Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Ski intervals.

Mild and sunny enough to transform all the new snow. Skied for two hours with plenty of daylight left to run, and decided to pass and get out of dodge while the getting was good--the parking lot was already in bad shape from drifting snow, as was the highway itself, and the winds were only getting stronger.

Overnight something like 6-8" of fluff snow fell on the trails, which were rolled and still soft. My skis were slow in the conditions (haven't waxed them in ages, much less waxed them for the current conditions) and I contented myself with skating around the trails at an easy pace, and then ran just under an hour on the bike trails, finishing up right at nightfall. Temps were somewhere in the lower teens, and there was some breeze, but nothing formidable.

Snow started up again late in the day and into the night. Ski trails were spiffy, and the snow dog went around several of the bike trails a few hours before I set foot on them, and so the running was not bad either.

Skied 1/2 with me and 1/2 with Tyler (and me.)

Nat snuck up on me on his bike as it was turning dark, and flicked his lights on and spotlighted me when he was only about 50' out. Luckily I was on the lookout for mountain lions, so a mountain/snow biker had no chance of taking me by surprise. I hadn't seen Nat for ages, and by chance we both ended up at the car park at the same time, and we chatted for a while in the balmy (not) night air. Learned some interesting things about how permitting does and does not work at the local Forest HQs, and where things have been bottle necked in the past. You never know when that kind of thing could be useful with respect to future event plans.

One of those sunshine truths type of days, blue skies all day long, nice new drifts from steady wind that started sometime in the night, and not a single sign of the wild turkey anywhere to be seen. The snow on the trails was on the slow side, thanks to the wind drifting, but so what? It was beautiful. Skied half the time by myself and half with Tyler. The running afterwards was totally solo, with not even a single night rider swinging by.

Temps for the past week+ have been running solidly 10 degrees or more under the averages and it looks like the next week or so will be approximately the same, so no spring skiing conditions for a bit.

Light snow overnight, temps in the teens, snow started up again late in the afternoon as fog banks started to form and move in. Top notch ski conditions. Ran into Mark J. and Martha as they were climbing out of Haunted Forest and skied with them until they dropped off of Lower UW. Kept on going until it was night.