Training Log Archive: FoxShadow

Spin class at CycleQuest with crusher. Good class - Natalie, our favorite instructor, does a new music theme every workout. Today's was "Eighties legs of steel". Ave.260 watts.

Down 6 pounds to 188. 3 to go.

Shredmill session at home.

Although my flight was at 5PM, the snow was too good to not wake up early and get first chair again. The snow was just as deep as yesterday, and we knew the places to find it. Skiing hard with Ted like we did in the hay day was awesome.

Event: MNOC Orienteering Skill Development Clinic
 

A foot of fresh stuff on top of the four inches from Friday. It was DEEP in the valleys and on the leeward sides of ridge lines. We skied like we were 20 again, steep and deep hiking out of bounds, charging down everything until our legs could do no more, and then some.

I had lost my love of skiing after leaving my life as a ski bum between undergrad and law school, but we rekindled the fire this day. We skied hard from 9AM to 2PM with no breaks. The snow was bottomless, I felt no pain.

C • Dude 2

Arrived back at the Quigloo to a bit of fresh snow, and a foot of snow forecasted for the coming night. I was back out in SLC to reunite with my childhood best friend Ted, his brother, and his crew of guys from Vancouver, where he has lived for the past 6 years. It was good to see friends.

Spin class at Cyclequest with crusher. Our sixth class. I felt a bit tired in the legs, but got a strong workout in. Watts were 246 ave. across the hour, my third best.

Double Header with the old squad up in Maple Grove. It was good to the see the guys again. They are still much better than I, but damn was it fun to moonlight. I played fairly poorly, but had my finisher's touch, scoring two of the seven goals we scored across the two games. One was coast to coast to go ahead 4-3 in our 5-3 win, the other a nice deep shot but meaningless, as it was at the end of our second game 5-2 loss.

Shredmill session to stay on track.

Shredmill session to try out the new shoes. Grabbed some super light trail racers for O-meets, the montrail Rouge Racer: http://blog.montrail.com/2010/10/montrail-rogue-ra...

I like them, they do fit a half size small. Super light, fit well other than the sizing (I ordered them a half size large and they fit snug), and I really like the look.

Lunges, less press, chest arms back and abs at Anytime with Crusher. I'm down another pound over the last two weeks. Slowly but surely I'm getting to where I want to be. I'd like to be under 185 this summer.

Bike ride on the greenway with Scotty after missing the WEDALI crew narrowly due to a visit to the ER. Erl is a tough cookie and although he's minus a tooth, he'll be back in action soon.

C • what happened? 7

Shredmill to keep on the right track with weight loss.

Wave Three for next year's birkie! I just made the cut. Whoohoo!

Awesome Rogaine practice session at Standing Cedars. Great terrain. Did not feel like orienteering as much as it did adventure racing. The mighty mississippi's banks are always a challenge whether in Illinois, Iowa or Missouri or Wisconsin. Started out with a resolve not to follow and that resulted in being late to CP #2, I think even later to CP 3, but the first to CP 4, then 5th to CPs 5, 6, 7, and 8. Then on the way to 9 got passed by Biz, yet arrived to the CP in 3rd place only one second behind him - strange huh? Having epunch data for the run would have been very interesting. Mike was right behind as well. Then ran with Biz to CP 10 and then right to 11 where we fell victim to some sneaky gamesmanship by the aptly named PFC. That cost us twenty minutes, a lot of effort in the deep snow, and very cold feet. Returned to where we thought it was the first time, found it, then ran to the hub and to the parking lot in 2:59:30. Awesome training. A big thanks to Todd. It would be great to get LIDAR data here.

C • cp10 3

Wave seeding shows that I snuck into wave 3 for next year's birkie, whoohoo!

C • Birkie 7

Light spin on the trainer while taking in the madness. No better time of the year.

What a close game. I think we should have had them, but that's not to say they didn't deserve the win. A bit tough to swallow. We'll have to wait until next year. Swept hard, logging as a 1 instead of a 0!

lunges, chest, pull ups, sit-ups, curls before heading to curling.

On the trainer for an hour in the morning.

Spin class at Cyclequest with crusher. Another good workout. Averaged 244 watts this time, a strong effort but not close to PR.

Biking Biz around the St. Louis Park/Minneapolis "commuter loop" and then down to the twins stadium and back. Good to get out for an outdoor ride.

A great sunny ski out to Sigurd Olsen's cabin on Burstside lake. That lake is awesome!

Tough Persyn O-section. Awesome scenery up north with waterfall, cliffs, beautiful lakes, dense woods, well traveled deer trails and huge slabs of Muratic (is this true?) stone. We started off with an eye injury to Kelly, but she bounced back and we were able to outrun the field to a narrow win over the MoBiz crew. Everyone else was close behind as well--good stuff!

My first attempt at Classic skiing. What a mess! That is not easy. The trails behind the Johnston house are difficult, but really fun. Our group had a blast - the first time we had all been out in a while. Thanks Jerritt for letting me use your classic skis!

Various Tough Persyn Northwoods edition events. These challenges were all pain cave all the time. What a blast though!

Shedmill session before I hopped in the car to drive to the Tough Persyn.

Easy-ish spin on the trainer.

Five fingers run on the treadmill. Kelly and I are signed up for a spin class tonight (signed up before I knew about the board meeting) so we will either come late to the board meeting or not at all.

Another good spin class at Cycloquest in Eden Prairie, they have awesome bikes. I tried to PR again, but I came up short - averaged 272 watts across an hour, it was all I had.

Last regular season game before the play downs. We got a 11-2 win that was good for confidence heading into the big event.

Run from nokomis west to Penn and back along the minnehaha parkway with crusher.

Got a run in with crusher while out in Hutch at her family's place. Went up to the gym and lifted for a short bit and then ran home.

Met up with MoBiz madness for a run around cedar, brownie and a bit in Theo, I wish I had such a great park near my house. Good stuff. Almost hit 13 miles today, sweet!

Is the world coming to an end? SwampFox has not logged in two weeks.

An hour on the trainer to keep up the weight loss. I've found I don't have the ability to lose weight through diet alone, sitting around doing nothing while hungry is the worst. Daily exercise is what works for me, combined with smart nutrition of course. Although a bit slow, it's working. I'll be 185 by April 8th.

Spin class at Cyclequest studio in Eden Prairie. I worked as hard as I could to establish an average wattage baseline across an hour. I averaged 276 across 55 minutes, then did a 10 minutes cool down. I think that's pretty high, the other guys at class had never seen an average that high. But they were not competitive cyclists. I'll have to do some reading about it. Evidently Lance could maintain 400 watts up Alpe D'Huez, not sure how long that takes, probably less than 30 minutes. I could only sustain over 400 for 30 seconds or less. I wonder what Cancellera and the other time trial horses can average.

I forgot to log about the near crash that occurred around the 30k mark (no real recollection where, honestly). A few things about it:

There was a classic track down a long hill during which I was able to build up a good pace, maybe 17-20mph. As I approached the bottom I saw a ski patrol looking guy a bit around a the corner say "skier down" in a voice I deemed not very urgent. I snow plowed only enough to make a tight, early turn, didn't scrub much speed. Then the trail turned right sharply. And there was a large patch of ice. And there was a dude down with four or five other people all around, not sure really what they were doing. Time slowed down. I tried to go inside of them all, especially the dude that was down and didn't look to be getting up, he probably was, but since everything was in super slow motion now I couldn't tell. I dug my left ski to turn. Nothing. I dug it in harder. Nothing. I was careening right at this old person.

I thought about going down to slow myself down, but I didn't. So instead of hitting the pile of mashed potatoes sideways and flipping I pointed 'em straight and headed toward him. I blasted right by him, lifting my left ski over his skis. Then, I bombed off the trail. Just a little bit, on the far outside of the trail now. I passed 3-5 people on the outside doing at least 20 mph in some light scrub brush. They were yelling at me like I was a reckless a-hole. I felt kinda bad, and honestly I feared that the ski patrol or someone was going to hunt me down. All the other people behind me stopped I think, when told "skier down". Maybe next year I won't think the ski patrol is crying wolf. Or maybe next year people should recognize I'm an alpine racing gangster to the core and there ain't no stoppin' me on a downhill.

So, today I'm looking at my left ski. The inside edge, from a few inches behind my foot, to the tail, is rolled over. It's chewed up and shaved off. I was putting so much weight and effort into trying to get it to bite to avoid this guy that I damaged my ski! Is that normal?

Hope it's not a big deal, I really like my skis.

C • it happens.......... somet... 13

Another light spin, not feeling like getting after it quite yet.

At the gym, a medium pace to get a sweat going.