Brisk Water Ahead

This weekend I was supposed to drive up to Bear Valley to get some skiing in, as well as test out some skis to buy. The weather wasn't idea,l so my teammate and I decided that we wouldn't go. Neither one of us has a car that would be okay in a snow storm, so we thought it be best to just stay in San Francisco to work out.

This was the first Saturday in I can't even remember that I didn't feel rushed to stay on a timeline! It was a strange feeling to be honest. I have gotten used to having to get up at 4am, pack up my food, get all my snow gear together and either drive or be picked up! I felt a bit out of it on Saturday when I didn't have to be doing anything! I woke up at my normal weekday time, 5:00am, and got breakfast (since training so much I am hungry all of the time!), and sat down to watch some TV. I am ashamed to admit that I watched TV for hours. I should have gotten up to work out or do something productive, but I just couldn't do it!

At 1pm is when I started really moving around. I had planned to workout with my trainer at 2pm, so I got ready for a good booty kicking. Since it was raining I met my trainer at her house and I did pilates on her pilates machine. I love this machine. It really opens up your body. She threw in some new exercises that really kicked my booty. By the time I got out of there I was sweating, which I typically don't do!

I got home with all intentions of putting on my swimsuit and walking up the 7 blocks to the rec center to get my first swim in months in. My pool was closed down around Thanksgiving to resurface it, they just reopened it this weekend. I couldn't drag my lazy butt up there, so I sat back down and relaxed. This relaxation thing is pretty dang nice!

Sunday I got up at my usual time, ate and got ready to walk up to the pool. There was a sign outside the building addressed to all swimmers stating the following: "To all swimmers, since the pool was just reopened we must advise you that the water is a BRISK 76 degrees. The pool will be its normal 81 degrees by Monday or Tuesday." After reading that sign I thought, "76 degrees doesn't seem all that brisk to me....I'll be fine." I soon found out that their idea of BRISK is my idea of freezing!

I jumped in the pool, came racing to the top and said to the lifeguard through chattering teeth, "This is not a brisk 76 degrees. This pool can't be hotter than 65 degrees at best! It is freezing!" His response...... "Well our sign said it was BRISK." I should have splashed him with the BRISK 76 degree water, but thought better of it. I didn't want to get kicked out even though the idea of not being in this cold water was pretty appealing!

Instead of splashing the lifeguard, I decided that since I was already freezing my booty off, I would stay in and get my swim in. At the end of my workout, I had swam over a mile in distance...so I feel like I had a good workout in, even if the water was colder than a witches tit.

I had made plans with friends to go hiking or walking later in the day on Sunday, which one we did all depended on how muddy it was after our rain on Saturday, so I high tailed it home to touch base with them to see what the plan was. We decided to meet up in Oakland and walk around the lake. The distance around is 3 1/2 miles. We did one complete loop and then some. Overall I had a good weekend. I missed being out in the snow, though that water was as cold as being in the snow, so I guess I had the next best thing....maybe!

This coming Saturday is out last practice at Bear Valley. We have 3 snow team practices left before our competition...the pressure is on to make sure that we can make our time cutoffs for the races. I am aiming to compete in the 40K...and I know that I can finish it, I just hope I make the time cutoffs so that I am an official finisher.

I'll have more to share later! Until then......

Going the extra mile (or kilometer in this case!)

Saturday, Jan. 21, I headed up to Bear Valley by myself. The drive was uneventful, but man was it a long drive to make by yourself! I made it to Bear Valley in good time and had ample of time to rent my skis and get a few practice runs in before practice officially started. The day was gorgeous. We have been so lucky with our team ski days! The weather was close to 45 degrees and sunny! I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else. With all that said, I knew that I had a hard day ahead of me. From what I had heard, Saturday was going to be the day that we had to ski a 20K. I was mentally trying to prepare myself for the the strenuous day ahead of me.

As we all gathered our coach mentioned that we would be on our own, unless we felt like we needed extra help from the coaches. All the coaches would be out on the trails with us in case we needed them. He told us that they had mapped out a 15K, much to my surprise. I had been mentally preparing for a 20k, so hearing that we had a 15K instead threw all of us.

Coach Scott went through the trails that we would be doing and described in painful detail what to expect. We started off on a trail that was pretty flat and easy, but then we were to cut up another trail that had a LONG wind up the mountain and the long downhill that had a few twists and turns along the way......after hearing the first 40 minutes of our day I started what I now call the "Stuart Smalley Affect" (see my previous entry for the explanation!). After the full detail of what to expect we were on our way. The first climb that we had was hard, but I made it with no problems. The downhill was another story!

I got halfway down and then freaked myself out, I hate it when I do that....and I started to fall. Of course I was trying to continue with the "Stuart Smalley Affect" and give myself positive affirmations as I started to freak myself out. Of course I fell and I fell hard...and what is even better? One of my coaches caught it on tape! As I got back up I was telling him to turn off the tape! He was laughing the whole time!

As I continued on the trail I caught up with a few guys on my team and we pretty much stuck together the rest of the way. I would pull ahead sometimes and they would pull ahead sometimes. But overall we stuck together. We started our next ascent and descent, I didn't have very many problems thank goodness. The whole time we were on this trail I was thinking, the mother of all ascents and descents was around the corner two trails up. Our coach had warned us about the one near the end. And if you know me, you know that I am a worrier....so the whole time I was worried about the what-ifs! I know lame, but that is me! :)

So finally the time came to come to the dreaded mountain that we needed to climb and ski down. I made it up with no problems. It was hard, but I did it. When I got to the top we had to veer to the right and go down and do the loop and then come back up it and then proceed to the right once we got back to the top. That hill was the mother of all hills. I was so scared on this thing! I literally was yelling, "You can do eeeeetttt!" at myself. I had one major fall on the steepest decline I have seen this whole time. The decline at the tail end of this hill was almost at a 90 degree angle. So I am sure you can imagine what I was thinking...."Crap, I have to get back up this thing too!" I made it down after falling once and did the loop and then started the climb to the top. Which for the record, was one of the hardest things I have done to date. After making it to the top, again, I had to veer right. This part of the trail had a few downhills and some uphills.....the very end was a downhill that lasted forever. I started off okay but then hit ice and went out of control. To be honest with you, I have no idea how I fell, just that I fell so hard that I thought I ripped my toenail off. Okay, I know gross, but I did think that. I got back up and had to ski the rest of the way down, hoping and praying that I didn't do any major damage to myself!

I got down the mountain from hell and continued with my loop. After another 5K or so I was at the lunch spot. It was around 1:15pm and we had started around 11am or so....and I found out that they had given us extra mileage by accident so instead of the 15K that our head coach told us that we would be doing, we did just about a 20K. Nice!

After I grabbed a quick bite I took off with another group of people and skied for another couple hours. This time I was taking my time and enjoying the scenery. At the end of the day, I had completed a 26.4K....which means I skied 16.4 miles. WOW! Not bad for someone that had never been on skis before this season!

Tomorrow is a non-team day. One of my teammates and I are heading up to Bear Valley anyway to get more skiing in. We have decided to ski the 40K in Alaska....so we need to get in at least a 30K tomorrow. We are both also looking into buying a ski package tomorrow (skis, bindings, boots and poles). We found out this week that the pickings will be slim in Alaska to rent....so we need to either rent here and take them up to Alaska or buy them here. And since I love this sport so much, I think I am going to purchase a package!

I'll have more to share after tomorrow.

The Stuart Smalley Affect

This might not make sense to many people unless you were a Saturday Night Live fan back in the days when Al Franken was a regular. One of the characters that was played up was Stuart Smalley. Stuart was a therapist that ended all sessions with this simple phrase, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and Doggone it...People like me." You might all be wondering what that has to do with my training for my cross country ski competition.

Well here goes.....
Yesterday, Jan. 16, 2006 I had the day off so I headed up to Tahoe to the Royal Gorge with one of my teammates. We decided that we both had to conquer the hills that freak us out so much. As we were skiing I told her that at our last practice the coaches gave a speech on overcoming anxiety on the hills. Their suggestion was for us to give ourselves positive re-enforcement instead of beating ourselves up over something. I think I might have mentioned that in my last entry.

I was practicing the positive statements to myself as I would start to go down some of the hills, which were bigger then any hills I have seen on my cross country ski endeavors so far. I would say things like "You are okay, " or "You are doing fine," or "You're almost down," etc. It worked for the most part, or shall I say until I came to the monster of all hills that I have seen cross country skiing so far. It had three descents on it. It would go down and flatten out for about 5 feet, go down and then flatten out and then the last hill was the steepest hill that I have seen. My teammate went first down the three slopes b/c I was a bit scared. I saw her get to the bottom and I thought piece of cake! So I started my descent! I got down the first slope and even snowplowed the correct way. I then got down the second slope in the same fashion as the first slope and then I approached the final slope to go down. After assessing it for a few seconds I realized that this slope was not one that you can snowplow down, so I decided to go balls out down it.....

I got halfway down and started yelling, "You're good enough, you're smart enough...you can do eeeettttt!" And there you have the Stuart Smalley Affect.

The 2 questions that should be asked at this point are these:
1. Did anyone hear me yell this?
2. Did it work for you?

Answers:
1. Yes my teammate heard me and laughed and the people on the neighboring trails heard it as well....talk about embarrassing;
2. The Stuart Smalley Affect did NOT work for me this time. I fell pretty hard as I got halfway down and slide the rest of the way down the slope from hell!

Will I continue to practice the Stuart Smalley Affect? Yes....It worked for the most part yesterday for me. Am I still scared of hills? Most definitely! But I hope that with more practice that my fear will be less and less. I will be able to tell if my day in the hills yesterday actually helped with my fear when I got back up with the team on Saturday. Time will tell! Until then.....

Those Dang Hills!

On January 7th the team headed to Bear Valley to get some skiing in. We knew that we would be having timed trials, but weren't sure what else to expect that day. The drive up was uneventful and we even got rained on a lot. The fear in the car was that we would be getting rained on the whole time we were outside. When we arrived at the lodge we soon realized that our fears were nonsense! It was snowing after we got out of the car....it was so pretty. But as you may or may not know, cross country skiing in fresh snow is a lot harder then skiing in packed down snow. So we knew that we had our work cut out for us.

Since we arrived early, I was able to warm up for a good 30 minutes before we started out team practice. They broke us off into groups and off we went. My group took off almost immediately. Our team had 2 coaches that day, one that was a normal coach and one that was volunteer for the day to help us.

Now that we are all fairly comfortable on the skis we are able to pinpoint problematic areas that we need to work on. Mine is still the hills! I am getting more confident on the smaller hills, though the larger hills just fill me full of anxiety!

We broke for lunch after 12pm and our head coach gave a speech on overcoming stress and anxiety when it comes to skiing and competing. We were told that instead of beating ourselves up, we should be speaking positively to ourselves. Instead of saying, "That was stupid! Why do you keep falling?" and continuing to stress yourself out, you should be saying, "You can do this hill. You've got it!" So after lunch we were scheduled to do an 11K. My buddy and I took off b/c we were freezing waiting for everyone else to finish. We kept a good pace and I was feeling really confident....until I came upon that hill that I had fallen on earlier in the day.

One of our coaches was there to watch me (which only made me more nervous) to see what I was doing wrong with my snowplow. The combination of already being freaked out about this hill and having him watching me, just added to the stress level and I biffed it so hard that it took the air out of me. It had been snowing earlier in the day, but by then the sun had come out and had turned things to ice. Well I hit the ice as I was going down the hill (which by the way turns to the left and if you don't turn you go off the side!). After starting to go out of control, I somehow flipped and landed on my chest and then preceded to slide down the hill on my face. The kicker is that I yelled out, "Oh crap...Sunny Bono!" Which had a few of my teammates in stitches.

After regaining my breath and dignity...I got back up and took off. Unfortunately that hill did a number on my already tired and injured back (I have an existing condition with my lower back). I wasn't able to do the full 11K, but I was able to do a 9K...so all toll that day I got in a 16K. Not bad for someone that didn't know how to cross country ski last month. :)

This week I have been laying low with practices b/c of being slightly under the weather. I have only worked out twice! But I am working out on Sunday and will be going skiing with a few of my teammates on Monday up at the Royal Gorge. I am really looking forward to concentrating on the hills there to master my fears!

Until next time......

The Start Of The New Year!

Well I know it has been several weeks since I have logged onto this to input an entry. Like many of you, I was enjoying the holidays with loved ones. Though I must confess I have avoided posting a new entry b/c I have been very laxed with my working out for just about 2 weeks now. While away for Christmas I only got 1 workout in and when I came back for New Year's I got 2 workouts in...which is better than nothing, but not good enough for my training!

You might laugh, but after my friends left on Monday, Jan. 2, I got engrossed in watching the marathon "The Biggest Loser." Seeing all those people losing all that weight definitely amped me up. Lame I know, but whatever works!

I restarted my training yesterday morning with my trainer. We did interval training at 5:45am. Nothing like jumping right back into it! We worked out for about an hour then it was time for me to go home to get ready for work. Our SF team practice was supposed to be that night, but since it was raining we were all splitting up to do our own thing. Some people were going to go ice skating, but with my knee and back I decided to opted out of that workout. My mentor and I decided to go water run at the Presidio YMCA. Luckily I gave myself an extra 20 minutes to find the facility! I got so lost trying to find it! After finding the facility, I met up with my mentor and we jumped into the pool! Which if you don't know me, then I have to say it felt great! I love being in the water. The pool that I typically swim at has been closed for resurfacing over the winter months...so I have had to supplement my workouts with other things.

Anyway, today I didn't get up early to do my cardio so I have to go after work to get close to 2 hours of cardio in. Lord help me!

We are skiing as a team on Saturday so I will have more to report then. We are scheduled to be skiing a minimum of a 10k that day and that isn't including our workshops.....Should prove to be interesting.

Until next time......