The afternoon sun was deceiving.  It felt warm when I started skiing, but the wind picked up especially across the lake. And once the sun started slipping away.. Brrr.  It was down to -2 when I got home. I was excited to do some skate skiing on the natural snow and to get some longer sections of flat area to ski! The trail wasn’t quite in ideal shape with all of the fresh snow. It had been groomed, but it had a lot of soft spots and even some drifts on it across the 5 miles that I did.  I got pretty exhausted as I was coming back across the lake.   The Washburn Nordic team was out there and that gave me some energy for awhile.  My phone died from being so cold, I had it in my outer jacket, but it warmed up enough that I could snag the frozen beard pics when I finished!  It was a tough ski, but it felt good to get my longest ski done.  It was about 8,5k in just over 80 minutes.