Photo Copyright John Kelly

Sunday, November 28, 2010

A good start to the ski season

Hello hello! I hope everyone's Thanksgiving week has been wonderful. I for one had a great time getting out on the snow and enjoying my first few skis with some awesome athletes!

Over the last three days I led the local Far West Thanksgiving training camp here at home, and it was really great. I hope the athletes had as much fun as I did. For me, it was my first four "real" skis, so it felt awesome to get out there and get things going.

We started off with a double on-snow day on Friday. We took advantage of the new snow and cold temperatures for a nice long classic ski in the morning. We did lots of drills and went back to the basics, focusing on getting our fundamentals right to carry over through the year. We worked on balance, body position, maximizing glide and efficiency and more. I have to say I was super impressed with how well everyone was classic skiing. They looked like they had been skiing for months already! It was great to see. For me, classic skiing felt surprisingly natural and good. Unlike past seasons, I really felt in my element right away, and it made me super stoked for some classic racing. After lunch complete with plenty of hot chocolate and whipped cream and a little bit of rest, we hit the trails again for a skate ski -- my first of the season, but the third or fourth to most everyone else. Again, the focus was on technique, and again I was impressed with everyone's progress so early in the season. We ended the day with some short relays and a game of ski tag, and I have to say I was not prepared to have to go so fast in order to keep up! I was worked!

Saturday brought a bunch of new snow (as if we needed anymore...?!), and we set out for a classic ski in the powder. It was somewhat of an adventure, but everyone made the best of it, getting in some distance and still putting in some quality technique work, despite blowing snow and chilly wind gusts. We were all relieved to get inside and get some hot pizza, and consume hot chocolate in even more mass quantities than the day before. We were all set to go ice skating at Northstar in the afternoon, only to find that when we got there, there was too much snow on the rink to skate! Bummer! But again, we made the best of the situation, and the athletes got involved in some serious snowplay/ intense snow ball fighting/ fort building out on what is normally the ice rink, but in this case looked more like a mecca of snowplay.

This morning, for our final workout, we did another nice long skate ski, complete with some fun relays. After the mess of snow yesterday, it was great to come out to freshly groomed tracks and blue skies, though the morning was pretty brisk. After some more drills and everyone's favorite, no-pole skiing, we headed off to get some distance in before meeting back up for some extreme speed relay action. The ladies, myself included, took on the boys in some head-to-head speed action. We couldn't quite pull off the upset, so we decided to change it up. The boys, always up for a challenge, took us on again in a relay in which they doubled poled and we skated, and we managed to take them down. In the finale, we did a combi relay that consisted of backwards skiing, double poling on our knees (Savannah's creative suggestion), and frog hops. This time, we REALLY took the boys down, thanks to Savannah's surprising expertise at the double-pole-from-the-knees technique. It was a fun end to a great weekend.

Thanks to all the athletes for working hard, smiling, and just doing an awesome job. Based on these three days, I think it's more than safe to say that you guys are going to have an awesome ski season ahead. I can't wait to watch!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Changing of the season

Where does the time go? Clearly, it has escaped me. I have not written in my blog since Aug. 19.

Here it is, Nov. 21, and winter has fully arrived. It is a whole new season, full of new challenges and a whole new outlook. And hopefully, a new chance for me to redeem myself. If it means anything, I have certainly been writing, and writing a lot. Only, it's for the newspaper, it's about business, and it's far from my own athletic passions and pursuits. I hope I can redirect some of that energy into my personal efforts in this new season, despite the business of every-day life.

Since my last updates, much has been accomplished, and much has changed. I completed my triathlon season on Sept. 12 with the Big Kahuna Half Iron distance. The race was decent, but not quite the going-out-with-a-bang season culmination I had hoped for. But, with my second triathlon season behind me, I can certainly say I have grown tremendously as an athlete, but have a ways to go and a lot to learn in order to really accomplish my goals. I am pleased with the season, but have my sights set much higher for next year, and I know it will take a lot of work ahead to get there. Nonetheless, I am excited!

The fall was my time for running. This was long-anticipated, and delivered on that. I enjoyed many cool and beautiful long autumn-day runs -- perhaps my favorite type of training. I was able to do a couple of half marathons and one full, as well as a 7-mile race just this past weekend. So far, "running season," if you can call it that, has fallen short of delivering performance-wise, despite fulfilling my growing urge to just run. But, there have been some highlights and I still have one more race coming up, the California International Marathon (CIM) on December 5th, and I am REALLY, REALLY pumped up for it. This is one of the few races this year that I have really tried to prepare for, rather than train through, and I really do feel ready. Only problem... we are getting dumped on with snow, and it is tough not to totally switch into ski mode as the new season beckons! But, while I have enjoyed a couple of skis already, I am focused on the race and really anxious to accomplish my goals. Less than two weeks now...!!

On the note of skiing, this was a great weekend of welcoming in the snow. Here is an excerpt from a post I wrote today on the Far West Farm Team blog -- my team for the winter! -- along with some photos:

Several feet of the fluffy white stuff has graced the ground outside my house in Glenshire, and I have to say, it is absolutely beautiful. Each year with the first snow comes a change of pace, a fresh perspective and all the promise of the season ahead. I couldn’t be happier.

The trails around Tahoe aren’t quite open yet, but I just couldn’t wait to get out and celebrate the snow. This weekend, I rung in the season with a couple backcountry adventure skis in the meadow behind my house. While they weren’t quite the pristine skis on freshly-groomed trails that I have been anticipating and longing for, the skiing was a whole other form of awesome in itself. In its own right, nothing beats breaking trail through more than a foot of light, fluffy powder on some beat-up metal-edged crowns with dogs in tow.

And while it wasn’t quite conducive to great classic technique, it still felt like skiing, and that felt amazing. And after a couple two-hour sessions of powder trekking up steep climbs and over logs, and navigating down hills through trees and bushes with less than adequate control, I have to say I am feeling more than sufficiently exhausted, and even more excited about skiing.

This afternoon my good friend Shannon came along, and with the four dogs between the two of us, there was no shortage of good company. Our ski was pleasure in its purest form. I wasn’t thinking about my technique, my heartrate, how to ski the transition, or preparing for an upcoming race. I was just enjoying my sport, my company, the beauty around us and the day. And sometimes, that is the perfect ski. And this year, it was the perfect beginning to what I already know is going to be an incredible ski season.