Training Log Archive: W

Alas and alack! My final training in Edmonton, and its still hella cold. Jump in for a few intervals with Paul who was doing a 54321 ladder, and it was nice to get in a little intensity. Nothing too crazy, but got a little sprint-y by the 1 minuter. Someone asked me what I waxed with, and was clearly disappointed when I told him that I didn't bother putting anything on since my last session.

I think there's a lot of people that would really, really love kick wax to be rocket science, but it really isn't. Especially not at that temperature. I suppose they think that if they think and worry about it enough they will also be dead on perfect. Which they won't. Ever.

It got hella cold. So I watched Survivor while riding my trainer. Riveting stuff.

The temperature has tanked again after yesterday's brief respite, and it wasn't until about 8:30 PM that I got out after a long day of work to do a short classic ski. Toes froze, eyebrows were a little chilly, but in all a pleasant ski. Conditions are really really good, grooming still consistently inconsistent.

As departure day looms ever closer, the time I have to get in workouts seems to get less and less, I don't anticipate the next three days to be filled with quality exercise!

C • nice video 2

Regional race time! I was so on the fence all day about whether I felt like doing this. Despite being -11 there had been freezing rain all afternoon, and kind of windy, so I was all "but its so cold...." and "I'm tired..." and "all I had for lunch was a powergel...", but, I just kept prepping my skis for the race, and as closing time at the shop came around, all of sudden my skis were all ready and I was dressed to go, so... what the heck, let's go.

Unfortunately they shortened the course from a 10k to a 6k, so all the young punks that are now around Edmonton went balls out at the start, so I think I used all my double pole energy in the first 500 meters. But, then we went through woodcutters and 50th that had lots of striding, and I felt pretty darn good for absolutely no ski intensity. My HR was high (for me) for long periods of time, but my breathing was controlled and I pushed through the fatigue. Unfortunately the second lap had double poling across the flat for a little while, so although I pulled back a lot of time on the leader during the hill section, I eventually ran out of race course to stride back to him and I finished second by 3-4 seconds.

I'm not usually good with the short distance races (unless its a sprint), so I was pretty happy with this effort. And, as per usual, I was pretty happy in retrospect to have gotten out at all. That's always how it works.

Played some soccer day, and got all sore-like. But, on the plus side, the regional race today got postponed until tomorrow. So... sweet! Race time! 8k of double poling.... less sweet! But, whatever!

On a side note, this one time, like, 2 years ago I mentioned I found some old kick wax called Ex-Elit. I finally got around to finding out from some other people what the story is on that. I got three different responses:

1) "It was it's own company, they still make little kids skis and shit. Christer bought them when he bought Skigo and rolled their best shit into the Skigo line"

2) "Yes, Ex-Elit was one of the predecessors to SkiGo. Not sure what the kick wax is – if it has a current skigo equivalent. But Christer bought the company and names from the previous owners in a sort of exit from bankruptcy or save from bankruptcy. Something like that…"

3) "Ex-Elit changed its name to Lind-Ex in the 70's. Lind-Ex bought Skigo in 1992 I think. Both wax lines were continued until 1998 and then merged together for 1999/2000 if I recall correctly. The Ex-Elit Yellow kickwax became Lindex Yellow and then Skigo Yellow (because it was better than the Skigo-skigo yellow) and then in the product realignment 5 years ago became Skigo Orange. I raced a lot on the Lindex glides in the late 80's. Ex-Elit started in the mid-1940's, so there's lots of history. I could babble about some of the other waxes but probably not worth it in an e-mail."

And now you know. Even if you didn't care before.

C • Lindex 3

Well, that whole day could have gone a bit better. I was going to drive off to the shop and run on the treadmill, but 3/4 of the way there, people were signalling to me that my tire was low. It definitely was. So, I went instead to a garage to pump it up, and then the tire place to get it repaired. Turns out it can't be repaired, so I'm on the hook for a new tire 5 days before I'm not going to be driving it for a long time. Damn.

After that minor debacle, I ended up back at home, without car, and still no training done. So, 'round about 1PM, I hopped on my trainer for a spin, which was better than nothing.

Then, when 5PM rolled around, I got bored. So I borrowed someone else's car, went back to the shop, and got in a nice treadmill run and a little strength. I was close to not feeling like doing that, but I really, really, had nothing better to do (or at least, better things that I felt like doing), so I really had no excuses not go. Good for me, me.