Great ski weekend!

Finally, we have snow - almost 5 feet of new snow at higher altitudes. However, due to warm temps during the snowfall, especially at lower elevations, the snow was very variable. So, we had to search out the best snow for skiing through the weekend.

Early Saturday, some co-workers tried a popular tree line. They bailed out because the snow was too dense lower in the run. That put me on guard and I told the girls that I teach that we would not be getting "first tracks" anywhere. I wanted the snow to be skied first by others so we would know it was safe. We took it fairly easy in the morning, but eventually tried some bump runs before lunch. I was surprised at how soft the snow was on those lines.

So, after lunch, we tried a couple tree lines and found them to be very fun. We then headed to the Castlerock area at Sugarbush - an area with no snowmaking, minimal grooming, limited lift access, and difficult terrain. The lines were ridiculously long, but one of my students wanted to ski a run from this chair to complete her tick-list of skiing all eight double-black trails at Sugarbush. Others told me that the wait for the chair was worth it. So, we waited - about half an hour. And then we skied under the chair - a run called Liftline. It was amazing - as much fun as I've ever had on that run. I described the run as "epic", only to have one of my students tell me I wasn't cool enough to use that word. Oh well, I may be old but I can still ski circles around my students.

By the end of the day, I was beat from difficult skiing. I was starting to take off my boots when a co-worker told me I HAD to ski some more. I tried to protest, but he wouldn't listen. Fifteen minutes later, I was at the summit. We wanted to ski a tree run, but the normal access point was not available, due to a 3:30 trail closure. So, we improvised and skied some seriously steep tree lines, including some untouched lines of soft powder. It was almost 4:30 until we got off the mountain.

I went home, cooked dinner, and fell asleep pretty quickly. Sunday morning was coming quickly. Because the conditions had been so good on Saturday, I changed our routine on Sunday. We normally start on easy terrain, but it's late in the season, the girls are in good shape, and the snow was great. So, we "warmed up" on an intermediate bump run followed by an expert bump run. From there, we rode the chair again and did an intermediate tree run and rode the chair to the summit. From there, we took our time on a double-black, natural snow run - one of my favorite runs on the mountain. We then went for an early lunch.

After lunch, we headed back to the summit. We skied one tree line on the way. I let the girls take about 30 minutes to play on a summit platform at the top of Mt. Ellen. And then, we skied another double-black diamond run. The snow was so soft and consistent, that I wanted the girls to attack the line aggressively, and a few of them managed to do that.

As we finished this run, we had two choices. Some of the group wanted to do one more hard run in the Castlerock area. But, two girls had clearly had enough. Their hands were dropping, their hips were dropping, and they were clearly tired. Skiing a steep, narrow, twisty trail late in the weekend when people are tired is dangerous - someone is likely to get hurt. The operating slogan of the Professional Ski Instructors of America is "Safety, Fun, Learning". I opted for safety, as I always do, and we went inside for a hot chocolate break.

After that break, we did a little skiing on easy terrain to wrap up the day. At the end of the lesson, I handed a group of happy and tired girls back to their parents.

To be honest, I was tired as well. The final run on Saturday took a lot out of me, and I failed to properly re-hydrate Saturday night. I was planning to ski with my family for the day today - something we hardly ever get to do. But, it was windy when we woke up this morning, so we deferred until tomorrow. The kids have today and tomorrow off fromschool, so my wife and I simply changed our vacation day.

So today, I'll do an upper body lifting workout, but I'm letting my legs rest. And, I'm trying to catch up on hydration. Tomorrow should be a really fun day, hanging out with the whole family at a resort that I've skied a lot, but one that my son has only skied once, and my wife and daughter have never skied there. We have a gift certificate for one free lift ticket and a second gift certificate at a restaurant close to where we'll be skiing, which we'll use for dinner after skiing. It should be a great day.

Short and intense

Last night was 35 minutes on the treadmill:

5 minute warm-up

(1 minute hard, 1 minute walking, 1 minute easy running) times 10

Nice and simple and hard. My fastest speed was 7:00 mpm. A year ago, I could have done all ten repeats at that speed and considered it a recovery day. But, just like my buddy Jim, I'm at a low point in my fitness level right now, and I feel like I'm just starting to crawl out of the pit. At least I'm back to doing something consistently, for at least six days per week.

After my run last night, my drive home was quite interesting. The town hadn't plowed our road for hours and the road was full of standing water, soaking wet snow, and all kinds of "features". The car pretty much went where it wanted to go and I just hoped it wanted to stay on the road. I managed to get home safely, but it was exciting. I tried to call my wife to warn her about the road, but she's managed to turn her cell phone to vibrate and never got the call.

When she got home about 30 minutes later, she was visibly shaken up by the drive. She wasn't even willing to park in the driveway. She parked by the road so she wouldn't have to fight the wet snow we haven't been able to clear from the main parking area in the driveway.

All in all, it's been a few interesting days. Today, it's windy and warm. After today, I'm going to ski the next three days - two days teaching and then one vacation day with my kids on Monday. My primary goal right now is to only ski where others have already skied. Snow this deep and this heavy is often called "ACL Snow", because it's quite easy to tear an ACL when your knee rotates but your skis won't turn. It's one of the risks of the heavier snow we tend to get on the east coast, so I just need to be careful while teaching this weekend.

But, I probably shouldn't complain that our snow isn't perfect when I have a number of friends who haven't had electricity for 48 or more hours and they have no idea when it will be restored.

Well, back to work. I can't believe how much is going on at such a tiny little company. My "To Do" list reads like a geek novel right now.

Seriously hard impromptu workout

When I left for work yesterday morning, we had nearly a foot of snow. While I was working, nearly that much more snow fell. I asked my son, who had the day off from school, to run the snow blower up and down the driveway. He insisted it wouldn't run properly, so he couldn't do it. However, he found time to use the wet, heavy snow to construct a large throne for himself in the yard. Apparently, he was the king of all he could survey, with the exception of the snow blower.

When my wife and I got home, we barely got the car into the driveway. We immediately changed into appropriate clothes for clearing the snow and got to work. My planned running workout just wasn't going to happen; I couldn't leave all of that work to my wife and son.

So, my wife started using the snow blower to clear out the driveway. I used the snow shovel to work on clearing the porch and deck. My son used a garden rake to help push snow around. After the deck was clear, I got out my roof rake. The roof rake is ridiculously hard to use. Imagine a 30 foot long handle with a blade on the end. You push it as high as you can on the roof and then pull snow off the roof. As soon as I'd cleared as much snow as possible from the roof, we had to re-shovel the deck. The snow that had fallen from the roof was compacted and really not fun at all to shovel. The snow was perfect for making a snowman (or a throne), but not fun to move around.

Eventually, I took control of the snow blower to give my wife a break. She then spent some time trying to dig out the cars, while I cleared a parking area for the cars. Her car was easy; we'd driven it home only 90 minutes earlier. My car was completely buried and it took a lot of work to get it out of its spot. But, about two hours after we'd gotten home, the driveway was mostly clear, the cars were free, the deck was mostly clean, and the roof was raked.

And then, the town plow truck came through, plowing shut the entrance to our driveway. I muttered a few words under my breath and went back to work with the snow blower.

At this point in time, I noticed that a fair amount of snow had fallen while we were working. Some quick measurements showed that we had 24" of new snow at this point in time. In the 11 years we've lived in our house, this is the largest 24 hour snowfall that we've seen.

Sugarbush reported 32"-46" of new snow this morning. We are getting more snow right now, and they'll probably end up with over 5 feet of snow by Saturday morning. We are going to get blasted with wind later as well, so the frequent power outages we've been seeing may become more frequent or more prolonged. The coffee shop where I'm working right now is packed with people who have no power at home.

It's really late, but winter has finally arrived. And, I'm really sore because of it. My 2+ hour workout of clearing snow last night left me feeling pretty beat up. I was soaked from sweat by the time we were done. My wife was also very sore this morning. It was quite a workout and we get to repeat it tonight or tomorrow morning.

Finally!

I'm referring to the snow, of course. For the first time all winter, we got 12" of snow in one storm at my house and it's still going. Plus, we might get another big storm on Friday. It's not fluffy powder, but with the way this ski season has been going, any snow is good snow.

The photo above is "snowblower-enhanced", but this is my car about an hour ago.

I got in a good weight workout last night, followed by some intervals on the stair climber. Then, I played my guitar for a while, cooked dinner, and watched the Olympics for a while. After a couple really tough work days (yesterday started at 4:30 a.m.), it was nice to relax for an evening.

Tonight, I'll do a treadmill run and then spend some more time trying to clear snow from the driveway and the deck. I may even have to use the roof rake because the snow is so heavy.

Bit by bit

I was tired from the weekend, but I got in a nice easy 45 minute run last night. My running is far from where it was a year ago or even six months ago, but my hamstring seems to be cooperating, I seem to be mostly healthy again, and it's time to start working harder on getting back into shape.

The hardest part will be losing the weight I've gained since last July. I definitely don't like how my clothes fit right now or what I see in the mirror. But, I feel like I've turned a corner and I'm going in the right direction.

It just looks like it's going to be a long journey to get back into decent shape right now. I'm entered in a tough 50K in April, but I doubt very much that I'm even going to show up that day. If I'm lucky, I'll be up to ten mile runs by then, but I don't see much purpose in risking injury by trying to finish a race when I'm not in good enough shape to do it safely.

It's snowing right now and we have a winter storm watch for tonight and tomorrow. If all goes well, this storm will give us 8"-12" of new snow. Plus, a bigger storm is expected on Friday. The days are getting longer, the high temps are nudging above freezing, but I'm still not giving up on ski season.

Hit and Run

Not much to say:

Weights on Friday night.

Sore on Saturday and Sunday for skiing.

Skied mostly off-trail, in the trees this weekend - snow not bad despite our lack of snow.

Running outside this afternoon.

Snow in the forecast for this week.

That's it.

Going "Furthur"

Furthur is the latest re-incarnation (pun intended) of the Grateful Dead. This version of the band takes their name from a bus. I know I don't have to explain this to Deadheads, but for others, it might almost be interesting.

In 1964, Ken Kesey bought a 1939 International Harvester bus for use by him and his "associates" known as the Merry Pranksters. For more on those days and Ken and the Merry Pranksters, Tom Wolfe's (barely) fictional book "The Electric Acid Kool Aid Test" is classic reading.

Anyway, the Dead and Kesey and the Pranksters were constant companions back in the early days. And, the name fits the current band in another way. Phil and Bobby have been playing together for about 45 years now - a lot "Furthur" down the road than they probably ever imagined.

Jerry, Bobby and Billy even referenced Furthur in the song "That's It For the Other One":

Escapin' through the lily fields

I came across an empty space

It trembled and exploded

Left a bus stop in its place

The bus came by and I got on

That's when it all began

There was cowboy Neal

At the wheel

Of a bus to never-ever land

The "bus" is a reference to Furthur. "Cowboy Neal" was a reference to Neal Cassady, a friend of Jack Kerouac's (Dean Moriarty in "On The Road" is Neal) and a frequent driver of Furthur.

King Crimson even wrote a song in tribute to Neal with "Neal and Jack and Me".

Allen Ginsburg referred to Neal as "N.C." in his immortal poem "Howl".

No matter how much I've read Kerouac or Wolfe, I wish I could have been there to at least see the craziness of those days. It's undoubtedly romanticized these days, but at the very least, it had to have been interesting.

But, back to the show...

Phil and Bobby have added some younger blood in this version of the band, including the leader of a Dead cover band that I've seen many times - Dark Star Orchestra. They added the "Jerry" from that band and he was a fine addition to their band last night.

The first set was pretty mellow until a rocking Sugaree to finish up. The second set started out great, slowed down a bit in the middle and then finished exceptionally strong. They closed with a common encore song for them - a cover of The Band's "The Weight". Here is the set list:

I: Feel Like a Stranger, Loose Lucy, It Must Have Been the Roses, Deep Elem Blues, Just a Little Light, Money for Gasoline, Loser, Sugaree

II: Jam > Truckin > Deal, Viola Lee Blues, Nobody Girl > Bird Song > Born Cross-Eyed > Scarlet Begonias > Fire on the Mountain, Sugar Magnolia

E: The Weight

They are playing smaller venues these days, and last night's show was set up in half of small indoor arena - probably no more than 5000 or so people. But, I would have to say that the faithful were not disappointed.

I didn't work out yesterday because of the show, but I'm going to lift after work tonight and then ski all weekend.