Exhausting Weekend

Friday night, I did 8 miles on the treadmill after work. I did the first 6 at an easy pace and then the next two miles at a gradually faster pace, ending up at a 7:30 pace. After that, I went home, cooked dinner, and worked for a couple hours on my "second" job.

Saturday, I was up early to head to the ski mountain - my "third" job. I taught skiing all day, and then we went to a birthday party. Three ski instructors and the wife of a 4th instructor all have early January birthdays. So, we get together for a nice dinner every year to celebrate our birthdays. We had some nice wines and beers, and suddenly, it was midnight. I got to sleep at 1:00 a.m. or so, and I was back up at 6:00 to go skiing again.

The storm that affected southern New England on Saturday night and Sunday morning was not supposed to come this far north. Every forecaster but one was saying that at most, we'd get a dusting of snow. But one guy, a blogger had spent all week saying we would have 8"-12" of new snow on Sunday. It's kind of funny that on Saturday he backed down on that forecast somewhat, because his original forecast was correct. We arrived at the mountain yesterday to find 8" of fluffy new snow on the ground and it was still snowing. We ended up with 10" officially.

So, I was tired and probably a bit dehydrated, and I was faced with an amazing ski day. The girls in my group wanted to ski hard, and we did. Normally, the mornings are about some warm-up runs, a little teaching and practice, but overall, the mornings are fairly relaxed. We tend to ski hardest in the afternoons.

But, yesterday morning, the girls were demanding to ski one of my favorite trails at the mountain. It's a steep, twisty double-black diamond run off the summit and it's all natural snow. It was fun, but I arrived at lunch soaked from working hard in the morning. In the afternoon, the girls wanted to ski off trails and in the trees. So, we did that. At 3:00, when the girls were picked up by their parents, I really wanted to ski some more of the new snow. But, I was shot. So, we headed home. I almost fell asleep driving home, yet I knew I had to snowblow the driveway as soon as I got home. Luckily, it was fluffy snow and the driveway was clear in less than 45 minutes. Then, I cooked dinner and I wanted to go to bed. But, my second job still required some work. I worked two hours on the computer until I simply couldn't stay awake any more.

I'd planned a 4 mile snowshoe run this morning, but when the alarm went off at 4:45, I was simply too tired - physically and sleep-wise - to get out of bed. I'll adjust my running days later in the week to make up the four miles so I get to my target of 35 for this week.

I will lift tonight after work though - no complete rest days at this time of year.

Later this week, it's going to get bitterly cold here for a few days - some of the coldest temperatures we've seen in the past few winters. Regretfully, the cold weather is going to extend into next weekend - a holiday weekend that usually sees huge crowds at the mountain.

Oh yeah, last week I ran 27 miles, lifted twice, and skied twice. That weekly mileage total will be gradually increasing over the next 10-12 weeks, until I get to about 60 miles per week. After ski season is over, I'll be able to do some trail work, and I'll eventually get to about 80 miles per week in May.

Western States seems close already and I have a lot of work to do.