The Ice Weasels Cometh

I pulled a well-worn move and volunteered Ed to help me park cars at the Ice Weasels race Saturday - its a good thing he was around, because he carefully placed cars in a parking lot that was a little bit on the small side, and if I'd been in charge I would have run out of room really quickly. I think we only made one or two enemies making people park on the cornfield... sorry, dudes, had to get there at 8:30 for the premium spots.

Once we'd gotten most people crammed into the cornfield, we wandered around poaching frozen kale from the course. I should mention, this is an actual farm they run the race on, some relative of Thom's owns it, and it pretty cool that they let us ride bikes all over it. It was pretty snowy out, I wanted to go to the start line on a pair of skis, but I was informed that that wasn't going to fly with the USAC officials. Damn.



The women's field wasn't huge, but it was big enough to be respectable, which is all we ask for, really. I'd preridden a couple laps, and I knew it would be slippery, so the goal was to just stay upright. I should mention, I'm in ski-season-mode now, I did NOT need to get hurt because I was riding my bike in circles in the snow and I fell over. Having not been on a bike since Canton, both my handling and my legs left a lot to be desired, rolling vs gliding, its not as similar as you might think. The course was super hard to pass on, since there was one line that the cat 4 men had graciously packed down for everyone else, and everything else was like a huge, neverending sandpit of loose, deep snow. Which is fine, I like sandpits, and I like them even more when they don't put sand in my drivetrain, but no matter how well you ride in the sand, its still slower than riding hard-packed mud. So, passing was sketchy at best.

Since I registered day-of, I was in the back (third) row. Luckily, moving up was easy enough thanks to a couple people falling down on the first corner, and I found myself in third. Karen Potter was gapping us fast, I had a brief moment where I thought that maybe if I were on her wheel, I could ride that fast, but it became quickly apparent that first I'd have to close the gap, and that wasn't happening. I got myself into second in one of the few places where I felt safe to pass, on the uphill after the double barriers, and by the end of lap 3 (4?), Frances Morrison had caught up. She was definitely faster on the few straight bits, and trying to stay in front coming into the barriers (and the twisty bit where I was better than her) I came into a corner too hot and laid it out in front of the crowd. RIGHT. on. my. roadrash. Ouch.

I'd actually gone down just a minute or two before, on the same side, so after that I knew I had to back off and just stay upright. Luckily, we were lapping people already, so I closed the gap once or twice, but I just had neither the desire nor the legs to stay on her wheel going through the start area with three to go, and that was the last I saw of her.


Anyway, I backed of a little, not too much, but just enough that I wasn't seeing cross-eyed, and that helped with the whole "staying upright" bit. I was having a ton of fun out there, and I'm super sorry to the girl in black on the mtb who fumbled when I lapped you - I didn't mean for that to happen, but thats sort of part of the game, you know? Didn't have to swear at me.

We saw this gem on the course after the 4 men had raced... thats gonna make it hard to pedal your bicycle.

We stuck around for most of the elite men's race, mostly just so I could collect the prize money, Ed was getting really cold just standing around all day and they had run out of beer by 1pm (which was highly upsetting, as it meant I didn't get any, since I was waiting until after my race. Next year, guys, don't tap the keg until noon, k?). Things were getting pretty awesome during the guys' race, with the kids going crazy with cupcake and dollar feeds. Where were they during the women's race, huh? Sort of annoys me that we obviously aren't cool enough for cupcake feeds. But whatever. The atmosphere during that last race of the day was great, that is what cx racing is all about. I may be a skier, but I'm going to miss cross season now that its over.


One of my favorite moments was the guy who picked up the dollar from the barriers, stopped to try and stuff it in his shorts, and the next guy comes by and steals the money from him. Lost the place AND the cash! Should have stopped for a beer feed instead, Kevin was supplying Ryan Kelly with one each lap.
The kids were LOVING this guy, although he must have been so full of cupcakes by the end of the race that he couldn't move, I swear he took one each lap.

An unfortunate run-in with a sand trap

I went skiing on the Concord golf course yesterday, because Weston didn't have much snow left, and Maurice and Susan (Maurice is my great uncle) live right next to the golf course, so I could go visit with them first. I haven't skied on this golf course before, and I was impressed with how hilly it was. Quite some terrain! It was also very landscaped, with all the greens on little raised hummocks and some serious sand traps out there. dum dum dum...

I didn't expect much from the snow, just because Concord had snow coverage didn't mean it would be good conditions - it had rained there, too. The "snow" was more of a crust, like summer glacier snow, all lumpy and wavy and bumpy. It was icy enough that although I was attempting to classic, my wax was gone in about five minutes (binder? Who needs a binder?), so I started sklassicking, that awkward motion of sort of skating on classic equipment over sketchy snow. The uphills were alright, fun even, but the downhills were downright terrifying. Oh, I should mention it was dark. My light is just not quite strong enough, and so I couldn't really see very far down the hill - given the icy conditions, I was moving pretty quickly down the hills, and whatever was at the bottom was coming up at me FAST. For the most part, I could interpret the shadows well enough to avoid any major obstacles, but my depth perception was all screwy, so there were several instances of me frantically waving my arms trying to stay upright as the hill kept going down while I thought it was supposed to go up - as I said, depth perception (and up/down perception, I guess) was all messed up.

Anyway, after about an hour of this, I decided I'd had enough. Not much training benefit to be had, and I was sick of being scared of every downhill. I was on the flat part near the lodge, and I saw a little uphill ahead of me. I was moving pretty fast, so I figured my momentum would take me right up the little hill, which it did, but then my ski tips disappeared out from under me and we had a little face-snow interaction. It happened so fast, that my first thought was "why is my light pointed at the snow?" Then I realized my face hurt, I wish I'd taken this picture before cleaning up the blood on my chin. This morning its scabbed over, looks even more impressive.

this may be the most un-feminine picture I've ever taken of myself, I tried to smile but my lips hurt from kissing the ice.

Of course, the gore factor has nothing compared to what my leg looked like after crashing on rollerskis last weekend. That bruise has gone through all the colors of the rainbow by now (except a pale pink, we're still waiting on that one), but the damn road rash catches on my pants at work, making movement pretty painful. I've got to stop falling down!

Snowballs and hot chocolate

We headed to Vermont last weekend, for some last chillaxing before the ski season really hits. I hit up my favorite rollerski loop, over Terrible mountain and around through Londonderry. I was skiing with Ken Walker, one of the guys on the Executive Steering Committee for ski-o, which always makes for an interesting ski. Unfortunately I took a spill on the big hill going down to Londonderry, this has been a bad season for rollerskiing for me, first my tumble in July when I put both feet into a storm sewer (whoops. No sympathy for that one) and then this one, where I don't know what happened, aside from me being on the ground with roadrash on my hip and a bruise on my thigh. At least I wasn't going mach 4 yet, probably only 15-20mph when I went down. Should have been using the speed reducers...

I also got really cold when it started snowing near the end of our ski. I know, its snowing during a rollerski, no sympathy there, either, but I was starting to get pretty worried about the roads icing up and whatnot. And being able to feel my feet, they were frozen pretty solid. Tore up my new boots in that crash, grumble.

Sunday dawned far too snowy to go rollerskiing, I shouldn't complain, except that I didn't have regular skis with me. However, the hillbounding was excellent, since the dirt roads were plowed, and the poles give you some grip on the ice. Luckily, my ankle was fine with the running, and I didn't twist it again.






We headed up the hill to Anne's house in the afternoon to help her move around some furniture - Julian isn't quite big enough to carry picnic tables and whatnot. Mostly, Ed did the heavy work, and I threw snowballs back at Julian. Running interference, someone has to do it.
Hi Anne!
I put my camera away just in time - that camera sees enough snow in the lens as is! Louisa is in the background, Rob and Anne showed up to help out/hang out too.


Julian quickly learned who not to throw snowballs at...

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?