Thanksgiving
For those of you expecting a discussion of this year's epic Jingle Cross you will be disappointed as Dave and I decided to not venture to Iowa for cross racing this year. We missed an epic day on Sunday with snow, mud and insanity.
Here's what we did instead:
Thursday we started the day with some tasty homemade blueberry pancakes and then got ourselves organized to join the Ericsson's annual bike ride. A nice group of about 10 people had a fun ride to Paoli. I realized I had not ridden that far in a very long time. My legs reminded me.
Dave and I spent the rest of the day with me cooking and him waxing skis. We had a lovely Thanksgiving day dinner of Pumpkin Polenta, Artichoke Heart Dressing, Mashed Potatoes and Parsnips with Carmelized Onion Gravy and some delicious Cranberry Relish.
Friday Dave went to work while I finished waxing the skis, doing some cooking, cleaning and packing. Then we headed off to Ironwood, Michigan just over the boarder into the UP for some skiing.
Skiing is what we did this year instead of cross racing and I'd like to report that it was all fun, smiles and good times. However, that would be a lie.
I think going into this weekend I had the idea that as soon as I strapped on my skis life would be great and I would just be overtaken with the beauty that is cross county skiing. Now it's not like I don't realize that I have trouble learning things and that I haven't come to realize that it takes me 3 times longer than most people to learn things. However, in my mind I thought that if I learned to rollerski and I went to ski school that suddenly my skiing would be transformed from clumsy and slow to elegant and fast.
Having now done my first ski trip of the season I can report that I was wildly disappointed. Saturday was hard as I was still getting my head around the fact that I wasn't transformed into some sort of skiing Cinderella. Matter of fact for the first part of the day I felt like I could hardly ski. The skis felt so long and so slippery and so difficult. Things slowly started to improve but I was frustrated and couldn't let go of my expectations versus my reality. The morning was really tough. The afternoon wasn't much better as I face planted in the snow going down one of the steeper hills at ABR right at the start of my afternoon ski which sort of set the tenor for the rest of the day. Eventually I was so tired I barely made it back to the parking lot.
On Sunday I was less than motivated but I reminded myself that sometimes you get what you want. And what you want might not be what you thought but what can you do but make the best of it.
Once I got going on Sunday I reminded myself to relax and that helped a lot. I realized that my biggest problem now was that I knew a lot of information about how I should ski but I wasn't good enough to do it all. That's much more frustrating than in years past when I knew nothing so I just skied. It's hard knowing when you should V2 or V2 alternate but you can't quite seem to pull it off. Then what? I know that the V1 is only for climbing but it's what I feel most comfortable doing. So what should I do when the terrain is uneven or bumpy and I can't V2 because I'm not good enough yet? Should I just skate with no poles or should I cheat and V1? Should I pretend to V2 alternate even though I know my timing isn't right? Add to that trying to stay on the balls of your feet, plant your poles correctly, keep your feet close together or far apart at the right times, edge correctly, and remember to have your abs lead you forward and you're in for too much to think about.
All was going so much better on Sunday until my boot decided to malfunction. The zipper broke and I couldn't take my boot off. Dave found me in the car fuming mad at my boot. ABR lent us some tools to try and get the zipper to unzip. It didn't work and in the end Dave was able to loosen the inside strap and yank on the boot until it finally came off my foot.
That left me with no option but classic skiing post-lunch. In reality I had planned to classic ski anyway even though I was dreading it. I can't seem to remember how to do anything but double pole and kick double pole. I seem to have forgotten how to just stride (or possibly I never really knew). Between the boot issue and the troubles with classic skiing it was the perfect ending to a tough weekend.
Well, that and the long drive home in bad weather. I used to be so unphased by bad weather but too many scary incidents have changed that. Plus the fact that if we're in a crash with the Jeep we'll have to buy a new car because the car has so little blue book value. That just makes me sad on many levels.
Today I'm taking my boots over to the shoe repair place to see what can be done. It's a bummer as I don't have a back up pair so no skate skiing until they are fixed. That's okay though as I need to focus on my classic skiing technqiue.
Oh yeah, and I should probably mention that I have gotten faster on the skis. I haven't been to ABR to ski for awhile but loops that I used to think were long no longer take very long. Plus I've now gotten fast enough that it is hard for Dave to classic ski while I skate as I've gotten just fast enough he can't easily keep up. I told him he'd have to get faster but he had his own classic skiing demons this weekend.
And since this is a Thanksgiving themed post I'd like to say that what I'm the most thankful for is Dave . . . he put up with a lot this weekend as I came to the realization that I have not been transformed suddenly into a great skier. Learning to ski well doesn't happen quickly and he tried to tell me that. I so totally understand the moral of his stories now.
Here's what we did instead:
Thursday we started the day with some tasty homemade blueberry pancakes and then got ourselves organized to join the Ericsson's annual bike ride. A nice group of about 10 people had a fun ride to Paoli. I realized I had not ridden that far in a very long time. My legs reminded me.
Dave and I spent the rest of the day with me cooking and him waxing skis. We had a lovely Thanksgiving day dinner of Pumpkin Polenta, Artichoke Heart Dressing, Mashed Potatoes and Parsnips with Carmelized Onion Gravy and some delicious Cranberry Relish.
Friday Dave went to work while I finished waxing the skis, doing some cooking, cleaning and packing. Then we headed off to Ironwood, Michigan just over the boarder into the UP for some skiing.
Skiing is what we did this year instead of cross racing and I'd like to report that it was all fun, smiles and good times. However, that would be a lie.
I think going into this weekend I had the idea that as soon as I strapped on my skis life would be great and I would just be overtaken with the beauty that is cross county skiing. Now it's not like I don't realize that I have trouble learning things and that I haven't come to realize that it takes me 3 times longer than most people to learn things. However, in my mind I thought that if I learned to rollerski and I went to ski school that suddenly my skiing would be transformed from clumsy and slow to elegant and fast.
Having now done my first ski trip of the season I can report that I was wildly disappointed. Saturday was hard as I was still getting my head around the fact that I wasn't transformed into some sort of skiing Cinderella. Matter of fact for the first part of the day I felt like I could hardly ski. The skis felt so long and so slippery and so difficult. Things slowly started to improve but I was frustrated and couldn't let go of my expectations versus my reality. The morning was really tough. The afternoon wasn't much better as I face planted in the snow going down one of the steeper hills at ABR right at the start of my afternoon ski which sort of set the tenor for the rest of the day. Eventually I was so tired I barely made it back to the parking lot.
On Sunday I was less than motivated but I reminded myself that sometimes you get what you want. And what you want might not be what you thought but what can you do but make the best of it.
Once I got going on Sunday I reminded myself to relax and that helped a lot. I realized that my biggest problem now was that I knew a lot of information about how I should ski but I wasn't good enough to do it all. That's much more frustrating than in years past when I knew nothing so I just skied. It's hard knowing when you should V2 or V2 alternate but you can't quite seem to pull it off. Then what? I know that the V1 is only for climbing but it's what I feel most comfortable doing. So what should I do when the terrain is uneven or bumpy and I can't V2 because I'm not good enough yet? Should I just skate with no poles or should I cheat and V1? Should I pretend to V2 alternate even though I know my timing isn't right? Add to that trying to stay on the balls of your feet, plant your poles correctly, keep your feet close together or far apart at the right times, edge correctly, and remember to have your abs lead you forward and you're in for too much to think about.
All was going so much better on Sunday until my boot decided to malfunction. The zipper broke and I couldn't take my boot off. Dave found me in the car fuming mad at my boot. ABR lent us some tools to try and get the zipper to unzip. It didn't work and in the end Dave was able to loosen the inside strap and yank on the boot until it finally came off my foot.
That left me with no option but classic skiing post-lunch. In reality I had planned to classic ski anyway even though I was dreading it. I can't seem to remember how to do anything but double pole and kick double pole. I seem to have forgotten how to just stride (or possibly I never really knew). Between the boot issue and the troubles with classic skiing it was the perfect ending to a tough weekend.
Well, that and the long drive home in bad weather. I used to be so unphased by bad weather but too many scary incidents have changed that. Plus the fact that if we're in a crash with the Jeep we'll have to buy a new car because the car has so little blue book value. That just makes me sad on many levels.
Today I'm taking my boots over to the shoe repair place to see what can be done. It's a bummer as I don't have a back up pair so no skate skiing until they are fixed. That's okay though as I need to focus on my classic skiing technqiue.
Oh yeah, and I should probably mention that I have gotten faster on the skis. I haven't been to ABR to ski for awhile but loops that I used to think were long no longer take very long. Plus I've now gotten fast enough that it is hard for Dave to classic ski while I skate as I've gotten just fast enough he can't easily keep up. I told him he'd have to get faster but he had his own classic skiing demons this weekend.
And since this is a Thanksgiving themed post I'd like to say that what I'm the most thankful for is Dave . . . he put up with a lot this weekend as I came to the realization that I have not been transformed suddenly into a great skier. Learning to ski well doesn't happen quickly and he tried to tell me that. I so totally understand the moral of his stories now.
posted by MadCross at 10:50 PM
1 Comments:
Whoever has instilled in you that you must be doing V2 skate the majority of the time is doing you a disservice. It's not an inherently faster technique. I'm a very experienced skier, and I find that I use V2 primarily on flats and slight downhills only. A good powerful push with V1 or using the field skate is just fine. If you can't give a good push and carry momentum and keep good balance on your V2, then don't fret it because you're just wasting energy. Let every push be a good push, which means use the technique that allows for that. Still work on your V2 technique on the easier terrain to improve balance and power, but don't get down on yourself because you don't ski just like an olympic caliber skier.
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