Bust A Skin

So I’m kind of stuck in the JH valley waiting for work to say “Sure, now you can drive the middle of nowhere for 8 days when last time your car blew up. You rock, we love you.” Well, I might get all but the last bit. So with the exception of fixing the odd bug that trickles in from the beta testers, I’m kind of in a holding pattern. But at least I get to get outside for some nice runs or hikes. Right? I mean what’s the best way to kill time? Skiing the corn! We got our first couple of days of 60+ degrees and it’s nice to walk around in shorts again. After three weeks of running, crust skiing, and hiking again I’m starting to feel like I can run for 90 minutes without my legs getting all pissed of and saying the exact opposite of “You rock.”

So lately I’ve just been trying to get out between stints at work on the computer and at least get a run in. I’ve found that it’s actually really nice to do a run or crust ski in the morning for an hour or more, then get out again for a run or chill, fun roller ski in the afternoon. As long as you keep it mellow and are doing something that seems fun, who cares if you’re getting over two hours a day! This is what awesome is all about if you ask me! It’s like what Richie Havens said about learning an instrument:

“”"In most of the songs we like, there are very few chords being played. So, you could and should only start with songs you love… that’s the fastest way to learn to play you will ever find.”"”

This routine ought to hold at least for another day or two when I can get on the road again.

The above shot is a fantastic example of a confused skier in a tuck. If you learn to tuck as an alpine skier you’ll get super low with your hands out front to break the wind at 80mph. If you learn to tuck as a nordic skier (except Colin Rogers, who keeps his skis warm throughout a sprint :), you’ll stand up more to breath and get some rest. If you’re like me, you do both and without poles, and also when you aren’t moving. Let’s just call this “the sun burn stance,” or The “Irish Roast”.

Bust a Ski

So OK, I’ve got to throw this out there about the rollerskiing thing since I’m rollerskiing in April, and I tend get a lot of #*$$ from people. Having only r.skied for a couple of years at age 28 and having never been on a team and roller skied till my butt falls off, I like roller skiing. And you know what, I have friends that like it two! Erich Wilbrect here in Jackson is in his mid fourties and has seen an Olympics and even *he* likes roller skiing. I think it’s all about the timing and the setting. Cruising the bike path in the evening sun is the best, and tacking on a little double pole to catch the post-work workout rush with all those ladies on the bike path while getting your upper body workout is quite invigorating. I mean, don’t do it every day, and for goodness sake don’t do it all summer, but do it when you want with your heart rate down and enjoy it!

Still awesome

Spring is here, summer is upon us. Karma is high, stokage is higher.

After a couple of weeks of starting to run again I got to have my first workout with no shirt on, which is a BIG DEAL. It means it’s warm and summer’s coming! So I booked out on my rollerskis (taboo, I know) for a little upper body action and man was it nice! How awesome does it feel to come raging back into the house all pumped up and watch Santana get down on “Waiting” Live at Woodstock in ‘69? Those guys just had a big wooden stage with no special effects and tons of unbeatable energy. They’ve got the dude with the huge afro and white white vest rocking the congas, and the amazing Michael Shrieve blasting away the conventional kit when he was only 20! Awesome! Gimmie Amperage! Turn it up! Open the windows and rock it loud with the sun coming in! No kidding, it’s totally the Season of re-birth…

How can we get these in Alaska?

The last month and a half has been great to have off and to take advantage of the amazing backgcountry terrain here. Unfortunately for the lonely B.C. most of my skiing happened in bounds or in the side-country since there was SO MUCH SNOW! Gaper Fools Day ruled and Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, (I won’t post the link since there’s swearing in the video, but if you go find it on you tube it’s pretty awesome.) and the last day was even better. I thought it was pretty funny how all I had to do was pick out a different pair of spandex each day and I had a “costume” for all the ski bums to laugh at. Anyway, the skiing ruled. powder rules. I love powder.

Every year the bums unite for a day of out-of-style madness. So fun.

I’m just about ready to head back to Anchorage and kick up some training with my OIA team of cardio bandits so we can rule the mountain running scene this summer. The drive is going to rule with a stop in Haines for some backcountry and some killer workouts in new places. I’ve found in my travels that there is no better way to see the country side than to throw down a few 2 hour runs or rollerskis. You get honks from people on the road, and you can cover more ground on the trails. Siiiiiiick! I can’t wait to take some pictures and do some writing.

Granite Rules.

So racing is officially over with the end of the 50K classic in Fairbanks. While they make for fantastic spectator events, I feel like I see a heck of a lot of sprinting these days, and it’s really good to see what i consider to be the gold standard of cross country ski racing - the 50K classic. You’ve got to be burley, you have to use kick wax, and you have to have Lats of Steel. In other news, everyone that I know that rocks the skinny skis in the winter also rocks the phat skis in the spring. This winter in Jackson Hole has provided the most desirable snow fall any cold-day buff could ask for. As of this writing @ 10am on March 31st, JHMR is exactly four inches from it’s all-time record of 599.1 in 1999. The JH valley saw a constant snow fall from a late December to now, with only two weeks of blue bird to speak of. This meant that in a destination that boasts the sickest terrain in the lower-48, the best snow in the country (sorry, Utah) and an extremely progressive downhill skiing culture, no one shows at the skinny races on a powder day.

So it’s here - it’s spring and it’s time for the “No’dic nerds” to unite! It’s time to get up in the hills and show the rest of the downhillers what we’re made of and what we’ve been doing all year. It seems like every day one of my Jackson friends asks me “So when are you going to chill out and start skiing powder?” After 11 months of box jumps and core workouts what do you think happens in the spring? We RULE the backcountry! We get out and hike faster and ski longer than anyone else out there!! We can do it at altitude and do it all day. The mountain series is just around the corner and there is no better way to train for those 60 minutes of red-lined cardio than to get out and bust a move with your skins and shovel and transceiver. More weight, more vert, more turns - “smoke”‘em if you got ‘em!!

Here’s a video of my buddy Monkey carefully navigating one of the many spectacular couloirs in Granite Canyon. Hike Hike Hike!

You know that first day that you head out and you feel like spring is coming for the first time? That happened to me yesterday. The old pass road was filled with slush, and there was one of those warm winds blowing through Trail Creek Ranch that said in a calm but stern voice “get your butt in the backcountry.” I’ve had inclings that the end of the season was here, but yesterday spelled it for me in plain, slush-covered Helvetica.

Now that the place was empty and kind of on the back-slide of a solid thaw, it was fun thinking back to Sunday and the last local race at Trail Creek.  The conditions were the best they’d been all year, and I finally got to use some more flouros here in Jackson Hole (sorry, wallet. I’ll make it up to you). The turnout was minimal just as it had been all year in this incredible powder year. One thing’s for sure, if there’s 12-24 of fresh in JHole, ain’t nobody showing up at the no’dick races! Don’t ask me why, but I think it’s cool to annihilate yourself before going powder skiing. Kind of like throwing an interval session in before a big party, ya dig?

The race went well. Patrick Gilroy led me up the first 3K and two climbs then got a bloody nose after shoving some phat tele turns in my face down Gut Flop, so I ended up skiing alone. My family was visiting and was there to watch, so I figured I should probably throw down big in the last race. You really get an idea of what it means to be fit when you stop thinking about getting fitter and just go skiing - I mean holy moly I V2′d the entire climb back to the finish, that’s not something I could have done last year!

Once the warm wind hit me as I stod there in the melting tracks I immediately relaxed and the year started to pass by as a string of  memories. The drive, the van (**sniff, sniff**), 5-hour neon roller skis at Burning Man, no sleep at West yellowstone, half-naked WC cheering in Canmore, they were all there. I took off alone as usual and started to reflect on my first year of focused training. The conditions were horrible and my skis were slow, but it was really nice to cruise out there and just enjoy some good technique for a change. One thing I’ve learned about skiing is that the number one way to improve your technique is to get super fit and to focus on your core strength. You can’t pull your legs up under you or reach further over your skis unless you’ve got the core to back you up. You also can’t stay on each ski as long or get that ankle flection (thanks Chris) without those ankle and shin-builders I was doing with the balance ball. So don’t worry, there’s hope for all of us gapers, and it’s waiting in the weight room!

So with the winds of change come new decisions, like what to do next year. If y’all could train and work from anywhere, even potentially from your camper van, what would you do? Remember that there is only one rule - it has to be awesome!! It was a total blast driving around to different races and places, and seeing what the rest of the skiers do while we are tearing up the Anchorage Cup. After chewing on many ideas for far too long, it occurred to me yesterday that every place is just a place until you make something great happen there, so everywhere you go can be awesome as long as you are awesome in it! That makes landing on an idea a lot easier.

If my 10-year-old brother was still visiting I’d be sure to tell him that the most important things in life are to play sports, get ripped, and chase women. Now, I’ve heard that all three of those eventually find their end with age, but at this juncture, I’d say that’s pretty much today’s special on the menu! Once again, the sun is setting over directly over the backcountry ski mecca of Teton Pass. There’s nothing like a warm run during a spring sunset to shake the apres out of your quads…

Hey! I finally got this blog together, and just in time for some exciting stuff. I bought a new VW camper last week in Tucson and drove it straight to the Rendezvous 50K in West Yellowstone. After some scary loan check stuff and some time with a nice but stubborn seller, there was barely enough time for 7 hours of sleep and burritos at the Aphton gas station before starting the race. One piece of advice about racing - gas station burritos, of the breakfast variety or not, are *never* a good idea before a race. I’ve never been more uncomfortable in an event before, but by the second half I was feeling a lot better, and started to put the hurt on and ended up with a good result. Following about 15 minutes of kissing the ground in the finish chute and a nap in the EuroVan, I busted up to Bozeman to hang out with friends that were up there for some regional races. 

After two days home in Jackson Hole to get some work done and ski the sick pow pow with some Alaska buddies, I headed out to Reno for the great race. What an event! If you like going uncomfortably fast for about 20K and using your tuck muscles more than your breathing muscles, this race is for you! My Buddy Lee and I sported the Team OIA suits and finished strongly after the pack of factory skiers with a full-on knock-kneed and white-knuckle side-by-side gaper-style finish. Awesome!!

So after some sad good-byes to good friends I’m writing this from a Battle Mountain, NV casino/restaurant, and back on the road to Jackson Hole. The local Sandbag Series final 10K is this Saturday and I’ll be looking forward to hammering with my JHole training buddy Erich Wilbrecht one last time before some Colorado Sun and Tele-skiing fun in Crested Butte for Saint Paddy’s Day. Keep it real folks! I hope you enjoy the blog! P.S. I can’t stop listening to Ramble On by Led Zeppelin. Still Awesome!