Though I am not a world class skier, and you all know this by now, I was quite content with, perhaps even proud of, my time of 1:57:30 in the 22k race.  Now a newcomer to this great blog might think “gee, you kinda stink”.  I think I smell pretty good right now, though.  Also, I am just about at my 3 year anniversary of ski racing, and at about 3.5 years of training.  Considering that, I think this is a pretty decent race.  Also, I realized that with this time, had it been the same distance as the Pre-Birkie, I would have beaten the time of my first skate race in this classic race.  Obviously we can’t really compare ski races like that, but I just did.  So there.

Please consider one other thing when judging my lack of speed and skill in ski racing.  My training time this year has been, well, minimal at best, and non-existent at many other times.  It’s hard to say, but I think I even finished this race in about the same time I would have last year.  Doesn’t sound so good at first, when you think about how I should have improved in a year.  BUT, I’m pretty impressed with myself that I was able to ski as fast as last  year, with about a third of the training.

Perhaps this speaks to my wise use of the minimal training time I had.  I had a serious lack of quantity of training hours, but quality was the name of the game this year.  It is more likely, though, that my race time was due to my stubborn determination and willingness to cause myself to suffer.  And suffer I did, from about the 5k mark until the end of the race.  This leads me to think of all the reasons why this was my best race yet…

1) I was actually able to fall asleep and sleep through the night before the race (about 8 hours). 

2) I had a good warm up.

3) Before the race the weather forecast kept changing, warm, then cold, warmer, colder, until the night before the race when I got really warm.  At this point it was too late for a lowly citizen skier like myself to do anything about glide wax in my hotel.  However, the combination of a quick e-mail to the nice swix wax rep.  and some intuition of my own provided me with some sick kick for the whole race.

4) My technique was great, and better than last year, even on the final uphills (when I’m pretty I couldn’t feel anything anymore).

5) My hydration throughout the race was great.

6) I recovered fairly quickly after the race, even doing an actual cool down.

7) I was able to ski in pain for the whole race and not let up on my pace.  This is the best I’ve ever done at this and a great mental breakthrough for me.  I feel as if I have a greater idea of how hard I can push myself and not die.  Once I get back to really training and racing I think this will shave some serious time off my races.

And the list of reasons why this wasn’t such a great race…

1) My elbow started hurting again halfway through the race.

2) I basically couldn’t move the next day.  Seriously, I’ve never been so sore in so many places in my entire life.  I literally couldn’t lift my leg while sitting down. 

Well, that is all for now.  I look forward to the possibility of doing another race on March 6 — the Lakeland Loppet.  Only time will tell…

This hill is steeper than it appears….

So, the moral of the story is, I may not be in top shape, but I will be well rested and healthy.  Either way, this race will probably own me.  The Seeley Hills Classic.  I plan on being in pain.  But first I plan on getting in a few more workouts, which means a good night’s sleep…

I have kept up the moderate/mediocre training hours while everything else demanded more of my time.  Oh, and how could I forget to mention that I was sick again around Thanksgiving.  I have finished the semester though, and now have 5 weeks homework free.  This should leave me with at least 12 more hours a week for skiing/training.  This is good news for me — it is a much needed break from paper writing and studying as well as a chance to finally improve my fitness, instead of just maintaining it. 

So, after class this past weekend, and then another two days at camp for basketball coaching and cupcake baking with the High School youth, I hopped on a plane to celebrate Christmas in NY.  Five days with nothing to do except ski…only there is no snow here.  We have to drive about an hour and a half to get to any.  Okay, so we have some crust here, which made for a nice easy workout plus some strength.  But tomorrow, we’re off to Lapland Lake for (hopefully) about 4 hours of skiing. 

The following two days will just be running and strength in between Christmas laziness and Bro-T’s basketball games.  Then, I will be coming back to WI for several weeks of skiing, interrupted only briefly for work, coaching, Mass Band, youth nights, sleep, food and prayer.  Oh, and I suppose I’ll take a few blog writing breaks as well.

Merry Christmas!!!

Also, finally, some pictures from our hiking trip up north a couple weeks (ok, a month) ago. 

The drive up was beautiful...

But I missed most of it because I was studying the whole way there...

But I did take a short break when we drove through some snow and momentary pandemonium ensued in the car...

It didn't turn out to be quite the epic hike I had anticipated when some people weren't prepared for the weather we woke up to...

Check out the leaves in the snow...

The trail on the way out

This leaf must be really small if my face is so much bigger than it is...

Though we didn't hike quite as much as I wanted, the reward was still nice.

So, we did end up doing some much shorter hikes so that we could get to a hotel that night.  Disappointing, but a fun time anyway!!!

With this kind of performance I am not helping myself become move up from the realm of “other blogs”.  I will remain faithful though, for I know I don’t deserve to be a featured blog yet.  But I also know that someday I will.  This grad school thing is certainly kicking my butt.  I mean, I’m totally dominating in the schoolwork front, but as far as fitting in all my other commitments, well, I’ve been doing it.

Except training.  I got in a few decent interval workouts, many medium distance rollerskies, and, well, a couple other things.  I have had a good long chat with myself, though, and am ready to start off November strong again.  The positive thing about this situation, is that I can’t really race this winter anyway.  The whole class on weekends and a job on the other weekends thing kind of puts a damper on that.  However, I will be doing much larger volumes of training in the coming colder months, and I am very excited about that.

I know that I have disappointed all you faithful believers in my olympic dream, but I think that if you stick with me you will be pleasantly surprised.

And now, back to the schoolwork (I pretty much fit it in everywhere: car rides, lunch breaks, early mornings, late nights…)

masters in theology...bless the Lord

It was definitely from some medium sized animal, but I can’t say for sure, since there was no other sign of this animal in sight.  Other than that the hike was really beatiful with the changing leaves and the trails all to myself.  Well, except for the one creepy guy closely examining a branch that he carried around. 

It was annoying, though, because we all know that it would have been better to roller ski in L1.  However, I have this PAIN in my elbow associated with poling, and, well anything.  This started in March, and goes away after a couple days of rest. I’ve even tried a couple weeks of rest, but to no avail.  So, in an attempt to shake this, I am in the middle of a self imposed 6 week complete rest to my arms.  Boring, I know.  But I want to be able to ski on snow!

Also, today, I had a fun L3 run with some friends from grad school.  It is always such a joy to actually be able to train with people.  The amount I was sweating upon return, though, was gross.  But not as gross as the unidentified intestines. 

Well, it’s time for 9 hours of class today…until next time, I like the cut of your jib.

However, as soon as training was done we started our annual family camp.  Theoretically I should have been able to train today when it was over, but some unforeseen (and most unfortunate) events led to me having to be doing other things all day. Yet another reminder that nothing in this job is predictable, and that it’s near impossible to plan a whole week of training ahead of time.

It was also  a good reminder that I will have to be extra flexible and creative this year.  Between my random work schedule and grad school I will be one busy kid (adult?).  I just started a masters program in pastoral theology through Ave Maria University.  I go to classes one weekend a month here in Wisconsin, and do a ton of homework in between.  The thing is, between my job and classes I probably won’t be able to do any races this year.  That is a huge bummer, but makes it less annoying that my training is still so sketchy even though summer is over.

I know that my routine will always be to have no routine, but I also know that it will actually get easier to get in all my training.  It is just taking a couple weeks longer than I thought.  But since I won’t really be racing (okay, I will probably find a way to fit in one or two),  I plan on doing a ton of training this winter.  Let’s just hope it snows…

The weeks where I was able to have breaks during “program areas” I was able to get in some regular workouts.  This only happened for a third of the summer.  Other weeks I just settled with doing shorter workouts when I could fit them in.  I also did quite a bit of leading moutain biking program areas, playing intense games of capture the flag, or offering sports for choice time.

While none of this helped increase my fitness, I knew that I couldn’t do more.  Combining more training hours (in the morning, etc…) with the demands of my job, would just have set me back even more.  I do feel as though I have done a reasonably good job of maintaining my strength and fitness throughout the summer.

After summer ended (exactly a week ago) I took a short vaca and am now back at camp planning and getting ready for the school year.  I have been getting my body and brain back into training and plan on starting with a real plan again next week.

Stay tuned to see how it goes!

Yesterday I picked it back up by taking advantage of a rare opportunity to head off camp to  they gym for 2 hours on a weekday.  The afternoon brought some eating, napping and hanging out.  Later I went on a sweet recovery bike ride with a friend.   Last night I slept at a friend’s house and didn’t get home till the heat had taken over the day.  So the plan is to just take it easy around camp until the sun starts to go down and then do some L4 intervals on CATskis.

The plan for the rest of my break:

Saturday: Strength and Easy Distance

Sunday:  L3 intervals and Easy Distance

Monday: Over Distance

Tuesday: Strength and Speed

Wednesday: Specific Strength and Easy Distance

Thursday: Strength and L4 Intervals

Friday: Strength and Easy Distance

Saturday: Strength and L3 Intervals

Sunday:  Over distance

That will bring me to July 5th and the reopening of camp.  By then I’ll be ready for a couple rest days.  I want to maximize the amount of training I do during this break, because I get minimal training done when kids are here anyway.  I can handle it because, for one time in my life, I have no other responsibilities and can just relax and sleep all the time.  It’s a pretty good silver lining and a cruddy situation.

Considering all this, I’m pretty impressed that in the last 10 days I got in 1 max VO2 intervals, 1 speed workout, 2 strength workouts, 1 over distance workout, and 2 easy workouts.

I have also come up with a plan for the 9 weeks that kids will be here.  During these weeks I will start on Sundays at 12:30 and end on Fridays around 7:30 pm.  Monday-Thursday I will have 1.5-2 hours off, but these will not always be two hours in a row.  In figuring out my plan, I also had to remember to be very flexible with how many workouts I get in.  There will be many days where I will have no control over how much sleep I get…sick campers, etc…  Some weeks I just won’t be able to do all the training I want to and stay healthy.   So here’s the plan:

Monday: Easy Distance or Rest

Tuesday: Strength or Easy Distance

Wednesday: Max VO2 Intervals

Thursday: Specific Strength

Friday: Easy Distance or Rest

Saturday: Strength and OD or AT Intevals

Sunday: OD or AT Intervals.

That’s the plan…we’ll see how it goes!