Spring is here
It’s been a while since the last activity report. Today was special, so here’s an activity report - a ski report.
I woke up at 10:00am after about 6.5 hours of sleep. I had watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind the previous evening and spent hours afterwards analyzing the film with a secret friend. Perhaps Joel and Clementine are in the right - perhaps it is better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all.
I had packed my stuff the previous night. The temperatures would again be quite high - 50-55 degrees, which meant I’d most likely be skiing in slush. I decided to bring both my short-shorts (with pockets) as well as my windbreaker xc-skiing pants, but ended up just putting on some compression shorts with the pants, with the intention of changing out of them into my short-shorts if it got too hot for them thighs. The bag had everything - 3 peeled navel oranges, a large handful of bars, an Osprey water pouch thingy, some extra water in a Nalgene, thin fingered cycling gloves. This week’s trip had a special addition - I’d previously been using borrowed 160cm poles, which were slightly long for me. My new 155cm poles had arrived since the last time I skied, so I decided to bring both to see if 155cm was truly the right length.
Poop, contacts, and a metric ton of muesli later, I was ready to leave.
As I was packing everything into the 4runner, I noticed that I had new neighbors. Neat. Maybe they wouldn’t keep asking me when I planned on buying a house.
With everything ready to go, I set off. I had about 207 miles of gas left, so I didn’t need to refill. The weather was spectacular - about 55 degrees in Denver. The the ETA was 1 hour 40 minutes - only a 10 minute delay. I left at 10:45am sharp. The drive was smooth except for a little 10m delay, probably induced by some California driver. Roads were entirely clear of snow and were only wet on the far side of Berthoud Pass. And the damn windshield is squeaking again. I forgot the WD-40 RIP.
I arrived at 12:30pm. The sun was insanely bright, so I sprayed myself all over and applied that high quality Sun Bum sunscreen to my face and neck area. Almost out, so I’ll need to get some more soon. This time, I decided to not shove any “trail maps” (neoprene foam pads) into the medial side of the boots to simulate a lateral cant. Being somewhat bowlegged might actually help a bit for xc skate skiing - at least that was my theory after studying my biomechanics for about an hour.
And I set off for Left Field in accordance with tradition. Today was my 6th day of xc skiing. It felt like walking in ankle-deep mud. The skis would sink a few inches into the soft snow and lifting my foot felt like I had a crying baby attached to my toes. Absolutely exhausting.
And like usual, I forgot to start my Garmin Forerunner. It’s what it’s. It probably took 10 minutes to make a loop around Left Field. Absolutely horrid.
Afterwards, I decided to head to Meadow (after a short bathroom break). I figured Meadow would have fewer peoples’ tracks, so would be more easily skiable.
Meadow ended up being a little better. Still slushy, but I could at least work on technique. I ended up doing the “put your poles together horizontally behind your back and waddle” drill for a few miles and, despite burning hip flexors and tibialis anterior muscles, felt like I was making good progress technique-wise. After another 2-3 miles, I was getting the hang of staying balanced on one ski for as long as I felt like, but only the right. So, I guess my biomechanics theory kinda worked out? I’m more bowlegged in my right leg, and being bowlegged makes it easier to stay balanced in a wider stance. Maybe this means it’s time to bring back the trail maps but in a reverse cant in my left boot? We’ll see.
After about 1h20m, I decided to take a break. Last time, I had bonked after about 2h and I wanted to avoid that happening again. Two navel oranges later, I was ready to head out again. And it was time for yet another tradition - max-effort Left Field loop. My PR was just under 6 minutes for the first mile of the loop, but there was zero chance of hitting that PR in these conditions. I ended up getting 7:27. Satisfactory enough I suppose. It doesn’t look like the 5 minute loop will be feasible this season if conditions continue to be like this :(
After the max loop, I decided to do one more loop, with back-poles for practicing technique. Left field wind picks up strongly around 3pm and after that, it was time to head back to Meadow. And time for another tradition - Clockwise Yager Loop. Yager Loop was disgusting. It took 11:28 to finish the loop, which I had a PR of 6:00 for. It was like trying to xc-ski in powder. Mid-way through Yager Loop, I started feeling my right hamstring cramp. Oh-oh. Which meant it was time to head back to the car. At least the way back was downhill, so I could pick up some speed.
Back at the car, I finished my last navel and packed everything up. And headed back to Denver. 90 minutes - no traffic. Sun’s still up. Nice.
