Monday, February 9, 2009

Ski season weather to date

It's been an odd ski season so far. We've had enough snow to keep the conditions pretty nice. We lost a bunch of snow Christmas week, but storms and snowmaking brough the mountain back to good conditions. Going into the weekend 10 days ago, when we'd had a 21" storm on Wednesday and then another 7" on Friday night, skiing was really amazing, despite the fact that it was a cold, windy day.

But, it seems like every Saturday and Sunday, it's very cold and often very windy. We have not had any weekend days recently where the wind and the temperatures were both nice. Today is beautiful - perfect weather for skiing, but I'm in my office.

This past Saturday, the day started cold and very windy. During the day, a number of lifts were shut down for periods of time because of excessive winds. But, the day warmed up and the afternoon skiing was great. By Sunday morning, the temp at the base of the mountain was 43F and it was 30F at the summit. It was also windy again, and we had an intense 90 minute snow sqall as a cold front moved in. For the rest of the day, temperatures dropped steadily and the mountain got gradually more and more firm, and the wind gusted frequently.

We still managed to have fun, but I'm just waiting for the day this season where the snow is good, the sun is shining, and the temps are moderate. It seems like that hasn't happened once yet this season. We still have 7 weeks left in the seasonal program, although I'm going to skip at least one day for the snowshoe marathon on 3/7. And, depending how beat up I am from the race, I might not ski on 3/8 either.

This week, we are going to have two warm days, the first with mixed precip, and the second (Wednesday) just plain hot for VT at this time of year - 45F. So, we'll be losing snowpack during the week. A storm on Friday might rescue the mountain as they go into a financially import holiday week.

Oh yeah, workouts. Friday night, I lifted as planned and then did a few short treadmill intervals. My left hamstring felt a bit tight, so I limited the speed of the interval work and the duration. On Saturday and Sunday, I skied relatively hard and both were long days, where I led training clinics at 8:00 a.m. before my day with the children in my group.

My plan was to lift this morning, but I definitely got behind on my hydration over the weekend. I always forget to drink water when I'm skiing, and I drank over a quart of water overnight last night, trying to rehydrate. This morning, as I got ready to get out of bed to head to the gym, my quad cramped up on me while I stretched a bit. I decided to defer my lifting until tonight. Today, I'm drinking as much as I can to get myself re-hydrated.

I should be able to snowshoe run tomorrow morning, but my second run tomorrow may get pushed to the treadmill by mixed precip. Wednesday should be a good day for running on the roads.

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