Brrrrrr!!!

I hate to say it, but skiing today sucked. The snow was such dry, wind blown, sandpaper that my skis would hardly glide and kept kind of catching and causing me to lurch which in turn made my shin muscles burn from trying to keep my balance. But I really needed to get in some intervals since I haven't had a chance to do any in almost two weeks and I was short on time so I headed over to Como to get in what I could. I toughed out 3x11 minuters and I must have gotten the hang of that cold snow because the fire in my shins subsided and I actually took 15-20 seconds off each of my intervals for negative splits, so I guess it wasn't so bad. But I have to admit that the whole time I kept thinking that I really don't want to race in those conditions.

The reason I've been short on time for training is that I've been helping out with the Roseville Area High School Nordic Team a couple days a week and skiing with my daughter on the weekends. She's on the team and it's been fun to be able to ski with her and the other kids. She hadn't shown much interest in nordic skiing until she joined the cross country running team last year and absolutely loved it. Her new running friends convinced her to join the nordic team too. Unfortunately she broke her arm at Thanksgiving last year and missed most of the season. No such bad luck this year and she's doing great despite not having skied all that much. Even though running is her main sport, she seems to be enjoying the skiing as well, even when she lets me drag her out on the weekends. Yesterday we went to French Park to try out her 'new' classic skis. I really wanted her to try them because they're the first real classic skies she's used. They're my old classic skis from high school and they're still in decent shape. (I've never been very hard on my equipment.) I took them to FinnSisu to see if they would fit her and they would work if she kicked them properly. I was afraid that she'd have trouble with them since she's done so little classic skiing on waxable skis so I made her come out with me. She actually did great and had no trouble with them. Her kicking is quite naturally and looked good. Her double pole needs work, however. She can feel that it's not very effective and was getting frustrated. I kept trying to help her but she's so impatient that she kept spazzing out and waving her poles around because it just wasn't working for her. We both ended up laughing so hard we could hardly ski or breath. So I didn't get in a workout, yet again, but had a great time skiing with my daughter.