Bakke, sunshine, Himalayas framing Thorung La pass. Cold, beautiful, therapy of life.
Tuesday, 21 April 2015
Climbing
I'm not much of a climber in the cycling sense of the word. Other than Nepal last year which wilted me away, I've been too heavy to be a climber. But it got me on the topic of climbing to look back at the results... and funny enough, what I consider my crowning achievement of climbing wasn't on a bike, the bike was on my back. We froze at night, rose at 3am, and were hiking up a snow covered pass that topped out at 5,416m. I'd hiked for months on my treadmill at work with weights in my backpack, not to excel, but to assuage a degree of mortal fear. I've never been that high before, and it felt like one was on borrowed time at the top - you were both freezing and wasting - the relative permanence of one's existence just didn't extend there. But I'd never felt so alive as I did there marching up Thorung La in the snow. I'd say it was one of the best experiences of my life.
Bakke, sunshine, Himalayas framing Thorung La pass. Cold, beautiful, therapy of life.
Bakke, sunshine, Himalayas framing Thorung La pass. Cold, beautiful, therapy of life.
Sunday, 5 April 2015
Spring weekend
It's my first weekend back to riding. Three solid days, but not as easy miles as friends in warmer climates. It was headwinds, snow, slush, and I think a weekend high of 8C. I guess that's suitable if you're a fan of watchhing spring classics. Third day, despite tougher weather, I felt not like junk. That's good.
Deep thoughts on the bike path.
Wrong on many levels, at least for this guy.
Keith's eponymous bridge.
Besides bar mitts and layers, today's secret to success was a good whacking/poking stick to deal with ongoing ice buildup.
Friday, 13 March 2015
New York 2015
Really only stuck to a few acres, mostly just the human relationships of work on this trip.
Rockefeller plaza.
Walking past Rockefeller tower.
Milos seafood.
From rooftop patio bar Kimberly Hotel.
Top of the Rock post sunset.
Reopened and freshly renovated glitz of the Rainbow Room.
St. Patrick's cathedral across street from hotel. Our hotel and its gym view the other side of the church. Yet all the exercise machines in the gym have tv's piped with banal tv channels that virtually block the view of the building and the people outside. Fail.
Sunday, 8 March 2015
Telemark skiing - Calgary Herald!
Andrew Penner of the Calgary Herald and I had a nice chat about telemark skiing - this is the end product. Next time I need to ensure I find some race photos to pass along as well!
Friday, 27 February 2015
Steamboat Springs - Telemark Classic
This morning was just beautiful. I felt good. The classic run is long: about 5 gates, jump, maybe 5 more, flat straight section, another 6 or 7, the rap and skating, down a pitch with 20+ gates, downhill then turn uphill for a painful skate up to the finish.
I was loving it. Jumped hard but alpine landed. I guess I'll never know if I made the line, but people said I did in the pre-run. Your legs burn and you breath for all you're worth. Making nice tele turns is hard. Apparently too hard for me. With about 4 turns left on the pitch until it flattened into a few easier turns, I slid out and crashed. I have no idea why. I haven't done that in 200 runs in gates this year. The rule with the set start intervals today is once you were down, you were out, no hiking back up for a recovery. I guess that's what I get to think about for the drive home.
Thursday, 26 February 2015
Free Skiing Steamboat Springs
Today I free skied the big resort. I've always wanted to ski here. It rectified all that was "wrong" in my world.
It was a bit of a task to find a ticket on the deal we were promised, but it ended up working, which was fortunate as full price day tickets are $127 US here, which after the credit card ding on exchange rates would have been a $160 CDN day... crazy considering my season pass this year was only $40 more.
I started navigating around all the west chairs to get a feel, and the skiing was all a bit laboured. I went in for a snack (pocket snack, god stuff is expensive here). Then all of a sudden I found my groove. I chatted to the guys who were just starting to re-set the start area for tomorrow's race. They had a junior race of some sort on Vagabond that morning. He just said go for it, so I ran the course. It's long, and not super steep, so carrying speed will be key. But more importantly, unlike Howelsen Hill, there was room galore for self feedback. Howelsen is short, and the way the race course occupies it, there isn't really even a side run to ski and get your flow. I realize that now. Half way in, I was making the best turns I'd made all week. I stopped for a breather as the elevation was getting me.
I did a whole bunch more runs, it felt great. Each turn I was working on something, and to be honest I think the sum total of being here, seeing people, racing, then really having a think last night on what I needed to work on... led to the best several hours of telemark skiing I've ever done. I worked on edging deeper, more angle. Both right and left turns I could feel the articulated knee of my snow pants brushing the ground. I could put my hand down and touch it. I was working on extending down the hill in transition with active hip movement. It all felt so right. Late a couple days, but so right.
The trick is to get that onto courses. Racing well and skiing well are so different. For next time I know to disappear off to the side of a real run and just get my groove going.
Top looking towards town.
West edge of area looking south. That ridge run is Vagabond where the race will be, and the top of that knoll is where the gondola and a few of the lifts unload.
So after tiring myself out on the hill, I learned a couple of pertinent things. I was scheduled into a work conference call tomorrow at 9am. Secondly, I found out the results of Tuesday's Sprint on the FIS site are better than what I had seen online before (FIS site has me at 24th and the other graphic from the broadcast had me at 29th). Which then means that I earned enough FIS points (err, reduced my FIS points) such that I have below 150 and am qualified to race the Classic tomorrow! Step one: find a workaround with my client (whom thankfully understands) and do a detailed email status update to him tonight. Step two, get those legs as recovered as they can be from my free skiing adventure today! My mindset is optimistic. I can ski well, I know that from today... it's just if I can translate that to a race course. You'd think it'd be easier... but I know it's going to be a long lung and leg burner for sure!
It was a bit of a task to find a ticket on the deal we were promised, but it ended up working, which was fortunate as full price day tickets are $127 US here, which after the credit card ding on exchange rates would have been a $160 CDN day... crazy considering my season pass this year was only $40 more.
I started navigating around all the west chairs to get a feel, and the skiing was all a bit laboured. I went in for a snack (pocket snack, god stuff is expensive here). Then all of a sudden I found my groove. I chatted to the guys who were just starting to re-set the start area for tomorrow's race. They had a junior race of some sort on Vagabond that morning. He just said go for it, so I ran the course. It's long, and not super steep, so carrying speed will be key. But more importantly, unlike Howelsen Hill, there was room galore for self feedback. Howelsen is short, and the way the race course occupies it, there isn't really even a side run to ski and get your flow. I realize that now. Half way in, I was making the best turns I'd made all week. I stopped for a breather as the elevation was getting me.
I did a whole bunch more runs, it felt great. Each turn I was working on something, and to be honest I think the sum total of being here, seeing people, racing, then really having a think last night on what I needed to work on... led to the best several hours of telemark skiing I've ever done. I worked on edging deeper, more angle. Both right and left turns I could feel the articulated knee of my snow pants brushing the ground. I could put my hand down and touch it. I was working on extending down the hill in transition with active hip movement. It all felt so right. Late a couple days, but so right.
The trick is to get that onto courses. Racing well and skiing well are so different. For next time I know to disappear off to the side of a real run and just get my groove going.
Top looking towards town.
West edge of area looking south. That ridge run is Vagabond where the race will be, and the top of that knoll is where the gondola and a few of the lifts unload.
So after tiring myself out on the hill, I learned a couple of pertinent things. I was scheduled into a work conference call tomorrow at 9am. Secondly, I found out the results of Tuesday's Sprint on the FIS site are better than what I had seen online before (FIS site has me at 24th and the other graphic from the broadcast had me at 29th). Which then means that I earned enough FIS points (err, reduced my FIS points) such that I have below 150 and am qualified to race the Classic tomorrow! Step one: find a workaround with my client (whom thankfully understands) and do a detailed email status update to him tonight. Step two, get those legs as recovered as they can be from my free skiing adventure today! My mindset is optimistic. I can ski well, I know that from today... it's just if I can translate that to a race course. You'd think it'd be easier... but I know it's going to be a long lung and leg burner for sure!
Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Steamboat Springs - Parallel Qualifier
Ski racing is hard. Telemark ski racing is hard. No part of it can be passed off as easy. And today felt like it. I like hard things, but sometimes you get slapped down. It's not as easy as couch sitting... and today there's not much to write about. Partially strategy, partially execution.
Yesterday's jump had a long line to make it. It was perhaps a viable strategy then to skip going for distance, focus on the tele landing, and keep a high line. Reminder that not making the minimum distance line is a 3 second penalty and not tele landing is one. So in discussion last night, we got to don't worry about distance, go for the tele landing.
Today's course had a shorter jump and it wasn't a blind landing. I stuck to the strategy - don't go for it, but try to land and transition to tele instantly. But in hindsight the right strategy was to huck it and go for a tele landing but at least stick an alpine. Without that you're out too much time to be relevant essentially. I thought I did a continuous drop into tele position landing, but must not have as I got dinged for that too. So the jump all in was a 4 second penalty. Ouch.
Secondly I was really focused on a high line and not getting low and crappy. That was fine, but it wasn't a direct enough line, I should have been fighting for a tighter line instead of a a smoother one. I thought I carved ok, but it's just not tight, deep, powerful enough. Ouch two.
Ouch 3 was I got two boot space penalties. I could live with one as a statistical blip. I'm mildly surprised at the 2, as I was trying to really think about it. I have a feeling one was the gate that was just like 3m before the rap. It wasn't a yellow "parallel turn is ok" gate, but given it's entry to the rap maybe I didn't accentuate it enough. Not sure on the other. Ouch three.
Live and learn. In theory mental mistakes are easier to fix, I thought about that after when I watched some guy unstrap a massive high tech knee brace. My mind needs to be better at the "wait forever then be 100% instantly" aspect of ski racing.
Beauty day on the hill and great atmosphere, just didn't squeeze out a good run.
Yesterday's jump had a long line to make it. It was perhaps a viable strategy then to skip going for distance, focus on the tele landing, and keep a high line. Reminder that not making the minimum distance line is a 3 second penalty and not tele landing is one. So in discussion last night, we got to don't worry about distance, go for the tele landing.
Today's course had a shorter jump and it wasn't a blind landing. I stuck to the strategy - don't go for it, but try to land and transition to tele instantly. But in hindsight the right strategy was to huck it and go for a tele landing but at least stick an alpine. Without that you're out too much time to be relevant essentially. I thought I did a continuous drop into tele position landing, but must not have as I got dinged for that too. So the jump all in was a 4 second penalty. Ouch.
Secondly I was really focused on a high line and not getting low and crappy. That was fine, but it wasn't a direct enough line, I should have been fighting for a tighter line instead of a a smoother one. I thought I carved ok, but it's just not tight, deep, powerful enough. Ouch two.
Ouch 3 was I got two boot space penalties. I could live with one as a statistical blip. I'm mildly surprised at the 2, as I was trying to really think about it. I have a feeling one was the gate that was just like 3m before the rap. It wasn't a yellow "parallel turn is ok" gate, but given it's entry to the rap maybe I didn't accentuate it enough. Not sure on the other. Ouch three.
Live and learn. In theory mental mistakes are easier to fix, I thought about that after when I watched some guy unstrap a massive high tech knee brace. My mind needs to be better at the "wait forever then be 100% instantly" aspect of ski racing.
Beauty day on the hill and great atmosphere, just didn't squeeze out a good run.
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