A Merry Go Round

The early season snow is fading fast around Minnesota. By next week I'm pretty sure all that will be left are a couple hamster wheels of man made snow.

Hyland Snowmaking Loop

Last Saturday Nate and I (and about 400 other people) headed up to Hyland park in Bloomington to ski on their 5k of manmade snow. Hyland just opened their snowmaking loop last winter, and it is head and shoulders above anything else on offer in the Twin Cities. The trails are wide and well laid out, there is a good amount of climing, including a beast of a hill that parallels the nearby downhill area, and there is 5 whole km of trails. That means that for the 3 hours and 52km we put in on Saturday we only had to go around the course 10 times (plus a little bit extra) and by the 10th time up the big climb on the course we were quite happy to not need to ski it again, or not sure our legs would allow us to. For a fun look at our ski, check out the Strava Labs replay of it.

While we made our goal of getting a 3 hour ski in, we kind of failed at our proclaimed secondary goal of making it an easy, social ski. We kept the pace comfortable, but easy might be a bit of an overstatement. We saw many friendly faces, but didn't really slow down to chat with any of them. Jeff tagged on our train a few times but other than that it was mostly just a brief hello as we skied by. Nate was asked to model his flawless technique for a couple of highschool girls. Oh the burden of celebrity ;)

Other than that I've mostly been confined to running for exercise. A couple years ago I would have lamented this situation, and while I have been missing the snow and skiing running is remaining a tolerable and occasionally even exciting alternative. One thing I've been enjoying for sure is having my running buddy back in action. Nichole is coming back into form very well, and since her paces are a bit more reasonable for the moment we have been getting others to run with us as well. Greta makes a great addition to the running crew as well. I'm sure we make for quite the sight cruising around town. I'm mostly laying off the speed work for the winter, since I get plenty of intensity at ski practice, but I'm hoping to keep up some good winter mileage to make the springtime transition back to marathon training go smoothly.

TNT Tuesday Crew - Photo: Mike Kosloski

I've also been joining Nate and Nichole on Monday for some P90X strength training. My brother is rooming with me right now while he is house shopping, so I dragged him along last Monday. We even got Greta in on the action. She is getting strong, but not pushup strong just yet. Strength training is definitely more enjoyable with other people to chat with, and I push myself a bit harder too.

Nichole and Greta doing some strength work

Holiday eating season kicks off this weekend with the EMVC banquet and my Friend Emily's family tree decorating party both on Friday. Ski racing season also kicks off Saturday with the Hoigaards Relays. Nate is out of town this weekend, so I'm teaming up with Sarah, a speedy Vakava skier for what promises to be a painful and fun event. Now I just need to decide what constitutes appropriate attire for a ski race when it will be nearly 40F. Tune in next week to hear how the race went, and if I ended up skiing in shorts.