turkey

thanksgiving
Well Thanksgiving was pretty adventurous. Saturday, I did bike intervals, and a 2 hour run/hike/orienteering project in pouring rain. Sunday, I ddi a 1 hour swim, and 1.5 hours of core/weights/cardio. Monday, I drove 12 hours to Vernon BC to ski. Silverstar is a great resort. Snow coverage was a little thin, which meant the lower trails were not skiable. But I skied 3 hours tuesday, and 2.5 wednesday, and did 2.5 hours Thursday in a continuous ski, skiing over and down the mountain and back. I've still got this mystery foot issue going on: I can run now, but the foot is stressed by skiing. I'm hopeful it'll 'train up', but i'm busy taking therapeutic (Read, LARGE doses of aleve in the meantime). Thursday afternoon, I drove to Missoula, arriving at 3 in the morning. Yeah... thanksgiving. Friday morning I drove to yellowstone, and skied for an hour. Saturday, I somehow talked myself into skiing in the Supertour race. US Ski team members, elite college kids, etc. Basically, I was totally humbled, but learned a lot. Skated for an hour that afternoon. Got up Sunday morning, skied under the full moon, and then as the Sun was coming up skied back to the hotel, and drove back to Bend.

Some funny highlights: As I was trying to get ready for the race, I was starting to rush to get ready as it neared my 11:11 start time. I finally got my skis waxed for the 16km classic race, and i was trying to put my insoles in my classic boots... and they wouldn't go. So I shove and tuck, nothing happens. Finally I shove it in there and try to adjust it with my hand deep in my boot. That's when I find the hard boiled egg shoved in my shoe.... AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH I yell!!!!! But I actually did not yell AAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH.

I got a student to stay for the raffle, and I won a pair of nice skate poles... Holmenkol carbon poles.... they're probably worth 150 or so... I told him I'd give him 10% of anything I won... so we decided on 15 dollars as an arbitrary amount for these poles.

I managed to average 10 or 20 over the limit for my 9 hour stretch home, and we made it in 10.5 hours.

I was pretty wiped this morning, but school was great, and a kid gave me a delicious turkey sandwich at lunch, so I finally got my thanksgiving Turkey. Tonight I went skiing at bachelor and just did drills for 40 minutes. About 1.5 inches of snow fell while I was there, so hopefully I'll be skiing decent snow the rest of the week, albeit with a headlamp.

I told my famous pig joke today in class, and was rewarded with a willing victim who, by the conclusion was partially willing to believe that I grew up with a 3 legged pig, commonly left my christmas tree up until march, and had my life saved on multiple occasions by my pet pig.

Frisbee corner: I'm glad the flame war on RSD has come to a close, UNCW is being accused of being cheaters, but frankly in several years of playing against them, I found that they never cheated me. And even their assertion that you needed to be willing to get in a fight to win your ground against them never seemed to be the case. You did need to know the rules, and play hard.

So, I need new classic skis, as mine are slow as christmas. I'm also increasingly impressed by the value of weights.
Also, I've been swimming a good bit, and i've gotten up to about an hour. The race, I think I averaged about 3.5 min/km, which is pretty pisspoor, but it was super cold (makes skiing slower), I didn very minimal ski training this summer, my foot hurts, and it was my first race, and i need new skis. That's enough excuses, I suck, and it's time to work harder and smarter.