XC skiing stuff

Well, this is the time of the year for skiing, and Beth and I are in a cross-country ski class that meets Mondays and Wednesdays to fix our technique and get some exercise. Considering that my current technique can be best described as "wild flailing that somehow propels me in a generally forward direction," the class should be really beneficial. Having such miserable technique does make me awesome at the "getting exercise" part of the class, though. The other night one of our instructors pointed out that I was combining the inefficiency of the blah-blah-blah technique almost seamlessly with the lack of power of the blah-blah-blah technique. Having now uncombined and then recombined my styles, I'm now a bit better off, but I still have a long way to go.


Speaking of a long way to go, I signed myself up for the Tour of Anchorage, a 50K cross-country ski race that loops around a large portion of the city. The race is in early March, the weekend after our classes end, so I hope I'm ready by then. I know I can drop down a notch and do the 40K race instead (which not only is shorter, but avoids by far the largest hill on the course), but now that i'm signed up for the longer race that will seem like a failure (even though if I had just signed up for the 40K in the first place it would seem like a great accomplishment - guess I screwed that one up). Anyway, its definitely lighting a bit of a fire under my butt to get out there and train, which is kind of nice. It's been a long time since I've had a training goal like this to commit to (holy cow! was my half-ironman really almost a full decade ago?).





If you want to know anything about the race, you can check it out here. If you don't want to know anything, then don't click here.

Also, I'm pleased to report that Beth had a bit of a breakthrough on the "hills are our friends" front. I still wouldn't say she's thrilled about them, but she reports the discovery that by hurtling herself down one hill at breakneck speed, she will have extra momentum as she begins going up the next hill. Maybe it's not quite the same as loving hills, but it seems like a step in the right direction.