Tuckerman's

Erin Dubinski and I decided that we should ski Tuckerman's ravine this winter, and Ed thought it was a great idea, so Saturday night we headed up to Erin's place at Sunday River to crash before eating lots of grapefruits for breakfast and driving off. Completing our posse were Kevin Sprague and Tony Ryerson, skiers on the Harvard team, so with five in the car we strapped all the skis to the roof. It's been a while since I've had to do that.



We got to Pinkham notch and the clouds were scurrying across the sky, but the sun would occasionally peek out, so we headed upwards. The trail is pretty mellow, and we were at the base of the ravine after 1.5 hours. The weather had sort of taken a turn for the worse... we couldn't really see anything. And the wind was going 40mph, but luckily, the bowl was pretty sheltered.




We tried left gully first, and it was pretty sketchy. We were kicking steps into the ice to ascend, you know the skiing will be good when you're climbing on ice... oh. We stopped under a large rock to get our skis on, which is trickier than you might think when you're on a wicked steep hill.


We tried right gully next, and actually found some really decent snow just under the gully. The gully itself was still sketchy ice, but the bowl was windblown powder, and we found it just as the clouds were lifting, which put us all in great spirits. That run was good enough for three more before we determined it was time to head out.


Clearing up.

The famed headwall.

Once the weather did this, we figured we couldn't hang around any longer.





Kids these days.

Yoga

Some of the CSU moms decided a while ago that the kids needed to be exposed to some more flexibility training, and I agree with them. We train train train to be good at distance and eventually, our movements get shortened to the smallest possible motion - efficient, mostly, but how can you expect to apply power through the full range of motion if you can't move through the full range of motion? So Cathy Schen set up her favorite yoga instructor to come do a class with the skiers. He noticed that we all had great strength, good balance, and crap flexibility... go figure. He also has no clue what nordic skiing is, which is fairly amusing. I should probably send him some youtube videos.

But it feels so nice to be all stretched out now. After an hour of breathing and reaching and stretching and relaxing I feel like I'm two inches taller, and I can't seem to find my usual slouch. Where did it go? The best part about yoga, though, isn't about the stretching - its the focus. An hour of concentrating solely on me. It feels so selfish, to not be making lists and planning things out thinking about whatever problems there are that need thinking - the only thing in my brain is my breath, in and out, and the sensations of my body. I can see how people get into this... what a luxury.

Contour training

I was running at Hammond Pond this morning, and I realized that if I wanted to get to work on time, I'd have to cut my run short. Right there I decided that my priorities were totally screwy, and I'd much rather be running in the woods than sitting at a desk, so I kept running. I was orienteering on the Hammond Pond semi-permanent course that Ross had set, and he had emailed out three versions of the map - one with all features, one without trails, and one with only contours. I was using the one with contours-only, which is the first time I've done an exercise like this.


There is a lot of talk, in the orienteering world, about simplifying the map. The theory is that when you are running in the woods, if you try to read every single little feature, it will just slow you down. Sure, on some maps, 1:15k maps for example, or featureless-blueberry-filled-NH maps, there aren't many features, so you won't get as bogged down, but the trend has been towards more and more detailed maps. So, we spend a lot of time working on simplifying the map in our heads, learning to pick out the obvious details and not get hung up on the rest. I'm not very good at this, I think its a subconscious thing where I know I'll get to slow down if I have to read every blip and knoll, so I collect every feature along my route. But it was so nice to run on a map that was already simplified for me - all it showed were contours and a couple marshes. I zipped around that course much faster than I normally would, relying solely on compass and contours. There was a sense of freedom about it, and it put me in a really great mood.

And I wasn't that late to work.

Pawtuckaway training camp

The orienteering section of CSU occasionally holds training camps, that are organized by us, for us. We generally all volunteer to host as many training events as we feel like through the year, and Brendan and Clem volunteered to hold the Easter weekend training camp this year, and totally outdid themselves. The camp had a super professional feel to it, with all the details organized (this is a big deal, really). The only thing that wasn't so cool was that the park entrance was closed, so we basically hung out in a parking lot instead of in the nice camping area, and had a long jog to the start of each exercise.

The weather was gorgeous, which helps with the overall feel of the camp, and we spent the night with the Andersons, an orienteering family who live in Durham and very generously stuffed us with feasts - Peter was very excited to cook a full Scottish breakfast, although none of us were all that disappointed when he apologized for not having any blood pudding or haggis.

I drove up Lori, Presto, Ian, and Stephen, who calls himself SGB, an English dude who is living in Boston and runs really fast (like a 9:09 3k). We met up with the rest of the group, about 20 all in all, started the first exercise around 9:30, and it was already too warm. It got to be 75F by the afternoon, so the theme of the weekend was dehydration.
We were the first car into the parking lot, and Ian was tired, so he took a nap. Weird.

Jellybeans seemed appropriate for an Easter training camp.

SGB took Presto for Saturday morning's training, which meant that Presto had to run much faster than he normally does with Lori, and much farther, since SGB's style of orienteering involves going way out of the way to take safe routes. Presto was pretty pooped by the time they got back to the cars, and crawled right in to take a nap.

We literally just sprawled out on the parking lot to have a picnic. Classy. But, it was close to the cars, which had the food and water.



At least some of us found some shade and dirt to sit in on the second day.

We actually managed to exhaust Presto by the end of the weekend, despite feeding him many hotdogs between workouts.

This is the map with my route (in green and red) on top - the purple is the line I was planning to follow.

Analyzing my workout after the 35-control course. 5.5k course in 1:18 - with an average heart rate of 163 - that hurts.
This is the map from that course - complex, confusing, and super technical orienteering. The focus of this camp was on map skills and technical orienteering, not the super-high-speed running that we'll be doing later in the spring. Pawtuckaway is a great place to do technical training, given its highly complex terrain and accurate map.

The map and my route from the time estimation course on Sunday - we were in groups of three, and the idea was that we each took a different route and estimated how long it would take. Interesting, and nice to be able to stop at each control and refocus, especially in that heat.

Five sessions later, and I'm done. My calves' stabilizer muscles are quite sore to the touch, maybe eight hours in the woods all at once was a bit much, but it was certainly fun!

2010 Ski season wrap-up

I finished cleaning the klister and summerwaxing glide zones last night, that's pretty much the only time all season when I think I have too many skis. Especially classic skis, that have been sitting with klister for a month at room temperature... I'm happy to put the skis away, I have no idea what next season will bring, but its a long way away, and I'm not in the mood to get after it just yet. Those are the sort of feelings you should pay attention to, so I'm putting off writing a plan until at least May, and probably won't pick up the rollerskis until June or July, at this rate. I currently have a lot of enthusiasm for running and orienteering, so I'll just devote some energy to that until I break myself by early summer, according to the pattern of the last couple years.

This was a good ski season - consistent, but consistently better than last year. I like that. I'm not sure how much I want to go into the nitty gritty of my goals, but I made all my goals for the Eastern Cups (really, it was just that last weekend that did it for me, with a 5th and 2nd place), almost made my goals for nationals (I wanted a top 50, but I'm not counting the 42nd place in the classic race, since there weren't any juniors in that one, so way fewer racers), and made my goals in ski-o. I didn't make my goals on the marathon side of things, but I was happy with 16th at the Birkie and 5th at Craftsbury, and I think I'd rather feel pleased with the race than gripe about how I was one place out. This is a strangely positive outlook for me. So, I'll leave it at: A good season. Most importantly, I had a ton of fun coaching and doing ski-o, so that will ultimately be my plan for next season too.

I'll leave you with photos. Because they sum up the season better than words.

Jess and I went to West Yellowstone, which was fun aside from the whole getting-sick-and-losing-six-pounds-in-a-week thing.






I raced.

After a trip to Presque Isle, Jess and I went to nationals. Where we had to deal with some shit, but mostly, had a good time and raced hard.
It was pretty.

Janice took this picture - bright sun during the qualifiers, eh?Too bad it was so dark.

I went to Rumford to race, and discovered that I didn't feel like it anymore. So, I cheered my brains out for CSU.

Then I did Craftsbury, and actually enjoyed myself, despite the frigid temperatures. Strange.

In a complete flip flop of weather, I went from -4F in Vermont to 45F and sunny in California. Life was good. The skiing was good, too.

I did some races, and beat up on the boys when I could.

I went from that ski-o series to the US champs, where I won my first national championships.

Then I went to the last Eastern Cups with CSU, and did pretty well since they were flat courses, woot.

The Birkie was next, big race and fun times with the Colby boys. Last real race of the season, and it felt darn good to be done traveling and being serious and all that stuff.

So I went to JOs as a coach, as you can see I am definitely not serious. But serious about making the kids go fast, they sure performed. Super proud of our CSU skiers, as well as the rest of New England.

J2z!


I might be done being serious, but I was conned into skiing 24 hours, which had its good points. As well as plenty of miserable points, but to look at the bright side, it could have been raining, instead of perfect spring skiing weather (note that I didn't say perfect spring skiing. That would have involved some grooming).

And then we closed out the ski season with some sketchy, but awesome, adventure skiing.

Sort of reads like "the travels and adventures of Alex", eh?

Adventure skiing

Being ski junkies, Ed and I couldn't resist one last weekend before all the white stuff melts out (most of it's gone by now anyway), plus, some of his southern cousins were up visiting Rob and his sugar house this weekend, which was bound to be fun. We hit up Magic Mt on Saturday, this is probably Ed's favorite place, mostly because its pretty low-key, friendly, and cheap, but more importantly, because its steep. I'd never actually been to Magic, so I locked my heels down for the first time all season and we headed over for their second-to-last day of the season. There were some definite bare spots, but where another mountain would have closed the run, Magic just says, ski it if you can, but don't blame us when you break yourself.

I don't go on chairlifts without my sweet blue fuzzy neck gaitor.

Old school style, check those pink salomon skis!

There was some incredibly sketchy, yet awesome, skiing to be had. Anything ungroomed was pretty solid in the morning, but softened up significantly by the afternoon, making for some sweet bumps skiing. There was a time in my life when I could ski moguls and make it look sexy, now I just bash my way down the hill, and its still fun, but it don't look too good. I still couldn't stop myself from heading down the lift line run, though... Wish I'd gotten a picture of the huge bare spots!

Pretty sure you aren't supposed to see the snowmaking pipes across the trail when you're skiing... or all those rocks. The skiing was that good.

Spring skiing in VT!

Steeper than it looks. But the bumps were the perfect size for me.

We went adventuring on Sunday - I've never been on the Rootbeer Ridge trail, off the Moses Pond road, and according to our local sources, it was in darn good shape two weeks ago. That's good enough for us, so we headed out on rock skis, unsure of what we'd find. We found some sweet skiing, as well as some super sketchy (but awesome) skiing. We went up the more gradual side of the loop and down the steeper side, which would have been even more awesome if a) either of us knew the trail, or b)either of us knew if there was a bare spot or open river coming up.

Skiing up through a recently-logged meadow. Ed is on my skis because I didn't have thick enough klister, and his were too soft, so when we switched, it was perfect for both of us. And then we switched back coming down, because I want the pleasure of breaking my own skis.

Occasionally the trail did this.



You can't really tell from this photo how rutted out and wavy the trail was - those humps were just the right size to sink your ski into them and snap it in half, so we did a fair bit of looping through the woods to avoid that. Now I'm itching to know what the trail looks like without the snow...

View from Rootbeer Ridge.

Wow, check out how dirty that snow is! Oh, wait.