The skiing out at Kincaid is terrific for the first time this year. It’s so good that I took my newly stone-ground race skis out today. Man, how the time flies by when the skiing is good. I’ve been hitting the intensity pretty hard the last two weeks so I went home after 90 minutes to stay fresh for some classic intervals tomorrow.

Only In Alaska Forum

After 6 months of success with the OIA mailing list, I finally launched the OIA Forum at onlyinalaska.org. OIA is a growing community of nordic and backcountry skiers here in Alaska, and the forum is a way to connect on everything in the area from training and racing to gear and beer.

Faith and The Unknown

I know, it’s a bit dramatic huh? After a long ski with some abnormally long L3 intervals I felt myself going back into that unknown zone from this summer. There is a certain workload that says “you’ll be fine if you stick with this,” another that says “you won’t be fine if you stick with this,” and then somewhere in between is a spot where it’s harder to tell. I resign to work hard and then apply a little faith that my body can handle it. If it can’t, I guess you’ve learned something. I find this interesting and strangely glamourous, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if the idea was leaning a bit towards burnout.

Trippy

Step…away…from…the keyboard

There’s is some seriously funky stuff happening here in my house. The words on the screen and the contours of the keyboard are pulsating and bubbling really slowly, and everything seems to be moving around me. My body is tingling from the week’s intensity, and now it’s festering in that middle ground between breakdown and buildup. I picked up a pizza from the Bear Tooth and watched Siddhartha at home, then spent the last hour meditating to light piano music on my couch. Needless to say, I’m reading some mega body signals.

Training self-motivated and alone, the biggest challenge I face is to design a workout routine that is 1) interesting and challenging, and 2) logistically efficient. After that I can squash some goals and available energy together so I can focus well enough to make the most of the workouts that I am able to fit into the week.

Something is happening here. I think it’s that I can feel competition coming. I stopped in Title Wave Books today and was caught by the cool looking cover on Laird Hamilton’s book Force Of Nature. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book is a terrifically well-rounded view on the path to excellence in sports and life. I know, I know, this blog isn’t a bleedin’ book group review with crumpets and thumbcakes, but these books I’m posting rule.

Depletion

We don’t rollerski here any more. Actually, I haven’t roller skied for three weeks because we’ve got snow everywhere! Last week was solid with lots of threshold intervals and technique work, so I took Friday off to get some work done, then did a huge 5 hour day up at Hatcher pass where the skiing was perfect and there were plenty of other nordies out there to ski with. It sounds a little crazy, but it’s almost 3 hours of driving and a 1/4 tank of gas to get there, I have a van with a bed and a heater, and the weather was beautiful and I was into it, so I decided to get up early to ski for 2:45-3 hours in the a.m. with UAA, then eat some food and nap before heading out to ski until I passed out. The goal was to work on technique the entire day with a properly elevated heart rate and get a 100% depleting workout on good snow while I had the chance. The result? I was totally tripping out on the way home, which was really fun and everything, but I had to punt and call in a pizza and a beer in Eagle River half way on the drive home. What a sweet day! Thank You Stella Artois, you rule.

Bye Bye, Training log

A couple of days ago I threw my training log out, or rather, I threw out the idea of making some statistical training paghetti and decided to just slap my workouts into an ever-lengthening txt file. I missed most of the chunk from mid July after Crow Pass until last week, but screw it. I guess if you are spending too much time keeping a log when no one is going to see it, and you actually *could* use that time and energy to reflect on what’s happening to your body right now, then do it. I think I developed a pretty good feeling for my body in the last twelve months, and I’m just going to trust it for the foreseeable winter.

NEHHH NEHHH NEHHH NEHHH NEHHH NEHHH!!! God I hate that noise.

Put a few more coffee grinds into that press, Pat. I mean seriously, it’s friggin 7am. I’m headed an hour north to Hatcher pass for perfect snow in a BEAUTIFUL setting. I’m pretty thankful that I can just up and leave my job with no notice to get good snow. October conversations in Anchorage are always full of “blah blah blah Hatcher”, and “Blah Hatcher blah blah”, or “Blah blah-SICK at Hatcher’s”, because the backcountry fills in early there, the nordic grooming is perfect, and they get it a month before the rest of Anchorage.

So I’m back, Gina. I guess if I just wrote something in my training log and woke up at 7am to ski a supplemental ski area to get in shape, then I’m back. But I swear, I turn my back for a couple of weeks and there’s a hoard of new blogs on fasterskier, tons of news, everyone’s talking about getting pumped for racing, and there’s SNOW in Anchorage. Blimey Margey! What Gives?!?

I’ve got my Gilligan’s island costume, the pirate’s costume is on the way, and I extended my ticket to w a full two weeks. Virgin Gorda, Yachts and theme parties here I come. What does this have to do with training? Not much. Why haven’t I written anything recently? Not much to write about. It’s kinda nice, actually.

Once my IT band gave the the checkered flag for the running season I got to say “fine, be that way. I didn’t want to run any more anyway.” Guess that means it’s time to rollerski, and back to the bottom rung. Yeah my lungs feel great, but my technique SUCKS and it doesn’t matter how humungous your tri’s are if you never use your abs. How do you guys do it, seriously!? I classic skied with UAA out Eklutna lake Road and back the other day and got totally worked. Those guys are fit, man, and it’s cool to see. They’ve got a solid men’s team and a friggin army of girls this year. Go Alaska!