Snow Day

Whew, I'm sure feeling the jump back into running. With two big mileage weeks under the belt energy levels are a bit low at the moment. I'm planning to scale back the miles a bit this week and hopefully my two tempo workouts will be high quality. Only 4 weeks until Boston, so a couple more weeks of careful energy management until I start to taper. I remember hitting a similar slump with about 4 weeks to go before Grandma's, and that worked out alright, so here's to hoping.

In much more exiting news there was snow predicted for Northfield last Sunday and I woke up to find not just the dusting I expected but well over an inch of snow, with heavy snow still falling. I was going up to the cities to watch some friends run an 8k, so I dressed appropriate for a 30 degree ski race, met Nate and Nichole, and we headed North. Nate and I were the cheer squad, and we were debating how to handle pushing the stroller around in all the snow, but when we got up towards the metro there was no snow to be found. I ran around a bit cheering for the race, then Jeff and I got a nice cooldown run in and stopped to visit Elspeth, since the race was on Summit avenue close to her house. We then took a short adventure run down to the river before heading back. When I uploaded the GPS data later that evening I got a very juvenile chuckle out of the result.

Not my best attempt at Strava Art

Jeff had a great race, just breaking 29:00 for 8k. It was fun to run around and cheer, but even doing that I could tell that my legs were carrying around a lot of fatigue, so I was glad to not be racing.

When we got back to Northfield the snow was melting off the roads faster than it was falling, but it was still accumulating slowly in the grass. A couple hours later though it was really coming down hard, over 6" in a couple hours, so Nate and I threw on some rock skis and went out street skiing. It was fun to see the town covered in white, a break from the brown of spring. This morning there was over a foot of snow on my picnic table, so I'm sure there will be a few days of skiing for the adventurous down here in Northfield before it melts off again.

Lots of snow, time to ski!

Nate and I getting cruising through the neighborhood

An Abrupt End

Last weekend was supposed to be the final ski race of the season, the Slush Rush, but things got too slushy too quickly and there wasn't enough snow to hold the race. I got one good day of skiing in on Wednesday, Hyland was just barely holding a course together then. I don't think I have ever skied on such dirty looking snow, there was mud and tree debris everywhere, including copious amounts of sawdust on some parts of the trail where they had started doing branch removal already. The skiing was still surprisingly decent though, and it was fun getting one last low key ski in with some of the Vakava crew.

Some Vakava team skiing - Photo: Kevin Corrigan

With skiing out of the picture and temperatures in the 60's I had no more excuses to avoid jumping into running training. So I did, with a gusto. I ended up with 87 miles last week and got two good tempo days in. Perhaps a bit much of a jump, but my hours were actually lower than the week before when I was still skiing a lot, and muscle soreness and therefore adaptation are the goal anyway. Now I'm feeling a bit more confident about Boston, which is now less than 5 weeks away. The next 3 weeks will be pretty tough with high mileage and lots of fast stuff, then I'll start scaling things back. I'm going to try a shorter taper before Boston hoping to carry more of the fitness forward to Big Sur the next weekend, we'll see how that goes. I'm kind of using my Grandma's marathon training from last spring as a template, but with no steady training partners I'm kind of winging it. While some part of me definitely fears the hard work coming up in the next few weeks more and more I'm accepting that race season is coming up quick and I better be ready. Today was a bit chillier, so I got to bust out the pink arm warmers for my workout today.

Pink arm warmers!

In other news my brother found a house and his closing date is the 19th. It will need some work before he can move in, but I may not have a roommate for much longer. I've still been lazy about taking pictures, so I threw in some old ones just to give the post some color.

Social Hour

Well, if the weather today is any indication ski season is fast fading in the rear view mirror. I'm hoping that snow holds up well enough at Hyland for the Slush Rush race on Saturday, but other than that I'm mostly switched over to running mode. Last week still provided a lot of great skiing though. Wednesday night Vakava practice continued the trend of cold Wednesdays, so I opted to ignore the email calling for skate skis and take advantage of the last night of rock solid tracks and bomber kick. The reduced crowds at Hyland post-Birkie also meant that the tracks were in great shape and I was able to ride through downhill corners that would have been washed out earlier in the season.

Thursday provided another great opportunity for some late season classic skiing. Groomer Tom set tracks in the Carleton Arboretum and a handful of us met up for some nighttime skiing under the full moon. It was bright enough out that I wasn't using my headlamp for most of the ski. Unfortunately under moonlight patches of dirt and shadows can often be hard to tell apart, and I took a bit of a spill on one downhill. This is normally not a big deal, just a $0.25 fee to the biff pot (the biff pot is a "feature" of being a Team Nichole athlete where if a runner falls while out running they have to pay a dollar, and at some point that money will be used to buy something fun for the team. Since skiing tends to have a greater incidence of falling than running we decided the cost for falling on skis would be less). This time however I fell on my pole just right and snapped it in half. This made me pretty sad, both my classic and skate poles are red Swix Star poles that I've had for quite a few years. I first tried out the red stars at the West Yellowstone ski demo, probably way back in 2007 or so, and I was so stunned by how much better they were than the poles I had been using that I bought a pair as soon as I got back to Minnesota.

I'll miss you red star

This loss prompted a trip up to Finn Sisu on Friday after work. Devin was working and it was great to catch up to him as he helped me pick out a replacement pole. I ended up with a very nice Rex pole, so I will be sporting mismatched poles for a while. I also ended up with a pair of Atomic Skintec demo skis to try out. Heading up to St. Paul also gave me a chance to meet a friend and check out Foxy Flafel, a food truck that just recently expanded into a full restaurant. From there I continued North to my parents to check in on their house while they are on vacation. I fed the dog and cattle and got to bed early to get ready for an action packed weekend.

Saturday morning I was up bright and early for a trip back to the cities to help out with the Midwest Junior Championship races. Saturday there were a number of classic races and I was a course marshal for a few of the races before jumping in on the age gap relay races. It was awesome seeing so many kids out racing, having fun, trying hard, and enjoying the snow. I was also amused by how little speed/momentum the kids had on the steep downhills. Some of the fast corners that many adult skiers struggle with were no sweat for these kiddos, they could dance right around them.

The way these age gap relay races work is that an adult is paired up with a youth skier and each skier gets to race twice, alternating the adult and youth skier. Since there are different races for different age groups I decided why race just once when I can race 3 times, so I had Coach Jallie find me youth racers for the U16, U14, and U12 races.

Some kids getting ready to race - Photo: Craig Lovold

I didn't really warm up or check out the course well before the race, and I was caught by surprise a couple times when the snow suddenly changed speeds, so I ended up falling twice in my first leg. Not a very impressive showing, but I had a speedy partner, so we stayed in the mix. My partner William just missed 2nd place in a sprint finish. I managed to stay on my feet for the next race, and my partner Timothy and I ended up 5th in a very competitive U14 race. For the final race I could tell I was starting to tire, but the field was a bit less competitive by this point, so I was able to easily move up through the pack on my legs and Nico and I ended up third in the U12 race.

A few friends also showed up to race or just to ski, so after the racing was done we went out and skied a few laps because we all knew the snow would probably not be around for much longer. I swapped skis with Jeff for a while and his skis were comically slow. Maybe part of the problem is that I outweigh him by 20 lbs, so I'm sure I was bottoming out his skis, but I was double poling down hills just to keep up with the other skiers, some of whom were snowplowing. I stayed on his skis most of the time he skied with us so that paces were a bit more even. Eva and I went out for a couple more laps after Jeff took off, and it was a welcome relief to be back on the skintecs, which were still gliding quite well.

I was fairly tired after an early morning and a lot of fast and furious racing, but I decided to stop by Jeff's house and join him for a short run and some supper before heading back North to check on the cattle. Sunday I made my way back down to Northfield to join a good sized running crew for a long run. Starting out there were 7 runners, 2 dogs, and a baby in a stroller. We had runners doing a variety of distances, so every few miles we would drop off a couple more runners and head back out. By the end it was just Jeff and I running along singing Disney songs and Marco probably wondering what kind of crazy people he was running with. Counting the run to/from the Porath's I ended up with 17 miles for the day, a decent long run with Boston only 6 weeks away. This week I start back in to tempo runs and bike commuting, and probably say goodbye to skiing until next fall.

A Giant Road Trip

After an awesome weekend at the Birkie I was ready for a more relaxed week last week. I threw good diet and exercise habits out the window and had pizza 4 days in a row. I did get a few days of running in to ease my body back into marathon training, and I still did a fair amount of skiing because the snow in Northfield is quite good right now. At Vakava on Wednesday we did some fun relay style intervals, which are one of my favorite workouts.

One of these things is not like the others - Photo from CROCT Facebook page

Saturday morning a bunch of the Northfield fat bike riders were headed down to Faribault to ride in the Riverbend Nature Center, so I packed up the classic skis and went down to join them. There was a good crew, and my friend Jim had his GoPro along to take some video. It was a bizarre experience skiing right alongside bikers, because they just have a different movement, and brakes that skis don't have. Everything worked out great though, and I was able to stay at a comfortable pace and keep up with the pack just fine. Here is the video Jim took from the ride, I make it on camera a bit early in the ride, but when the bikers rode through a tunnel with no snow in it I decided to venture off on my own.

Snowy fun at the Riverbend Nature Center

Then Saturday afternoon I met my friend Marco for a "long" run. Only 11 miles for me at this point, but I have over 6 weeks until Boston, so I'll be fine, right? Marco is getting better at English every time I see him, but my Spanish is dismal, so I got to practice left (izquierda), right (derecha), and straight (derecho). I had to look up colinas (hills) when I got home so I could explain why I chose the route I did.

Sunday a friend invited me along for a trip up to Giants Ridge. The trails there are super fun and since I am not headed up to race the Pepsi Challenge there this weekend I thought a trip up would be a fun way to spend a Sunday.

Giants Ridge!

I rolled out of bed early and hit the road. There were a lot of runners out around Northfield, which made me feel equal parts guilty for not going running and sorry for those people who were out running instead of going to ski on awesome trails. We made good time heading up besides a slight detour into a snowbank for a few minutes. Luckily some locals helped us push the car out and we were back on our way.

The trails were in excellent shape. An inch or so of fresh snow over the corduroy made things a bit slow, and I had to lengthen my kick zone to get good purchase, but it was fun putting the first set of tracks in the new snow on several sections of trail. The weather was perfect, warm sun, little wind, mild temps. A really great day to be outside. Since I didn't remember to take pictures here are a couple from skinnyski race reports that do pretty good justice to the beauty of the place and the conditions when we were there.

Blue skies and beautiful snow

Finishing up as the sun was going down.

Road trips with skiers are usually pretty awesome because we're typically headed to wonderful trails with good snow and I tend to have a lot in common with other people who enjoy skiing. This trip was no exception and the drive up and back flew by.

In other news my sister successfully defended her masters thesis, so now she is officially the most educated one in the family. Her and my parents are now enjoying some beach time in Costa Rica, so I'm headed up to Wisconsin this weekend to housesit and make sure the cattle have food and water while they are gone.