My 2014 XC Ski Season So Far

Snow, as promised by anyone i told the opposite to, has come to south eastern Norway...with avengance....almost three weeks of wind and snow driven by a series of atlantic anticyclones hitting russian cold air and being just a big conveyor belt for snow filled east-south-easterlies.

Now however today, the westerlies broke through more and the magicak zero barrier was passed with a heavy air and rain conducting away the cold from the snow.

We do however have over a meter lying in most places so it will be interesting to see how much survives a week of plus 4 degrees and rain showers.

Anyway, short and quite sweet so far. Too much snow in fact for my intended programme of long runs and a focus on weight transfer. Often it was impossible to trust one leg with all my weight because it would sink in. So i practiced a bit of this and that but mostly i got benefit from down hill.

I have managed only four sessions of anynote, with a couple of other wee tours when ski skating with the kids or with shopping in a ruck sack was a distraction from shovelling the damn white stuff away for fear of having a burried car or structural dammage to the balcony.

My first session was fine though, with the first half hour and last quarter without poles in classic and some skating. After 45 mins of wagging hands, when i took to four limb propulsion again i felt turbo charged. I also managed to be out for three hours so that meant going long over my two hour target.

Next session was on poorer prepared tracks with more snow drifting in from the evenings prep. The club has bought an argocat which is of course not much for beating down the piste, while the machine it tows could do with some sacks of cement on top. A frusrtating 18km then in a damp wind. My cough got worse and a cold came, keeping me off games for the rest of the week. First session after that was another on the same route, this time in poorer tracks but slightly less wind and hassel.

A tour round our ancient, narrow and roller coaster like flodlight course and then a technique session as in my last blog, any focus mainly down hill technique out of tram lines.

If this is the end of the season then so be it!  A big boost to my confidence that my learning curve is steep again and that actually that i can put youtube into practice!