Category 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.

02082019 – Ski

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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.

02072019 – Ski

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We went for a post work ski with lots of fresh powder! I knew the groomed trails would be rough as it had been snowing all day so we just took the roads from our house for a little bit and then hit some of the natural snow trails. It was fun to ski down the road and do some exploring! We ended up with about 3k total. It was pretty windy. The groomed trails weren’t horrible considering, but they weren’t tracked yet and had snow drifts. 

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.