Training Log Archive: kensr

Warm with a few places of sketchy snow. Off trail travel was good, making bushwacking productive. Missed a trail junction heading to control #5, costing about 4 minutes.

Some warm up; mostly after the race doing control pick up.

Rest day. Down around Euer Valley. Decidedly low energy levels today. Should be okay for tomorrow.

Good ski-o course over well groomed trail network. Couple short cuts cross country, snow was consolidated and fast. Felt good and fresh.

Warmup on way to start (1.3 km), then a circuit with Greg after race to pick up the far controls. Clear sunny day with more great conditions.

"Easy" rest day with Greg means an 8 km slog up 1400' of wet sun-softened snow and then a death-defying descent on the same trail once everything starts to set up. Included one spectacular cartwheel and crash. Should hit these trails in the morning when everything is still cold. Waiting until midday was a mistake. Aside from this, a beautiful sunny day with a great overlook of Lake Tahoe from the end of the route.

Couple laps around Tahoe Donner. Missed a turn dropping down from the top and added 4 min to leg four. Good conditions with nicely groomed trails. Felt okay, but still too slow on the climbs.

All the way up Hawks Peak with Greg and Charlie Shahbazian, then on to the end of the Ridge Trail. Great views of the valley and Donner summit.

Then a quick run back down picking up controls.

Checking out Northstar. Shuttle bus to base village, gondola to base of lifts, 100m climb to xc center. Then another climb thru 6 switchbacks to the start of the trails. Nicely groomed; had whole place to ourselves.

Score O in heavy snowfall, trails not groomed. Skiing slow work in 4-8" new snow. Would have been a blast on hard packed trails, but this was hard work. Felt really wiped by the finish. Cut back thru the housing development to get to the finish, enough snow so skiing was okay. Ended up 6 min overtime, lost a few points as a penalty.

Control pickup. Back out to grab a few controls. Still lots of unpacked snow, but no longer coming down.

Sierra Ski-O ?

Another long flight to the West coast and then a drive with Greg up from Sacramento thru lost of rain. Didn't see snow until we were over 6k'. Rain going by Royal Gorge, but petered out as we went over Donner Pass and dropped down to Truckee. Tahoe Donner was in fairly good spring conditions, soft granular snow and occasional flurries. Snow got soft and wet as the afternoon went on. Should be okay for skiing this week.

Night skiing after spaghetti for dinner. A little heavy on the carbo loading.

Just packed mom's figure 8 with the groomer, so got bored pretty fast. Will groom everything else narrow with the snowmobile and tires for the ski-o Feb 7/8.

Got back to the airport early and spent the night nearby. Out for a run with Greg. Got over-enthusiastic on our return and ran by the hotel and on for another couple k's. Luckily, I had the Garmin and used it to backtrack across the bland countryside. Next time we need someone who can remember directions.

Felt much better than Friday. Borrowed poles from Alison. These had slightly bigger baskets, and gave needed purchase on the soft snow. The racing baskets had been busting thru the snow pack all week. Ended up 6th in the class out of about twice that many. Overall was 4th for the week.

Skied out to the start/finish and a ways parallel to the course. Then afterwards skied to Lochalp at the end of the road, a nice long downhill (on the way out).

Sprint. Couple nasty ravines to cross on narrow trails. Wiped out going across one right at the start. Then slowed a bit and didn't go into the blind turns quite as fast. More narrow trails and rough terrain than Italy. Felt off-balance all day and didn't run well. Snapped a pole near the end, but didn't impact time.

Long. Lower down the valley on both sides of the river. Had only a couple places to cross over, so several legs involved long detours to the bridges to make it to the other side. A few racers took off their skis and waded across, but not sure that gained much. On the other hand, I tore up my base crossing over on some dirty snow.

Not a bad run, but got wiped out near the end by a skier trying to cut inside me at a junction. He was coming down off a hill and collided head-on at full tilt. Rammed his ski onto my foot and ended up with a gorgeous bruised big toe later that night.

Short. Mostly flat course on good snow. Lots of tight trails and much navigating required. Starters were overwhelmed and yelling in Italian at the skiers, I think I got off a minute late. Otherwise, nice course.

Long, same map. This time took a t-bar part way up and skied around the top of the mountain before dropping down to the base area.

WMOC & Ski-O Tour Aus/It/Switz

Fast, hard snow. Middle distance. Serious steep climb midway thru the course. Fastest way up was to ditch the skis and climb on foot. Later on, descent was an issue. Took a longer way down to avoid steep drop thru the woods. Probably didn't cost much time, if any.

Arrived in town and went to the local track for some laps. Man-made snow shoved around by a Pisten Bully and groomed into a hard .9 km circuit. Only a couple inches of natural cover; plenty more at Postalm another 1000m higher.

Long day (13 hrs). Skied well after dark on trails about the same as yesterday. More snow expected tonight.

Frozen surface after a little sleet last night. Broke it up with the tiller and skied just after dark. Fast soft granular surface, temp high 20's.

A few laps around trails and then exploring upper network with Dan and mom. Needs a little more snow, as back trails have not been completely smoothed.

Around hiking trails on beater skis. No grooming, just snowshoe tracks. Dan did fine with back couuntry skis, I struggled with my old skate skis.

Another half dozen laps of the fields at dusk, just to rub it in.

Great holiday season, with the kids home at various times. Good snow and ski conditions; lots of fun skiing. Target was 300 km for the two weeks, ended up at 278, which came pretty close.

C • 7:30 PM 4

So here's the summary for this year and the past couple:

................................... 2008..........2007........2006..........2005
XC Ski.........................1266km.......1121.........857...........1549
Running (incl o-races......931mi.........670..........636............685
& rogaines)
Bicycling........................204mi........407.........1666..........1015
Roller ski........................198mi........223

Weights............................23x.........17x..........33x............31x

Training hours..................435...........451..........404...........537

Birkie time.......................3:16......no times......3:37..........3:41
Manchester....................35:12.......37:29........37:58........37:23

Observations for the year:
1) Hours remain pretty constant, given the balance between job and family. Unlikely to see any significant increase here.
2) Continue to increase the xc km. Big number in 2005 was the combination of a long spring and early start to the next season. More importantly, the quality of the training is going up, thanks to coaching by Greg, Alex and Rangeley. Race results show it, with dropping times at the Birkie and other marathons.
3) Also saw a nice increase in running miles. This broke me out of a multi-year running slump. Made some progress on speed; this is a hard, upstream battle. No longer can I drop down to the track and knock off a few quarters to tune up the speed. Got to work hard during the 8 month running season.
4) Biking is now a secondary recovery sport. When I'm not running in the summer, first choice alternate is roller skiing. If that won't work, then maybe some bike time. You can't do it all.
5) More personally, relieved to have mom's situation in CT resolved after hard and frustrating effort by G.

Goals for 2009
1) Birkie under 3:00.
2) Vdot 46
3) Manchester <34; Springfield <28
4) XC ski 1400 km; run 1000 mi; roller ski 400 mi; bike 300 mi
5) Weights every week

A few fluffs overnight. Quick groom and easy ski. Dan was out with his back country skis exploring all the little trails.

Picked up a couple globs of Bombi grease that leaked from the tensioner cylinder, put a quick stop to any glide. Have to retap the zerk fitting hole.

Break for a party, then back with skis cleaned and rewaxed with LF7. Slow. Switched to rock skis with LF4 which were much better, despite temp up around 20F. Guess the wind blown snow has really sharp crystals and is acting colder than the thermometer would indicate.

Also smoothed out the trails with the snowmobile as it got dark, and that slicked things up, too. Dan took over and did a few more laps.

Ski-O Sprints Kingdom Valley Nordic -- postponed into Feb sometime.

Cold snow, gradually warming up. Most was doing long laps down golf course and back, 4-6 km per loop. Nicely groomed and hard, pretty fast. Good venue to work on open field speed. Tried to settle into hard, even rhythm and a little less thrashing at max speed, with coaching from Greg.

One venture up the hillside into the Mt Peg trails. Not good cover, lots of sticks and worse.

Found new section of trail on the flats that goes past the health club as classic tracks and then opens up into skate trails for another couple km. Nice addition.

Time trial on flats. Good hard run. Came in second on time; Greg also finished, coming in later.

Very cold, single digits. Groomed with snowmobile pulling a couple tires; worked well packing down the loose powder cover. Did all the narrow trails.

Fields were wind blown and loose. Best skiing was in the pines, despite lots of little branches blown down. Wove in and around all the funky side trails, drops and cutoffs.