The Torch

I don't want to sound like I am complaining by any means, but it's extremely cold.  Temperatures right now look like final round golf scores at the Masters. Despite the sub zero temperatures, you could not ask for better skiing conditions right now. This weekend we got almost a foot of snow which has opened up almost all of the available mileage here in Craftsbury. We have about 100 km of trails here and when everything is open it is an amazing aerobic playground for nordic skiers. Yesterday we did some very intense and short intervals on the erg, then in the afternoon I strapped the skis on and cruised around for a couple of hours on the newly opened trails. It really is spectacular how beautiful things get with new snow. The conifers are looking their best with a few inches of snow on their branches. Right now our training consists mostly of very high intensity short specific pieces on the erg augmented by very easy non specific aerobic training. We have been doing a combination of 30 second and 1 min max pieces on Monday and Friday with a good amount of easy distance in the middle. These pieces definitely require a lot of energy and time to recover, so the easy recovery pace aerobic work is necessary. For me, recovery pace means having my heart rate around 130-145 a lot of the time. Tonight we will have another Ski race as part of our weekly 5k series. This weekend the NENSA Eastern cup will be taking place here in Craftsbury. It is essentially the equivalent of an NSR for skiers on the East Coast. It will be a chance for the elite skiers on the East Coast to test their speed against...ME! I will be racing in both events, the sprint distance on Saturday and the 10k on Sunday. I competed last year and definitely got my lunch handed to me. I fell countless times and finished in the back of the pack. I am really excited this year to see if I can mix it up a little more with the top guys. My sense is that especially for the sprint distance( around 1k), I can hang with them. The goal would be to make the top 30 and therefore making it into the elimination round. That would be hilarious and awesome. That is obviously a lofty goal but who cares! I am just a naive rower who wants to race it up. More to come on that racing later in the week. As for today, time to bundle up and go ski. I believe its still -15 or so outside so this will be interesting.