Smart vs. Tough

Hillbounding tonight, I was INTO IT. Really ready to just slay the workout, I was super pumped because the meat of the intervals was 12x30s sprints, and I love 30s sprints. It was warm, too, which always helps, despite the darkness that happens way too early this time of year. Just me and the winter moths, today, teeshirts all around (because winter moths wear teeshirts too). Anyway, finishing up my warmup, I rolled my ankle. Didn't step on a rock or anything, it just went over the side, painfully enough that I had to sit down for a few minutes. This made me REALLY. REALLY. ANGRY. Fucking livid begins to come close to describing how I felt. I wasn't wearing my ankle brace, because I feel that it distorts my form and causes knee problems, but I thought I'd be able to stay upright since I had poles in my hands. This BLEEPITY BLEEPITY BLEEP ankle just won't heal, and its entirely my fault for pushing it - you'd think that four months would be enough that I could jog down a hill with a bright light and not break myself. Clearly, its going to be a much longer recovery than I'd anticipated.

Sitting there in the dirt, sobbing a little just because I had no other way to let out this storm of emotion inside of me, I weighed the pros and cons of continuing the workout. Pros: I had a full bottle of gatorade (can't waste the gatorade!), I was already here, I needed to do the intervals. Cons: If I run on it now I'll push my recovery even further back, it hurts to push off the ankle, I need to be somewhat healthy to ski fast. And then I justified continuing in a couple different ways, and ended up with the justification that I was already hurt, so pushing through and letting the adrenaline carry me through the pain wasn't going to set me that much further back. I'd just be tough, rather than smart. Been smart way too much already this fall, which might explain the nice consistent training I've had, but I'm lacking on the toughness scale. Time to sack up, its just an ankle sprain, and I can walk and I have poles, what is all the whining about?

I carefully limped down the hill, and tested out the first threshold interval. The flatter parts where the bounding was closer to running was kind of painful, but there were no sharp pains, and those are the ones you actually have to listen to. I got to the VO2max stuff, and found that by really pushing off of my poles, I hardly used my legs at all. Score! Of course, by the time I was done with the workout, I was limping pretty bad. Hopefully rollerskiing doesn't make this stupid ankle any worse than it already is. Back to RIICEing, minus the R. Plus an extra I for ibuprofen.

Because a caveman would keep running away from the sabre-toothed tigers. They ain't scared of no pain when faced with a REAL reason to run.

Photos from Win Goodbody.


Hopefully Alpina changes their suits soon, I'm a little sick of the black butts. Kind of looks like I'm sitting back, too. There's still time for technique changes...

Last photo dump

Our last day up at West Yellowstone we joined Lauren Jacobs, Heidi Henkle, and some guy named Carter for an OD on the river trails and into the park. Lots of the skiing was trudging along, but it was an absolutely beautiful day. Blue skis and blue wax. My favorite combination. No wildlife sightings, unless you count the squirrel I saw early on, but that may have been in part due to a constant level of chattiness. Just a perfect day to end a fun, snow-filled week.












Travel waxing in the hotel room. Shhhh.

West Yellowstone Supertours

Friday and Saturday featured the real races of the weekend, a 10k skate and a 5k classic. It felt cold, and the snow felt cold too, despite the temperatures in the mid twenties - I have some serious temperature adjusting to do before races in Presque Isle and Anchorage... my feet are still thawing right now. Anyway, I was starting to feel a lot more normal, so I was feeling ready to race and excited Friday instead of sort of wondering if I should do it, like on Wednesday. It was a hard race, lots of flats and transitions, and not many places to rest. I definitely felt all the skiing I'd done this week, especially on the uphills my legs felt pretty sluggish. The coolest part was on my first lap, of the two-lap course, when Dasha Gaiazova passed me on her second lap - she just skied so smoothly, and I definitely entered this star-struck little world trying to match her stride. It sort of worked on the flats, but then we started uphill and I lost her VERY quickly. The race was over soon, I tried to V2 everything I could, and just stay smooth. My Peltonen skis were fast, but with lots of skiing already in my legs I was definitely tired. I generally race better on lots of rest - hopefully this bodes well for later in the season, since this race went pretty well - although I would have loved to have been further up the results (who wouldn't?), I was pleased with my effort, and ended up 11% back, which is pretty good for me.


I didn't do much to recover overnight, unless some playing around on classic skis on the river trails counts as recovery, and didn't really feel like re-waxing my skis from Wednesday for Saturday's race - the weather was supposed to be about the same, so I just heated my kick from Wednesday into a binder for some cushion if it snowed overnight. Which it did. My skis were fast and kicked well, so that was good, but I was really hurting. Previewing the course I had thought that it was really hilly, but racing it felt like a lot more double pole than I'd anticipated. I started behind Katie Bono, who had been finishing in the 20's in the last few races, and there was a ghost behind me, so it was a pretty lonely race. I tried to stay relaxed on the climbs, but I think this just translated to slow, as I found myself doing a lot of jogging up the hills instead of striding - striding just took so much work! I double poled hard to try to make up the suckage on the hills, but it just wasn't enough, and I finished even further back than in the skate race. But I was pleased that I'd been able to go so hard even though I was tired, so that was good. Gotta try and find at least something good about every race...

After the races were over, it was just time to go ski myself silly. First I tested a whole bunch of other companies' skis and boots, call it research if you like. Although each time out I was making it less and less far along the trails, I guess the racing tired me out or something. Weird.


Not much snow in New England, so may as well play on it now, right?

Thanksgiving

We aren't really doing things traditionally... having leftovers for dinner instead of turkey, for example. But, the turkey isn't what thanksgiving is about. As far as I can tell anyway, its about the pies. No, not even pies - its about appreciating what you've got. There is a lot to be thankful for, as corny as that sounds, and its even cornier to list stuff in a blog, but still, sometimes you do have to just sit and count your blessings.

I'm sitting in a warm hotel room, with an upside down pineapple cake in the oven of our adjacent kitchenette, spending time with Jess, four blocks from 40km of perfectly groomed ski trails, in NOVEMBER! I have six pair of fast skis just waiting for the right conditions, brand new boots that fit like a charm, and snazzy-looking poles, all thanks to Alpina. Looking broader, I have a job, that I feel is meaningful and that allows me time off to go on these crazy adventures, I have coworkers who support me, and I have the time and energy to devote to ski coaching, with talented coaches and some great juniors. I have a boyfriend who most of the time believes in what I'm doing with my spare time, unless of course its those 5am rollerskis in the rain (when even I'm questioning what it is I'm doing), parents who love me, and great friends. Before I get too gushy, let me just say thanks. Life is good, and I'm happy.

craaaaaaaazy lady alert...

Now back to the important stuff - skiing! The first race was yesterday, a qualifier-only sprint race. It was on a trail called volunteer, which had some really fun ups and downs (well, the downhills are generally more fun than the uphills in my book) - and it was point to point. An interesting format. The general consensus at altitude is to start slow in the races, and I did that part REALLY WELL. Of course, then the consensus says you have to speed up, and I didn't do that so well. If we look at the bright side, no post-race hack!

The pre-race waxing bustle. I had great skis, Janice of NENSA was waxing for me, thanks Janice!

A little back story... we got here late saturday night, and I felt fine skiing Sunday, but after a harder workout Monday morning, I felt like utter crap all afternoon. My stomach was all twisted in knots and I really couldn't move. No appetite, and forcing down some lunch had put my stomach into that uncomfortable spot. Tuesday rolled around and I still didn't have any appetite - I made it through a bowl of oatmeal in the morning and about half a bottle of gatorade later on, but I was bonking by the end of the morning's ski - light headed, dreaming of lying down, short of breath, freezing cold, the full-on bonk. I was a little scared, my stomach still hurt if I tried to take any food (which explains the bonk), so called my dad to see what he thought, naturally he said don't rule out swine flu, which had Jess super pumped, let me tell ya... I was able to choke down a couple bites of banana before the afternoon ski, and made it through about an hour before I started to get really cold. Jess dragged me along, being super nice and waiting as I'd hang over my poles at the tops of hills and poking me to make sure I wasn't dead from time to time, and aside from the slightly painful pins and needles and the constant shivering, I survived. But boy was I feeling crappy. Still no food, because that would make my stomach hurt. I was thinking I probably shouldn't race if I was feeling like this, because I was discovering that not-eating leads to being very cold and feeling very tired. Never could have guessed that one...

Luckily, Wednesday morning rolled around and I was - if not quite hungry - at least not feeling miserable. Breakfast went down fine, so I figured I'd race. I didn't feel particularly weak during the race, but I was definitely tired - I expect that the whole starvation diet thing of the last two days wasn't doing much for helping my muscles recover. I've never had a reaction to altitude like this before, it was a little scary, but I'll blame Monday's hard workout. Hopefully after a couple days of regular eating, I'll feel good in the races this weekend. I already felt peppy skiing this morning. Wooooo skiing! Even feeling like there was a monster trying to get comfortable in my stomach the past couple days, the skiing has been great!




The subject matter in these photos is getting a little... dare I say, old? Jess, me, or snow, in any combination.

Wordless.

West Yellowstone

Due to the nature of Thanksgiving travel, things got messy at the airport - no charge for the skis (woot!), but after we boarded the plane to get to Denver, they announced that they'd found a leak in the hydraulic pump, so were replacing it. One hour later, the engine starts up, and I'm feeling hopeful. Not a long delay, a good chance of still making the connection to get to Bozeman, but then the engine shuts off. The captain comes back on the intercom and informs us that there is now a fuel leak in the engine, game over 'til that gets fixed. Statistically, planes may be safer than cars, but there is no such thing as a fender bender in a plane - accidents are serious.


Luckily, there was a flight to Bozeman out of Salt Lake, via Chicago, so with about ten minutes to spare, they put me on a new flight. Naturally the skis didn't make it. Six hours later than I'd planned, I got to Bozeman, where Jess was patiently waiting for me, and we negotiated our way up the slippery canyon to finally find our beds by 1am. Ooof.

Thanks to an east coast circadian rhythm, we were up early, a little tired but ready to go skiing! We quickly sorted out how to maneuver these long, wheel-less rollerskis, and soon were humming along, albeit at a rather glacial pace to try to stay in zone 1. This altitude stuff is no joke! The snow here is awesome, no rocks or dirt that I could see, and it was the perfect weather for skiing - some sun, cold snow, but not too cold and no wind. I'd forgotten how much I love skiing, there is such a sensuousness to it that you just don't get on rollerskis - whatever it is that people define as snow feel, I've still got it, and there is really just nothing to rival the feeling of gliding.

Huge thanks to Jess for lending me all the ski clothing... jeans just weren't going to cut it!

My camera fell into the snow lens-first (I swear, it did it on its own), so most of my pictures today have an old-school sort of feel to them... I kind of like it.