Training Log Archive: W

In the immortal words of my favoritist movie, "Dear god just let it be better than yesterday". And it was, at least a little. For a while. 'twas the Jyväskiepin Hiihto, a 25k skate on the same course as yesterday, just one lap instead of two.

Considering yesterday, I was surprised at how good I felt for a while. My heart felt ready to explode by about km 2, but I was one-skating a lot, and feeling pretty strong. Unfortunately I really felt my skis were still not great, I lost some time on the downhills, but I was able to ski with the lead pack of about 12 for the first 8k or so, at that point they put on a gap of probably 20 seconds, which stayed for another 3, until I lost sight of them and I was mostly by myself. I was able to keep driving until about km 17.

The snow was weird, it was snowing, and had snowed all night, but when I got to the northern part of the course, either my skis, or the snow got really, really slow. And so did I. It was around km 18 that the wheels really, really fell off. At about km 21 two guys skied right past and they had distinctly better glide than I did, but I also don't think either of them had done the 50k the day before.

The last three k, with rapidly slowing skis and my legs about to fall off were a real struggle, and I think there was another group of skiers that were closing fast in those last few kilometers. I didn't even realize one guy was sprinting his tail off to try and nip me at the line, but didn't quite make it.

So, I'm glad I did this weekend, but I think my skis really let me down. This is the first time in a long time I haven't had a professional wax setup to rely on, and a mini-team to go out and test wax with together. I had a tiny wax box that is really not tuned to wet & warm snow, an absolutely terrible iron, and using the side of a table as a wax bench. It was disastrous in the classic race, and probably not ideal in the skate, and it leaves me wondering how I might have done without those problems. Definitely in the classic, at least, I think I would have done much, much better.

But, considering I haven't really been training for skiing very passionately the last few years, I thought I felt some glimpses of ski power that I feel rarely, so that was nice. And it was a lovely, ski trail. It would be great to try it in fast and firm conditions.

I guess the only solution is to do again next year.

Neljan Vuoren Hiihto 50k classic. Huge, huge disappointment. Remember how I said I was worried about the kick? Well, fortunately the kick was alright. The problem was my glide was absolutely AWFUL. It truly became apparent when there was this long fast downhill into to one of the feed stations, and although I was in the back of this train of four, they just glided away. The only time that happens is when your wax is really, really bad. And it was.

At about km 17 this group of like, 9 master's skiers easily sailed past me on a downhill, and then I easily climbed right past them again afterwards, but with this course, there was no way I could keep up with them. Its very roll-y, with lots of gradual downhills, lots of gliding, and I had to work really, really hard to stick with them.

I don't know if I went excess kick, or whether I completely missed the glide, but I'm so wildly disappointed. I put on only 7 layers of Start RF, which I don't actually think is too overboard, but maybe I should have put that much on my warm skis which have a higher pocket. Or maybe fewer layers. I'm not sure. I put Holmenkol matrix mid for glide which perhaps was also a little cold, but then I threw PJ1 over top, and its not like after 3k my skis got significantly slower or faster. Makes me suspect it was the kick.

It was tempting to quit after lap 1, but, I have more pride than that. And instead I just kind of relaxed a bit and tried to cruise when I felt good and not to destroy my arms hanging with a pack. I ended up 14 minutes back, which is actually much less than I thought, but that also makes me feel with decent skis I could have been, maybe 6-7 minutes faster.

The good (or bad) news is that I have a chance for reddemption, since we're going to do it all again tomorrow with a 25k skate. I did up both my pairs of skate skis, and I really, really hope they kick ass tomorrow. I think this course is perfect for me, since I'll be able to do tons and tons of one-skate. TONS of one-skate.

At the very least, it would be really nice if something good would happen. Because, so far, January has been one terrible month for me.

Last wax test using some Start RF I got. Grippy enough. But will it be enough? I'm not sure. My access to a wax iron and stand also disappeared, so I had to go out and buy quite possibly the worst wax iron I've ever experienced (because it was the only one I could find), and wasted most of the day trying to find it and the wax. I mean, I knew it was a cheap iron, but truly, truly, it is awful. Virtually useless. I've used it for two days, and I've already bought a different one.

Another classic ski to test some wax. So far, nothing really seems to be working. This is very concerning. And, (as you'll see), possibly a little too concerning.

A bit more kick wax testing, with some of my remaining waxes. Vauhti Carrot (-1 to -3) probably has worked the best so far, the warmer Rode didn't work as well and didn't have the durability. But, there's definitely a glide trade-off, even when I think back to my using the Vauhti K18 the other day, the Carrot seemed a little draggy, despite not being HUGELY grippier. I'm thinking about going to the Prisma and grabbing something else. I just don't know what.

And this whole "buying wax at full price" thing. I'm not sure I can handle that.

A little shakeout run around the lake of which I can't remember the name. Snowy evening, and it took me a while for my legs to wake up. Then I went home and went to the sauna, only to be invaded by 3 fairly unpleasant Russians. It was my own fault because I let them in when clearly they didn't have a working key for the sauna door. That'll learn me. Next time I ain't lettin' in anyone.

Another tempo Tuesday, this time with two more folks. There were some times when I kind of felt like we were running a little slow, but somehow I didn't have the courage to tell a WOC medallist that he was running too slowly. We also toned down the tempo distance, and only did 16k at speed. That was probably sufficient.

On one hand, its helpful that the temperature is going to stay consistent all week, because that gives me plenty of time to test out kick waxes. On the other hand, I only have 6 kick waxes with me, and so far 3 of them do not work very well. This, this is not a good sign.

The problem is that its relatively warm (-1 - 4), there's sometimes fresh snow, but with enough skiing the track gets pretty glazed. Those are not always easy waxing conditions, especially when you're mainly prepared for about -8 and old snow.