Breakthrough!

I had a GREAT day skiing on Saturday at Tahoe Donner!!

Headed up after work on Friday with a 2 car caravan and 4 other teammates. Everyone is so nice! Patricia even got me a coffee made to order for me before they picked me up. We didn't hit too much traffic and I think we were at the cabin between 11:30-midnight. Seven am wakeup call, ate a hot and healthy breakfast, dressed and prepped for my day on the mountain and we were out the door by eight. We didn't have to be ready to ski until 9:30 but a couple of my teammates I was riding with wanted to get there early to wax their skis, which was fine by me! It was snowing and it was so pretty so I had no trouble sitting in the ski lodge watching the snow fall and blanket everything with its fluffy whiteness. I rented my skis and boots and patiently/albeit somewhat nervously awaited the day to begin.

We all gathered inside for a quick team meeting/announcements about how the day was going to work, remembering the cause (a past honoree/ski participant had joined us today and he told us his story of getting lymphoma twice (he told us he skied with the team during his treatment the second time, amazing!) and stories were shared of his positive attitude throughout. We also found out that Dana, a team honoree, got a great CT scan result back this week and doesn't have to get another for 9 months!! Go Dana! The smile on her face as she told us the news was priceless.

The day began by splitting up into groups according to ability and style of skiing (i.e., beginner striders (me), beginner skaters, intermediate skaters, etc..) It appears that most people in the team are skaters. They recommend striding for beginners because there is less of a learning curve so I'm just fine being in this group! :) Each group spent the morning (9:30-11:15) with a coach working on technique. Head Coach Larry was heading up my group and as we gathered together, all 6 of us, he tells us all morning we will be working on...HILLS! *gulp* If you remember from my first day out on skis hills were my enemy!!! :) But, if I ever wanted to feel confident on skis, I know I have to learn how to handle the hills...and I felt like I was in good hands with Coach Larry so I thought, bring it on!!

We started on a tiiiiny hill. First we practiced going down with good form. All we would do was go down and concentrate only on staying in athletic stance...knees bent, ankles flexed, slightly leaning forward, arms out like you are carrying a tray or one of those giant athletic balls but down slightly...and looking forward (not down at your skis). Up and down up and down the hill we went practicing this stance because this stance will help you remain (most importantly) standing and in control. Then we practiced how to control our speed by using the wedge (snow plow). We moved to a slightly steeper hill and continued this drill. We'd go up and down the hill gaining speed, using the wedge to slow and stop, parallel our skis back out to continue going downhill, wedging again...as many of those that you could get in on a hill run the better. When you hit the bottom, you ski/stride back up and do it again! Next up was to practice turns. We did the same thing as last time but this time when you're in a wedge, you turn your body the direction you want to go and amazingly, you body just follows along! I thought it was kind of funny because 2 weeks ago I wanted NOTHING to do with hills and here I was everytime I got to the bottom a little voice in my head would scream out like a toddler "AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN!"

I cannot tell you how different of a skier I was that morning than I was back in SLC!! First off, I really really believe that my equipment made a huge difference. I am now positive that I had a bum ski that first time out. These skis I rented this time were fabulous, the were so slick and easy to control. Second, I was no longer nervous about it being my first time, I knew what it felt like to have skis on and to be moving along over the snow. But it wasn't those two things alone..I'm not sure what exactly happened to me but I had suddenly become this confident and more surprisingly, fearless skier! :) I was cruising up and down these hills following all of the coach's instructions. The snow had stopped, the sun and blue skies were out...I was wearing a bit too many clothes for the temperature so I was too warm and sweaty but I was actually ENJOYING this!! It was a great feeling. Before I knew it it was 11:15 and it was time for lunch. A quick lunch at that! We had to be ready again by 11:45...so in a 1/2 hour I was able to sit down and eat a hot meal and change out of my big jacket and put on a much thinner workout jacket that I was so thankful I brought! That made for a much more comfortable rest of the day.

At 11:45 the entire team met at the start of a 1.4 km trail loop. We did a "mass start" to start getting us prepared for how the start will be on race day...only with many many more skiers. This is a great thing to practice!! Something I did not get a chance to practice for my sprint-tri and it completely threw off my swim because of it, so I was thankful that they are allowing us to get a feel for a race start on skis. This portion of the day is devoted to pace timing!! We were to do 3 loops (I actually didn't realize this and ended up doing 4) and we got timed for each loop. This is to help give us an idea of how long it might take us to do our decided distances and what kind of pace we can actually sustain for a prolonged period of time. This was a beginner loop, it had small hills both up and down, turns and flat. I clocked in my first loop a little over 17 mins, my second a little over 15 and my final 3 loops totaled 49 mins. I don't think that was too bad for my second day ever on skis! :) I even did that extra 4th loop on the same pace. So here we are, early afternoon and I'd just spent all morning doing hill work, I've just skiied 5.6 k at a decent pace but I'm feeling it. I'm starting to feel tired.

I realize I'm not drinking enough water, thankfully the temps were warm so I didn't have to worry about water freezing in my camelback. I started drinking and had a little cliff bar energy boost snack. The rest of the day was to be spent on our own on the trails of our choosing. I ended up doing 3 trails which I think brought my daily tally to 10k by the end of the day. The trails were gorgeous, tree lined, well groomed (at least compared to the trails I was on in SLC) and fun!! At one point coming back around the loop on my third trail, Lion's Leap, I paused to realize that I was the only one around. I stopped and just took in the silence. It was so heavenly and peaceful...a statement came to mind that Sean Penn (Director of Into the Wild) made at the end of his Iconoclast episode (which if you haven't seen is excellent, I highly recommend watching it if you're a fan at all of the book and/or movie) he did with Jon Krakauer (author of Into the Wild, Into Thin Air and Under the Banner of Heaven) where he's sitting on this front porch of a cabin in Alaska and talking when all of a sudden a pack of wolves start howling in the distance and Sean Penn stops talking and turns his head and listens and when it's over he turns back to the camera and says "Have you ever heard anyone say anything as good as that?" That's how I feel when I'm in nature and you can't hear anything or anyone else except what is going on in the nature surounding you...the only sound was the snow falling from the trees because the sun was melting it and the sound of my own heart and breath.

Eventually I ran into others on trail and I was thankful!! There was one part of returning on the Pony Express trail where I was in the groomed tracks on a hill and I was CRUISING downhill. So, when we had worked on conquering hills earlier, we were not in groomed tracks, so it's much easier to use the wedge to slow/stop yourself. When you're IN the groomed tracks, striding along, it's not easy at all to turn your ski into a wedge. So here I am, cruising and gaining speed on this hill and I remain standing the entire time but in my head I KNOW that I am not in control. One tiny thing could happen and I would go tumbling down and hard, especially at this speed. So I yell out to a teammate next to me that I'm going really really fast and at the bottom of the hill once I was able to stop she gives me some pointers...she tells me you can do a 1/2 wedge where you keep one ski in the groomed track and you can wedge the other to control your speed. The problem was...how on earth do you get your ski out of the track WHILE you're going down hill without falling?! Appearently it's very difficult but I think it's possible with more experience and pracitice. Luckily, Coach Larry magically showed up while all of this was happening so he helps me out. He gives me instruction on the next hill..a hill with 2 turns. He recommmends approaching the hill with one ski in track and one out from the top of the hill and to keep the opposite ski closest to the direction of the turn out and wedged. For example, the first turn on this hill was a left turn so I kept my left ski in the track and my right ski out and wedged and VOILA! I was completely in control of the hill/my speed and the turn!! I was also able to switch out to keep my right ski in track and my left ski out and wedged to make the second right hand turn...woohoo! Coach Larry said to me, and this may have been my proudest moment of the day..."Are you sure this is only your second time on skis?" :)

By the time I got back to the lodge we still had about 1/2 hour before the end of our day so I semi-reluctantly did a few exercises Coach Larry told me to work on. On a flat surface I went down the groomed tracks and back this time using no poles, only my very very very tired legs to move me. Coach Larry also recommended doing as many squats or related exercises as we can on our own training time. I know why...holy cow!! My quads and butt are still sore today, 2 days later.

We skied for 5 1/2 hours with a 1/2 hour lunch...so 5 hours on skis Saturday and I fell only a handful of times...I conquered my fear of hills and I had SO MUCH FUN!! Of course, I was still more than happy to take my skis and boots off, stretch and go with the rest of the team to eat pizza and a have a beer!! I came home early due to a ride issue (the girl I rode up with ~ her car broke down Saturday morning) so I ended up catching a ride home Saturday night..and honestly, I didn't want to go skiing on Sunday after my great day on Saturday...I wanted to ride this high for a little bit longer, at least until next week, because I know not every day on the mountains training will be good ones. We made it home in record time Saturday night and I was thrilled to sleep in my own bed and wake up to a gorgeous SF sunday which I enjoyed with some friends, found out 2 good friends had their healthy and gorgeous baby girl the previous night and 2 other friends got engaged over the weekend as well. Last week was a bit rough on the health news front, it seems my friends and their families have been getting hit pretty hard with diseases, illness and deaths so it was a very welcome relief to receive some HAPPY NEWS...Hooray for the good things in life! :)