real snow. Oh wait, nothing there either!

New xc area north of Sharon of I-89 (not a great year to start up a ski area!). Frozen granular cover that had been groomed to thin corn snow. Hard and fast, and adequate. Nice job given the conditions. Trails loop around several large farm fields and into the woods. Most of the open trails were in the fields, maybe 8-10 km. Dodging lots of Ford-Sayre kids at the end.

Home after overnight flight to Boston from Smurf via NY, then bus. Maybe 3 hours sleep on top of not much last week, so ready for an early doze.

Got snow on the Fields trails, but it's fair to poor with a few icy sections and generally thin granular cover. Only one short bare patch, which I'll fill in tomorrow.

Blue M-21 sprint course. Fun and quick. Trails in excellent shape: full cover, hard surface and well groomed.

Much slower than the elite skiers at 12 min, still closer than if we were running. Mistake to 2 taking wrong side trail, but knew it right away and only lost 30 seconds.

Control pickup.

C • Awesome job this week by al... 2

ASC US Champs Sprint 5 blue - Splits

Setting out white controls and warming up.

Ran unofficially to try green course. Came into maze at high school too low and turned further low for big error 4 min. Next control also too low for 30 s lost.

Stopped for a minute on way to 5 to fix code box 51 which was knocked over and had flag lying separately. Since I was unofficial, thought I could spare the time to try and fix it. This was the central control of a butterfly and just got beaten up more later on.

Further along, a couple missed turns in the larger networks of narrow trails and while correcting quickly, still lost 2 min.

Need to tape a compass onto the map holder and use it occasionally.

C • Compass 4

Cleaning up start/finish and moving material to parking lot.

Tahoe XC US Champs Middle3 green - Splits

After another early morning arena setup and prep for today's sprint relays, a chance to watch the intense competition as 2 person teams each completed 3 laps through short but challenging courses. Even at the elite level many World Cup teams stumbled with navigation errors.

Got a chance to try out two of the courses later in the day, towards the end of the open relay competition. Courses certainly were tricky, with lots of choices on the narrow mazes.

Another relay course.

Retrieving controls, then setting some out for Saturday's middle races.

WCup middle race. Predawn setup of start/finish areas as usual. Distributing gps units to racers later on. Later on up to map exchange to releive workers. Then short search for overtime racer in afternoon, who was just slow.

Picking up controls. Setting out controls for tomorrow. Sprint relay will be awesome: 2 skiers, 3 legs each, lots of narrow trails at a very fast pace.

Setting controls for Thursday courses. Then skiing in and checking some narrow trails.