OSCR Race Report

(sorry it's taken me a while to get this up; I came down with a stomach flu on Sunday afternoon and have been pretty worthless the past several days)

The race was a huge success. Our team of folks skied hard, pushed ourselves in terms of speed and endurance, felt the results of our training, and finished feeling strong and proud of ourselves.

In fact, Mamie won first place in the Women’s Classic Ski for the 10k race! Amy and I tied neck-and-neck for the Women’s Classic Ski for the 20k race! And Kevin placed first in the men’s 30-39 age class in the Men’s Classic for the 20k. *

Or at least that’s what we told ourselves to make it seem more victorious than saying that we were all the very last people to finish in each of the races!!!

You see, there are two different styles of cross-country skis. The ones we used, called “classic” skis, are probably what you’re most familiar with. The skis are long and skinny, have scales on the bottom to give them traction, and the movement is a lateral back-and-forth slide—like all the NordicTrack commercials that used to be on tv! (see video-- we might be slightly faster and more coordinated than this guy, but you get the drift...)

The new, hot style of cross-country skis are called “skate” skis. These are long and even skinnier, are scale-less but need to be waxed according to the outside temperature, the boots come up higher on the ankles, and the motion is more similar to speed skating, a more side-to-side motion in which you push yourself forward.

Skate skiing is faster. Much faster, in fact. It’s simply a much more efficient movement. I was trying to quantify this as we were getting passed (which happened a whole lot! the course consisted of two 10k loops; the winners of the 20k race passed us on their way to the finish line when we were just ½ way through our FIRST lap!). Anyhow, it was taking me anywhere from 6-12 strides to compensate for one stride by a skate skier, depending on the terrain, the skier, etc.

So really, we weren’t even in the same race as the rest of the skiers. As Kevin likened it, it was like trying to race a VW bug in a Nascar race. Your bug may be fast and you may be a great driver, but you don’t stand a chance against the high-performance cars. We had heard that there were classic skiers who raced in past years. It must just be too out of style now, as there was only one other person besides us who skied with classic skis.

Anyhow, to describe the race for you: When we drove through the town of Seeley Lake, the marquis read 1 degree. That might sound cold to some of you, but seeing as how it had been -20 the past few mornings, it seemed quite a bit warmer. It was still and quiet, with no wind and no snow. Just cloudy and cool. Great skiing weather, actually. Without the sun, the snow won’t melt and start sticking to your skis. And you warm up plenty quickly skiing, so staying warm enough is only a challenge when you’re getting ready, registering, lining up, and in the first few minutes of the race**.

Mamie did a great job of being honest with herself and realizing the 10k distance was plenty challenging. Because that race started 15 minutes after the 20k, she had to ski the whole thing by herself. That’s a long time to be out in the middle of the woods in the cold by yourself, so we were super proud of her courage and tenacity to do the race solo!

Kevin, Amy, and I skied the first lap of the 20k together. It was Kevin’s first race of that sort, and so he, like most beginners, got all charged up at the start and took off like a banshee. Amy, who has done some running races and knows better, forgot herself and took off with Kevin. I just slow-poked along in the back, and finally hollered at them that they’d better slow it down or else…

After a few minutes, the starting-line adrenaline wore off, and we all slipped into a pace that was comfortably fast. That is, it wasn’t so fast that we knew we could only sustain it for a few minutes. But it wasn’t as slow as we’d go if we were just out for a pleasurable sight-seeing ski. For me, I spent most of my time in the 163-167 beats/minute heart rate (thanks to Dad and Cathy for getting me a super great heart rate monitor for my birthday!)

The terrain was nice and rolly, with lots of challenging uphills that got the heart rate up and made the legs burn a little, followed by downhills in which it was nice to sit back and coast for a few seconds. The woods were beautiful, blanketed in snow, and we saw tracks of deer, coyotes, snowshoe hares, and lots of other skiers!

At the end of the first lap, Kevin decided to break free and do the second on his own. He’s been skiing a lot on his own this winter, and has worked up some more speed (plus his legs are a good 12” longer than mine!) So we said goodbye, and he pushed hard around the second lap, taking a full 15 minutes off of his time without us to hold him back. Way to go, Kev!

Amy was starting to have a hard time at the end of the first lap, and thankfully had the where-withal to realize that she needed some external motivation. She’d been skiing a bit behind me and Kev for a while (we had to ski single-file or else we’d get run over by the speeding skate skiers who kept whooshing by), and couldn’t hear the conversation. So she’d been left with her own headspace for a while, was starting to get tired, and was having a hard time mustering up the motivation to continue on with the second lap. Thankfully, instead of talking herself into bailing out after the first lap, she hollered up to me, “Carly, I need a pep talk.”

“Okay, I know, I’m getting tired, too. Here’s the plan. We’re going to stop up here at the aid station and eat some Hammer Gels and drink a cup of water. We’ll stretch a little, take 5 minutes or so to rest, and then continue on. Then throughout the next lap we can stop for several short breaks. We’ve already done the first lap in 1:30:00, so we have plenty of time (the cut-off was 3:45:00). We’ll eat several times between now and then to keep the blood sugars higher, and then we’ll feel so great about ourselves when we finally finish. Okay?!”

It must’ve worked, because she was in like a champ for the second round. I realized that we probably went a little too long before fueling up for the first time. I’ve read from several sources that when exercising for longer than an hour and a half or so, one should eat at least 100 calories every 45 minutes or so. The body just simply has a hard time finding fuel after long bouts of sustained aerobic activity. And with one and a half hours of moderate-intensity work at below-freezing temperatures, we had used up any calories that were easily available, and our bodies were starting to have to dig deeper to find fuel. Which is great, mind you. That’s what makes those fat reserves really fly off! But, it’s best to supplement with some simple sugars and electrolytes, as found in gels, bars, and sports drinks.

We both felt much better after fueling up, and had a great second lap. We stopped after another 35 minutes and shared a Luna bar, the plunged back in for the final push. Several of the 50k skiers passed us in the last stretches, as they joined back in from their trip to afar. We made sure to cheer them along as they whooshed past, and a few even returned the favor.

We finally crossed the finish line together at 3:06:?? We were the last ones to finish the 20k, and most of the 50k-ers were already back by then. But it was still victorious for us. Team SlowPoke, as we dubbed ourselves, stood our own and finished our races, even against a field in which we had no chance of winning, much less competing. We had several days of skiing together on the weekends prior to the race, in which having the race as a goal increased our motivation to get together and ski longer and harder than we probably would have without the impending race. It gave us all a common experience upon which to look back and laugh. And it earned us the right to go have an awesome après-ski party. (According to my heart rate monitor, I burned 2,805 calories in that time!)

Thanks, Team, for showing up! You’re all winners to me!


* Unfortunately, Scott had some last-minute vehicle traumas and was unable to make it there to meet us. He enjoyed a true cross-country skiing adventure with his dogs through some Forest Service lands back behind his house, then was still a welcoming host for the après ski party.

** I wore a pair of running tights under fleece pants on the bottom, and a light-weight polypro shirt, a light fleece shirt, and a pull-over shell on top. Plus fleece gloves and a hat. Again, I was a little cool to start off, but within 10 minutes was sweating, and was fully drenched by the end!

My New Year's Resolutions

New Years? Wasn't that 25 days ago? Maybe for some. But for me, today is the beginning of a new year. Of a new decade, in fact. It's my 30th birthday, and I couldn't be more excited for such a landmark occasion to spell out some goals for the next year.

In no particular order, I want these themes/goals to guide me:

Live with Intention. Be healthy. Be contagious.

Over the next few days I'll be thinking and writing more about each of these goals. But since this blog is first-and-foremost about health and fitness, I'll start with furter defining my goal to Be Healthy.

This includes several sub-goals, but basically I want my personal health and fitness to guide both my daily life and my longer-term goals. I live in this body. Mind and spirit are housed here, and at least on this earth, must reside here. So my Self is nothing without its Body. They are inter-connected and thrive on one another. If I want to be smarter, happier, more successful, whatever, I need to make sure that my body's with the program. And as my body becomes stronger and more pure, my thoughts and actions will follow.

Subgoal 1: I want to continue to refine the roles of food in my life. Most of the time it is fuel. It can also provide pleasure. But first and foremost it is the fuel that will keep my fire burning. My new Image for Success is thinking about two different fires. In one, the fuel is garbage. As the fire burns it spurts and sputters and emits a caustic smoke. No one really wants to be around this fire-- it has purely a utilitarian function, to get rid of the waste that no one wants. The other fire is in a campfire ring in the middle of the woods, fueled by natural logs from the trees nearby, with a flickering flame enlivened when the breeze blows. This fire is warm and comforting, people want to be around it, and it serves not only the function of providing warmth but also is a gathering place, where conversations are had, songs are sung, and memories are created. We've all been around both of those fires. I want to create my life to mirror the latter. Which means I need to fuel myself with goodness, not garbage. In time, learning to love the good stuff will make it seem more pleasurable than the garbage.

Subgoal 2: I want to continue to challenge myself physcially, to see what this body is capable of doing when the mind and spirit get in sync with it. Thus the list of endurance races I'll be participating in. I want to learn to set goals that are achievable... but just barely. For example, one day last week my triathlon instructor was running along with me, and we were talking about my 3 mile time trial that I did a few weeks ago. "So," he asked, "what kind of time would you like to pull for a 5k this summer?" "Uh, I guess around 28:00," I replied. But then I started thinking about it. I already did a 28:50, without having specifically trained for it, without mentally committing to give it my all until half-way into it, and without the adrenaline factor of a race. Would knocking off 50 seconds be that much of a challenge? Or should I shoot for 27:00?! If I shoot too high and miss my target, at least I will have (hopefully) come within close range, and will definitely be better than I am today. So throughout my 30-year-old phase I'll be working to set good goals and working my tail off (literally and figuratively) to meet those challenges.

More on the other goals soon.

This Week's Workout Plan

A little bit retrospective at this point... After a 10 mile fast ski through a blizzard on Sunday, the goals for the rest of this week have been to keep moving and keep the muscles and joints loose, but give them a bit of a break to recover and store up some energy for this weekend's cross-country ski race. So here's what I've been up to:

Monday: went on an impromptu x-c ski with a friend up in Seeley Lake-- ungroomed trails, 0 degree temps, sunny and stunningly gorgeous day (I didn't bring my camera, unfortunately, so I can't share the awesome views of the mountains that we got to see); then when I got back to Kalispell I went to the gym and swam ~900 yd

Tuesday: swam for about 30 minutes

Wednesday: Triathlon Class-- we biked for 40 minutes, ran for 25, and then did core work for 10

Thursday: Triathlon Class-- tonight we're supposed to bike and run again; my legs are still somewhat sore from workouts earlier in the week, and I'm definitely not feeling rested. So I'm going to take it super easy tonight (probably walk instead of run).

Friday: REST DAY. As tempting as it will be to go to my favorite Friday morning Power Pump class, I don't need to be doing any weight lifting the day before a race! So I think I'll take myself out to breakfast instead :) It will be my birthday, afterall!

Saturday: The OSCR-- 20k, here we come. I'll put together a race re-cap for all of you next week.

Sunday: Yoga. and perhaps a short easy run or walk to work out some stiff muscles.

(Note to those of you who have been tuning in for Friday's Weigh-In's: Because of this week's impending race, I have not been dieting quite as much as in the past few weeks, trying to make sure I'm well-fueled and ready to rock. So I'm not expecting any losses this week. But we won't know, because I'm not even going to weigh in. As stated above, because it's a rest day, I won't be going to the gym on Friday morning to do my weigh-in. So you'll just have to wait til next week!)

Words of Encouragement

It's a bit of a hectic week, so I haven't had time to write a post yet (though I've been thinking of them in my head!). So to tide you over until I get a chance to sit down and type, here's a recent email from my Dad giving some words of encouragement in response to some of my recent confessional posts about my struggles with making healthy eating decisions:

Carly--
When I was 21 years old and in undergrad school I weighed as much as 212 pounds. Some of that was due to being laid up with a bum knee, but I never got below 190 until, at age 33, I decided to stop looking like the Pilsbury Doughboy. I lost the weight the right way (gradually, and by developing good habits such as eating breakfast in the morning rather than late at night) and got down to about 165. I'm up a little from that now but not so much that I can't get back with minimal effort.
Since that time 25 years ago there has never ever ever ever been a time when I could permit myself to eat what I want whenever I want. It is to this day a constant battle, but one which I take pride in winning. It's become fun to say NO to temptations. When the doughnuts come out at work (and I work around lots of cops!) I decline and say something like "thanks, but I'd rather shoot some crack". You just have to learn to do and say little things like that to get around the urges.
I think you're doing great, and you look great as evidenced by the ski picture from last weekend! Love you, Dad

You know, I've always thought of my Dad as the paragon of fitness and good eating-- ever since I can remember, he's been relatively trim and fit, he makes it a priority to exercise several times a week, and he eats healthy but tasty foods (and has great taste in beer!) I never realized that this lifestyle that has always seemed natural for him didn't actually come naturally. He had to work at it, and still does. So this email really meant a lot to me, to know that he probably understands my struggles more than I previously thought.

How about you? What kinds of tricks do you have to resist temptations when they come about? Who are your role models in terms of health and fitness? What kinds of things can you learn from them about how they make exercise and fitness decisions?

A little food for thought...

Deciding to Tri

(Note: thanks for bearing with me as I keep changing my color schemes... I'm searching for just the right one!)

So, folks, if you may have noticed, there’s been a new race posted to my list of upcoming events: the Summit Solstice Triathlon on June 15. Yep, that’s right, I’ve decided to try the big T. It’s been coming, I’m sure you’ve guessed, since I started swimming. But I haven't been totally convinced that I wanted to try a triathlon-- mostly because the swim portion seems like a weak spot for me and because I don't really want to kick out a bunch of money on gear (especially the bike stuff). But finally last week that I made the leap and decided to give it a try.

As I’ve mentioned, I started swimming shortly after my Half Marathon in November, in hopes of finding a way to keep up my cardio fitness without doing quite so much running (because I was a little tired of it after my big race, because winters are tough for finding time/places to run outside, and because I didn’t want to feel like a gerbil on a treadmill or elliptical more than once or twice a week!). So I took to the pool and started making baby steps, errr strokes. I actually was using a Beginner Swim Plan that’s somewhat similar to the Couch-to-5K plan I used when I was first learning to run).

So around the first of the year I decided to sign up for the Aquathlon at the Pond, a race in Frenchtown (just down the road from our house), which entails a 1000 yd swim followed by a 5K run. I know the 5K is totally do-able now, but the swim is a daunting distance, and will keep me diligent in my training.

Hoping to get some good instruction, I signed up for Adult Intermediate Swim Lessons at my gym. Turned out, I was the only one who signed up, so they put me in a class with two beginners. While the instructor tried to accommodate, it became quickly obvious that she is much more skilled at teaching the beginner levels, and admitted that she wasn’t sure she could help me.

That evening, a little bummed after my much-anticipated lesson, I remembered my yoga instructor saying something about a Triathlon Training Class. So I inquired at the gym and found that yes, there was one being offered, and there was an informational meeting about it the next day. That was last Wednesday, so I went and checked it out.

The instructor is a local school teacher/triathlete who’s been running for over a decade and triathloning for about 5 years, and just completed his first Ironman last summer (e.g. much more credibility, in my mind, than the lady who teaches beginner kids’ swim lessons!).

So, I signed up for the class. We had our first real sessions this week. There are several other ladies in the class, a few of whom have completed a few sprint-distance triathlons, and some of whom have not been on a regular fitness routine in a while but are willing to try and want to get in shape. So I feel like it’ll be a good group to work out with, and a good way to get to know some folks in the Kalispell area where I work and live during the week.

We’ll be meeting on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and will do combinations of biking, swimming, and running, and some core work. For now, it’s all indoors, but once spring rolls around we’ll be heading outside for some workouts.

So, heck, I’ve been running and loving it, I’m swimming and starting to make progress, and I’ve always felt pretty confident and strong on a bike. So why not tri?





(By the way, this means I'm now on the hunt for some gear. Especially the kind that doesn't cost much, as I'll be spending plenty on entry fees, new shoes, padded bike shorts, etc. this year. But if anyone has or knows of a used road bike and/or wetsuit, I'd love to find those things at a discounted price. So keep your eyes out.)