Tag Archives: Skiing

02102019 – Run and Ski

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To round out the trifecta of the winter tri, I did a run this morning before the snow hit! I grabbed my Yaktrax and headed out. This was my first outdoor run of winter and I almost headed into the park to try the non-ski trails but instead headed North on the streets and cut over after awhile to the Wirth Paved Trails. It was quite the mix of clear sidewalks, icy sidewalks, and completely untouched sidewalks. When I crossed Golden Valley Road I headed onto the trails and it was slow going as the snow hadn’t been packed down on them very much yet. It was a nice 4 miler in 41 minutes. The mile on the paved trail was 9:27 and the mile slugging through the unpacked snow was 11:05! After snowing all day and getting another 3-5 inches of snow, the ski trails weren’t in ideal shape. I ended up playing ski games with the kids during lessons and we got about 2k of skiing. I wore the classic skis as I figured they would be easier to use on the fresh powder.

01272019 – Ski and Bike

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The kids were at a birthday party during ski lessons today, so I took the opportunity to ski solo. The trails were a little crowded with all the kids, but that was the time I had to get away. I did the full loop skate skiing again and it felt worse, but my time was actually better so that’s a good thing! My glasses got fogged up so I put them on top of my head and as I flew down Devil’s Drop they flew off. So as I went back up I made a slight detour to pick them up! One of the older kid groups was practicing climbing up the same hill and they were better than me! Most of them have been skate skiing longer than me and it wasn’t like it was super easy for them either!

It was about 7 above with a below zero windchill. The sun was out, but not really warming things up too much!

6.5K in 55:12.

A few weeks ago the Loppet Foundation announced that they were opening the man made snow trails to fat bikers on the evenings during the weekend. I think fairly low usage time for skiiers, but the bike trails have been icy so long that it is a generous gift to the bike community. I had hoped to go out on Friday evening, but that didn’t work but I really wanted to get out and try it. So I went, in the middle of a snowstorm!

The conditions weren’t ideal at all! The wind and snow was driving and there was more than an inch of fresh powder on the trails. This made it hard to see where the trail was and the powder made it slow going. I had to walk on some of the steeper hills and once my glasses fogged up they froze and it was hard to see through them. But that was better than getting pelted by snow in the eyeballs!

This wasn’t a problem until I was on the North side of the Haplutter loop. I had managed to get down the hill okay, but when I got back on the trail at the top, I struggled with staying there. I could see two poles and decided to ride between them. Makes sense right? Well after a few feet I came up to a rope stretching across the “trail”. I took my glasses off and somehow I had ended up on one of the greens. Oops. So I made it back to the trail and kept going. Then whomp, I fell off the packed snow into fresh deeper snow. I took my glasses off and I indeed had fallen off the trail and was pointed down the upside of the LaSquandra Loop. Oops! After that everything went fine but as you can see in the picture I had really no visibility.

I wasn’t the only crazy one out there riding either. When I rode up a few people were finishing and as I entered the Hap Lutter Loop a few people were just finishing the loop. So I might have been the last crazy one, but not the only crazy one!

5 above with windchill around -15. 5 miles in 56 minutes.

01262019 – CrossFit and Ski

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The roads were a bit slick this morning and there was an accident in the tunnel on the way to and from CrossFit. Kids and I ended up being about 10 minutes late. They had me do 5 minutes on the Assault Bike as I had missed the warm-up. I missed a little bit of time in the Deadlift window, but that was ok. Deadlift to a technical Heavy 5 – so making sure that form stayed good through a heavy set of 5. We were supposed to do a light set first so I started with 95#, then 135#, then 185# then 205# ending at 215#. That felt pretty sold for a set of 5. Then we had to drop to 70% of the Heavy 5 for 2 x 10. That put me at 150 for two sets. It felt a lot lighter, but was a good weight for 20 reps. The MetCon was 3 RFT with a 7 minute cap of: 15 Front Squats (65#) 12 Burpees 65 was the Gold standard and was a good choice. I could have done 45 at 95# but not within the time cap. I finished in 6:33. I did the first round unbroken and then stopped at 8 for the last two rounds. We were cleaning the bar from the floor, so breaking them up wasn’t recommended. It was a tough workout and I hit half way through the time at about half way through the reps, so I tried to push myself to get it done under. The first round was in a little under 2 minutes. About an hour after finishing my workout, the family went to gymnastics so I took the opportunity to get a ski in. I grabbed some food and set out to do some skate skiing. It was about 8f with a light snow falling as I set out. I ended up doing the entire man-made loop and it was really busy out there. A fair number of teams training. It is supposed to snow tomorrow and then the temps are dropping into the negatives for highs for the week. So this might have been the best time of the weekend to ski. I was proud of myself for not falling even though I did some of the hills I always fall on! My form definitely still needs a lot of work, but sometimes things seem to click. I was able to kind of ski up some of the hills instead of just walking up them so that’s good! I completed 6.6K in 61 minutes. I noticed that my average heart rate for my MetCon was actually lower than my average for the skiing! Not a bunch, but that is an interesting observation.

01142019 – Ski

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We met some friends at the Trailhead for dinner, games, and skiing. It was a fun night and fun to see how many people are out enjoying the trails on a week night. There were also a few high school groups which overall were pretty nice. We didn’t have any issues with them in the building or on the trails.

We had 6 kids of varying ski ability and 4 adults. We skiied up to the meadow and skiied around there a few times before coming back into Lower Stadium and playing around a bit. A few adventurous ones did a little more hills before calling it a night. The weather was great for this type of gathering too – not too cold! Hopefully we’ll do it again.

I did about 3.3K of skiing for the evening.

01132019 – Bike & Ski

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I was excited to take my new fat tire bike out for its inaugural spin. We haven’t had hardly any snow lately so the tread of the mountain bike trails are pretty much straight ice. I don’t have studded tires but I thought I would ride out and see how bad the trails were. So I rode down the Luce Line and rode fine over some rougher patches of ice. Right before the ski trails cross the Luce Line (right by the mountain bike entrance) I hit a patch of smoother ice and I felt my rear tire sliding. It all happened in slow motion, but I put my foot down and it slid too and as my right side slammed into the ice I saw my bike keep sliding a few more feet. It was a lot of pain, but no real damage to me or the bike – my right hip and knee took the worst of it and I got a good sized goose egg on my left shin.

After shaking myself off I got back on the bike and proceeded on the snowy edge of the trail to take a look at the mountain bike trails. Yup, the tread was icy on everything I could see. Had I not totally just biffed it, I might have been dumb enough to try it! So I turned around and stayed on the paved trail. I rode down to the Cedar Lake trail and then to the river and back home on Plymouth getting about 9 miles in. The paved trail was pretty much ice free except for a few shady spots and I could have ridden a different bike. I think it was still good to get the new bike out and see what adjustments I would need to make to it.

9.4 miles in 56:33

Later in the afternoon we had the kid’s ski lessons. We decided to move them both into Level 2 and we spent most of the time actually skiing and getting some of the hills in. It is funny to see how their different personalities respond to the different challenges of going up or down. And how one wants to really focus on just skiing and felt that the games were a waste of time! I ended up with about 2.4K of skiing during the class.

After class was over I went out for a quick loop with my classic skis. I did the Hidden Lakes trail sections and then up towards the upper stadium. I was still dressed for ski lessons which meant I was way over dressed for skiing at a more aggressive pace. So I was sweating way more than I needed to be. I decided to use the ski as a way to get the car instead of walking back from the Trailhead to the Chalet parking lot so I went down the Drevil’s Drop which I’ve never successfully made all the way down. I made it onto the flat section before falling, I think my ski edge caught one of the tracks. Guess what, I fell really hard on my right side again! Yea, the same spots hurt a lot! This quick ski was about 3.3K in 23:20 on my classic skis.

So that was a lot of work for one day!