Training Log Archive: biggins

WMSOC middle 1
Way more fun than the long. Terrain was much flatter and more open, and had a better snow:ground ratio. Couldn't double pole very hard with the busted up ribs, so it was pretty slow, but lots of fun.

World Masters long course.

Well this wasn't very much fun. There's not a lot of snow in the woods, a couple inches, and the sticks and logs and roots and rocks are definitely taller than that. Everything in the woods was dirty and crazy with pine roots and branches and little stumps, some of which I assume are still embedded in my skis.

Bailed hard on some gravel about 200m out of the start. Fell straight forward on my chest onto the icy gravelly trail, broke a map holder strap (but nothing else!), bruised up my ribs and knees and sensitive boy parts. In proper Finnish fashion, as I'm lying on the ground rolling around and moaning a little, the other 10 people from my start wave ski by and don't even look at me.

But after that everything went fine-ish. I was wimping down some of the hairy stuff in the woods for fear of breaking more things, and was wimping up some of the double poles because of the sore ribs. There really weren't that many trails on the map, so navigation was easy, it was just the not dying part that made it tough.

Sigh. I was all psyched up because I had heard fabulous things about finnish ski-o, and this was just disappointing. The conditions were crap which they obviously can't control, but I don't think they handled it very well. The next couple days are on different terrain, so hopefully it'll be better.

C • Course map? 5

Event: World Masters Ski Orienteering Championships 2017
 

Two laps around the island. Skied the second lap with a Finnish woman who came by with the usual 'USA?' introduction. Talked about the best trails of Imatra, the weather in Finland, the weather in Truckee, global warming, forest fires, and her trip to Death Valley and Vegas. Basically the usual 'I met an american' conversation.

Ski around the lake right by our place here, two laps with Anna and one lap with Dad. Not really warm out (maybe low teens?), but certainly comfortable while skiing.

EOC sprint this morning (-20C for the start). I was signed up to race, but yesterday the organizers decided that it actually wasn't allowed, and that racing both EOC and masters would dq me from masters. We'll just ignore the part where it would have been nice to tell us this back in November when we all registered for both and bought tickets for the week. So Anna and I dropped out of EOCs and are just doing masters this weekend, and Adrian and Stina dropped out of masters and are doing all EOCs.

Possibly the least exciting model event ever. The control was there at least, but didn't have an emit on it. But there were some more trails past it that were ungroomed but skiableish that we went to play on for a bit. There's about two inches of hard packed snow, so no rocks, but everything is bumpy and rutted, and the black trails are only boot wide. Seems like it'll be fairly treacherous at any sort of speed.

Back out with Dad and Ed after they showed up

Finland!