Bier en modder

I’m a firm believer in cross-training. While I never got past Tenderfoot in the Boy Scouts, “Be Prepared” is a pretty decent way to describe my approach to being active. There are very few times during the year when I’m not doing ’something’.

That said, there’s a little time needed when transitioning from one activity to another. Those who did cross this year know full well that just because you can ride a bike fast doesn’t necessarily mean that you can get off the bike and run fast. Different muscles, different pace.

This brings us to the first skiing day of the year. Over the past week, Mt Hood received somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-70 odd inches of snow. Last Sunday (the 16th) I thought I saw the base at around 40 inches or so. As of today (the 24th) it’s between 90 and 100. That’s a lot of snow in a short amount of time.

Erik talked me into heading up to the mountain late last week. Ok, with 12″ of overnight snow, I didn’t need much talking but for some reason skiing hasn’t been on my radar lately. I stopped by the store to get some snacks & stuff, got home & packed, and headed out the next morning.

I don’t ski that much anymore. I’ve got a number of 100+ day years in me but I could probably count the number of days on the snow since Owen (7 years ago today! Happy Birthday Owie!) was born on my hands and feet. It’s tough to dedicate a full day towards getting out. I’m not exactly sure why either. It’s not like I don’t love it. It boils down to making choices I guess. I’ve got a finite amount of free time so it all comes down to where I choose to spend it: cycling, brewing, house projects, skiing, whatever. Obviously skiing is fairly far down the list but not completely off.

Anyway, back to skiing…the snow was excellent. On a scale of 1-10 (1 being east coast “packed powder” (i.e. blue ice) and 10 being thigh-high fluffy powder) I give it a solid 7. It wasn’t as crowded as I’d expected either adding to the enjoyment (if we could just get rid of the snowboarders…). We stayed on the west side of the mountain, mostly on Cascade Express. The lift lines weren’t long, just long enough to let the burn seep out of the thighs but short enough so we were getting cold.

Tele skiing with lift service is a little different animal from heading out in the backcountry. You can pack a lot of vertical feet in a fairly short period of time. I think part of a successful day is knowing when to quit while you’re ahead. For tele skiiers, I think it’s getting off the mountain with your legs and knees in one piece. It takes no small amount of discipline to set your edges and balance your weight each time. As the day wears on, the legs, back, and mind get fatigued. When I get tired, I start getting sloppy and that leads to getting injured. I’ve had one bad injury skiing from fatigue/stupidity (knock on wood) and it’s not something I care to repeat.

We headed off the mountain with a solid 4+ nonstop hours of turns. It was exactly the right time to head back to the car for some food and drink. I’d hoped to stop in Hood River at Double Mountain Brewing for a beer. I’ve heard good things about them. Perhaps next time. I settled for a Lagunitas Brown Shugga – a wickedly deceiving 10% abv beer. Oh how I loves the Brown Shugga.

Vastus intermedius? It’s one of the quad muscles that runs straight down the front of your thigh. It’s used a lot in sitting up from a chair (along with the hip flexor) and, yes, the classic tele turn. Right now mine are tighter than a violin E string.

I’ve got a small handful of photos from my POS (not Point and Shoot) camera. I’ll get them loaded later.

I didn’t race this weekend. Yeah, I know it sounds a little lame (ok, really lame) but I had way too many things that had been put on hold start cascading down by the end of November; homework, house projects, family time, etc. I didn’t even make it out to watch either. Wah, wah, wah – cry me a river.
I used to be able to put life on hold when I played highly competitive ultimate. Take Friday off, fly to a tournament, play, party, call in sick Monday to rest up, train for a couple hours each weeknight with double practices over the weekend. Ah, the life of an active, unmarried 20-something. I just can’t do that any more. More importantly, I don’t want to do that anymore either. Owen and I had fun this weekend doing errands and projects and other fun stuff. I’ll take that any day. In some ways it makes me somewhat happy that there’s a Masters division to race in.
The party was last night. Rach got a babysitter and she and I went. I remembered that it was somewhere near the Hawthorne bridge and was called Audio-something. Driving there, I just thought I’d turn west off MLK and look for people. Once I got close I thought, ‘what’s that sound’ and rolled down the window. From there, it was pretty easy to follow the drums. The drum corps was LOUD. I think I started hearing them about 3 blocks away…over the rain and through closed windows.
Having only been racing for a couple years and not being on a team, I don’t know too many people. We didn’t mingle that much. I was ok with that as Rach and I got a chance to talk. It felt like a slightly more civilized ultimate party – people smelled better, there was less beer and hardly anyone was stoned. Sometimes that’s a good thing.
Didn’t win anything in the raffle although I was heavily lusting after the wheelsets.
The awards were fun. I won the Master B’s and picked up a bag full of schwag; new Bell helmet, couple tires, Cross Crusade shirt, arm warmers, and a couple other little goodies thrown in. Oh yeah, and the Chris King headset. Sweet.
Technically I tied with Johnny Vergis but I’m guessing that I won the tiebreaker based on the Hillsboro results. Bummer about his leg. I got a chance to chat with him for a couple minutes later about the injury and his lost skiing season. I hope it heals up to full strength.
The minute I got home, Owen came out of his room and asked what I won. I opened the bag and we went through it all. As I went through the stuff one by one, he asked ‘can I have it?’ on everything. I may give him the jersey and a couple other little things. He also asked if he could take the medal into school for show and tell. How on earth do you say no to something like that? So I left it out on the table for him this morning to take.
I’ll be up in the Master A’s next year. Yes, I’m already thinking about it. I wish I’d made the time to do one Master A race this year to get some sort of gauge for training next year. It will be significantly faster but to what extent, I’m unsure. In just about every race this year, I finished and felt that I raced at about 95-98%. I didn’t have all that much more left to give. I’m having a little hard time grasping how much faster I can get to stay competitive next year, especially in the magnitude of 30-45s/lap faster.
I need to relax. It’s flippin’ December 3rd and I felt this way last year. I’ve got a short list of things to work on which I’ll think about and address later.