Training Log Archive: Torino

Last day of our mini-vacation. The fog had caught up with us: it came over the Alps overnight and Ovronnaz was covered in it and as we could see on the web cams it stretched also far up the mountains if we wanted to ski there.
After some web cam-searching, I found the South-side of the Wallis having sunshine above 2000 m. So we packed up and left and drove the short distance on the other side. It was glorious when we got out of the fog in the gondola and beautiful sunshine greeted us. Below us, the compact cloud/fog cover.
It had very little snow over this side, so skiing was hard on my knee as it was quite icy, very hard-packed and even had some rocks. I spent some of the time sitting outside of a cabin drinking tea and soaking up the sunshine and the views from the Matterhorn to the Mont Blanc over to the Jungfrau!

Urs had found some softer tracks, so we did a few runs where few people had skied. They were not that challenging, but I did not care.
After 4 pm, we had to make our way down and dipped into the clouds again. It was very eerie and then for a while very hard skiing with no view until we reached the point of under the fog. It was a hard 3-km downhill steeply to the car and I had to keep my concentration up as falling was out of the question in the steep terrain.

A fun afternoon otherwise.

Did a 50min virtual spinning workout and followed a guy pedalling through the Jura which was beautiful. Had fun w it, doing 4x 6repeats of 30sec intervals w high resistance. And one set intervals w spinning really fast. Those 50 min w the nice scenery on the screen went by in no time.
Did the 3 leg machines again 3x 15 reps.

Went for a little outing and tried the area where the cross-country ski tracks would have been but there were no tracks just hard-packed little snow where lots of people were walking. Took it easy and rested for a while on a snow-fee slope and soaking up the sun, talking to people.
I'm still not sure whether I will be able to cross-country ski: the knees were definitely complaining about having to balance on those skinny skis. They were calming down a bit after a while, but still with no tracks it was doubly hard to do.

Did more skiing today on a sunny and beautiful day. Felt yesterday's skiing, and after 2 hours, my knee must have started to swell a little. We stopped for a coffee, then I did a little more and then skied down (total out over 4 hrs.)
The meniscii and knee cap hurt less today, hopefully the muscles are strengthening around the knee again. Time for a skiing-break tomorrow.

Went to the thermal baths for only 20 min and mostly massaged the ankles, calves and quads with the underwater jets. Otherwise, I just floated and enjoyed dusk settling over the outside pools.
Then went to the Hammam and lied on the hot stones which was very soothing; then another round in the bio-steamroom with wonderful relaxing scent, and meditated for 10 min.
Finished up with 6 rounds going through a Kneipp waterway, that is the water was SO cold, 6 degrees, my feet froze almost instantly, so I hurried through, waited 1 minute and did it again. It helped with the swelling.

After some relaxation, went to the fitness area and lightly biked for 10 min which was also good for the knee.

They have a circuit set up with hydraulic weight machines. So I did 3 rounds of 10 machines, 1 min each with 10 sec rest/changing in-between.
Was fun and mostly the upper body got quite tired.
For the legs, I did a leg press and adductor machine which were fine.
50 min strength and 10 min bike very easy.

We have a mini-vacation and are spending it at the Thermal Baths in Ovronnaz. For the afternoon, I tried skiing again and it went much better than on Saturday. There is just a little new snow, so it was beautiful with soft, fluffy snow, ideal to carve in.
The area is a lot better than we anticipated to ski within those towers of rocky mountains sticking out. Quite scenic and fantastic area. Some of the slopes we skied on were empty!

My knee held, actually, the longer I skied the better it got used to the pressure I had to put on it. I guess my knee has been pampered in the last half year and I had not put the normal weight on it until now. Of course, I'm still being careful.

PS: I started my watch at a later point just for fun, so I actually skied for 2 hours, but it included the uphills on the lifts, too!

Afterwards, 30 min in the warm and hot pools with jets massaging my legs and back in the water. In fact, those pools were outside and it was great being in all that steam looking up at the sky.