Training Log Archive: biggins

Pouring and flooding and mudsliding today. All the ski areas are closed, the highway is closed, and the avalanche advisory is all black for all elevations. So no outside. And I feel totally justified in cancelling today's race. At least we're supposed to get another 8' of snow starting tomorrow.

But let's take a sec to nerd out about how awesome our SI system was yesterday. You show up, you clear and check. The check is an SRR so it radios the check punch to the magic SRR->Bluetooth translation box that totally doesn't look like a detonator, which sends the check punch to my phone. There I add your name so I know who's out on the course. You go and ski your course in the rain with all the SIAC touchless awesomeness and have a fabulous time, and when you come back and ski past the finish control (which is also touchless), your SIAC stick radios all of your punches to the magic srr detonator box which bluetooths them to the phone. So before you even have a chance to flop on the snow like a proper world cup skier, your full splits are in the results and because its a phone with internets it also uploads everything automatically to the live results right away.

But what if you're a curmudgeonly old fart that doesn't want to use an SIAir stick because its too awesome (yeah that AP thread)? Then you show up with your crusty old SIBoring stick, clear and check, the check still gets radioed to the phone because its an srr control box so it doesn't care, you're still in the system so I know if you don't come back, you ski your course and have a terrible time because you have to slow down and manually punch all the controls which sucks in the rain, and after you finish I bust out the bluetooth master station from my pocket in all its doctored up radio hotness and take your download wirelessly to the phone anyway. Because its bluetooth and I can connect as many things to the phone at one time as I want. Including my garmin, which gets a notification anytime somebody punches a new radio split or downloads, because I could.

Basically it all worked pretty awesome. No laptops, no cords, no giant setup. Results are automatically instantly on the web for everyone to see, because everyone has their own phone with them anyway. The radio downloads didn't work a couple times because we were hiding inside the building from the rain and it doesn't go through walls very well, but you can just download those normally with the download box and it'll update whatever it didn't get. We had the start box as a manual punch so it didn't start you before you wanted, but that sucks with the SIAC on your wrist and I think next time we'll just make it touchless. Plus then we could radio split your start punch too without needing another srr control box. Great success.

C • Nice system 4

C • Nice weather 5

Event: Sierra Ski-O TD/TXC
 

Setting controls. It was supposed to snow all morning and turn to rain be late afternoon / evening. It was pouring by 8:45am.

Ski-o! All sorts of raining, but the skiing was actually fine and mostly speedyish. Dripping wet by five minutes in though.

Blue - Splits

I got to leave the house! So much snow and sunshine, it was super nice out today. Skiing around TD with Anna, ski packing little trails for tomorrow's ski-o.

Sadly we had to cancel Sunday's race, but pretty much all of the Sierra is shutting down in anticipation of epic flooding (6-12" of rain Sunday). All the other ski races are cancelled, Yosemite is actually closing, the Reno humane society is evacuating all their animals, and the lady in front of me at the grocery store was freaking the f out.

In case you're not one of the six people expected to show up in the blizzard tomorrow, you can follow along on our live results + radio controls, because we're cool and have those now.

Legend has it that Boreal got seven feet yesterday, but Carol had the subaru so I couldn't go check it out. Had a pretty good ski around Glenshire though, some of it already tracked by other people and some of it me + pow pow.

C • classic skiing 5

Yay skiing from home. The highway has been pretty stopped for the last three days between snow and holiday traffic, so no driving to skiing. But we got a foot or so here today (the top got 3+...), and Anna and the girls stopped by on their ski, so Carol and I went out to join them on their way home. Then some more bonus skiing around the trails, which were actually in good shape with all the other people that had been out walking and skiing. Good enough conditions to do legit classic-ing, not just shuffling, and the tracks were nice and fast (-ish). Then it got super dark.

C • dumping 2