Endurance races, ski trips, musings, and adventures on the East Coast.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Winter Won't Quit

Despite some tentative forays onto the road to train recently, the weather is still pushing me more towards skiing than biking these days. Sounds like things are going to warm up next week, but it was feeling mighty wintery out there this morning.


This image was taken in some mid-elevation elevation birches today. A good three to four inches of new snow made things pretty fun to say the least.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Training???

The extended weather forecast doesn't look too great for outdoor training right now. It'll be warm, but with lots of mixed precipitation thrown in to keep things fun. It looks like they'll be some sun this weekend though, enough to justify some shorter jaunts on the road.

Wednesday/Thursday were my first "rides" of the year. Both done on my trusty steel Surly with big, big tires. Just the thing to make me feel fast right off the bat, or not.

My first ride went something like this:

Mile 1: Hmmmmm. I've been standing up for a long time and I'm not even going up hill. Not so efficient. Oh well. This is pretty fun though and not as cold as I thought.

Mile 2: Still not frozen. That's cool.

Mile 3: Feeling like Ricky Bobby and wanting to go fast. Too bad that requires my legs being in shape. In short, not gonna happen. Highway overpass=ouch.

Mile 4: Yup, just going to go slow and smile. Hands getting cold.

Mile 5: Rhythm? Well, maybe, kinda, sorta.

Mile 6: Tired, steady rhythm is better than nothing at all right. How many miles is the Mohican 100? Oh right.

I've got 2.5 months. Time to get to work.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Transitions

It's been a week of transitions here in Vermont. I woke up to rain this weekend, and somehow this time it felt like more than a passing thaw; I saw my first roof rack mounted bike on the highway this weekend; and there have been a few intrepid souls out training on the roads these last few days. The snow on the road shoulders is melting, and most of the salt is almost gone too. I'm going to have to remember how to do this whole mountain bike training and racing thing again very, very soon.

Other transitions, well, my beloved old Volvo 240, which I'd nicknamed the "grey lady" (yeah, that's what they call Nantucket, I know) has died for good. It's sad. Funny that on my last ever ski trip with it last week I paused to take this shot...

...sometimes I guess we just know. So, a new car search has begun. Sounds like the worst way I can think of to spend a weekend, but I suppose it had to happen sometime. In the meantime though, at least I'll have good beer. The winter brew is a little behind schedule seeing as it's almost spring, but I have high hopes for this coffee stout (with maple syrup and oatmeal too)...

...it smelled good at least. A chaotic counter scene somehow became a huge bin of organized (ish) bottles. A wise coach once told me that dark beer is the best recovery drink around, so maybe this batch is right on time...

...and hey, what would a weekend have been without a little skiing. It may have been raining in Montpelier, but it was snowing on the summits, and we made time for a big, five hour tour that included one of the coolest descents I've done this year...

...the bottom of the line was tight, but there is a skiable line in there, I swear (just bring the short skis).

Might be time to go rummage through the basement looking for the road bike. I'm ready.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Bluebird

It seems like the skiing has been non-stop recently. Fast pre-corn gave way to super-fast slushy corn gave way to a huge storm, and today is was bluebird. We were graciously gifted a second snow day, which meant a midday lap on a high elevation tree line. If there is better skiing out there right now, well, it's hard to imagine what that looks like.


Hiking up it was hard to tell - Vermont, Utah, Colorado?


Vermont powder? What powder? Nothing but icy bumps to see here.

Oops. Sort of missed that shot. Chalk it up to there being an amateur behind the lens.

Monday, March 7, 2011

White Room

Wow. What a day to be in Vermont. We went from fun spring-like skiing over the weekend to one of the best powder days of the year in 12 hours - that's how it goes sometimes. Two feet over night and the skiing was one big white blur of goodness. The camera didn't make it out too much due to sick skiing and numbing cold, but here's a shot of Nina coming up for air after a little, okay pretty big, cliff huck (click the image to enlarge).


Cold is in the forecast all week, and maybe some more snow Thursday, so bike specific training might just have to wait a little bit longer.