Rollerski fail

This is what my left elbow looks like after taking a superman on a fast downhill.

The skis did not want to track straight and with increased speed, became unstable. The right ski cut inside and sent me flying. 

I was at least able to land clean on my hands, with the pole grips taking most of the impact and skid. But the rest of the body followed thereafter. Knee. Hip. Elbow. That was the worst mostly because it looks like it went clear through the skin to whatever is beneath it. 

I got up and finished the roll. 

Recovery

I’m back after my post-marathon recovery phase. Not that I spent much time recovering. After a few days, I was itchy to start exercising again. The first few runs were a little painful, especially my quads, but that passed quickly. I’m surprised and pleased to find myself healthy and injury free after the long winter and all the road miles.

So I ran the Wellesley One-Miler/Hannah Randolph Memorial. I ran the Newton 10k. I ran some workouts. And I got back on the bike. I started upper body and dryland work for skiing. I started rock climbing again.

That was effectively my month off.

Welcome to training season. One of my favorite times of the year.

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Freezing Rollerski

While some of my friends are heading out to West Yellowstone or planning northerly trips to snow, I’m still on rollerskis. So while this morning’s sub-freezing temperatures were a welcome sign of winter, without snow it’s just another hurdle to overcome.  Honestly, I debated going out into the cold and the wind to do rollerski intervals.  But I did it anyway.

The first few minutes were tough, with the wind cutting through my tights, finding its way through the holes in my gloves and burning the exposed skin on my face.  It was a shock to my body that had been used to temps in the 40’s, not much less, up to this point.  But then it started to feel normal.

I did threshold intervals — 6-7 minutes long, skate technique, alternating between full technique and no-pole.  I still felt out of shape.  The cold didn’t make the rollerskis feel any faster.  The headwind forced me to a crawl on the finishing climb.  My legs — the muscles in my hips especially — felt woefully inadequate.

But I did it anyway.

Early Morning

Hillbounding at dawn, with the sunrise to keep me company.

I’ve been trying to get in the early morning workouts, and they’re tough.

But my morning heart rate is returning to normal.

And I’m taking the slack out of my training.

So I just might be ready for snow.

Slowly Falling

There was snow this morning.

First snow of the season. No accumulation. Just a taste. A promise of what’s to come. And a reminder of how slowly my fall is going.

I’m way behind compared to previous years. The marathon training took a bigger toll than I had realized. I got a virus in early October. Knocked me on my ass for a few days with body aches and exhaustion. I didn’t shake the fatigue until just last week.

I’ve had some non-exercise related stress, too. A lot, actually. I’m told that it is the primary contributor to my feelings of poor health.

Blood tests were negative. But my morning heart rate was still 5-10 beats above normal. Maybe I wasn’t sleeping enough? So I started sleeping more hours. Maybe I was drinking too much coffee? So I drank less. Maybe I wasn’t training hard enough? So I trained more. Maybe I was training too hard…?

In the past, I’ve been able to rely on exercise as a way to clear that stress. It’s not working so well right now. Poor sleep. Low energy. The difficulty of squeezing in workouts with dwindling daylight. It all prevents me from using my go-to panacea. Or maybe I just need to rest…

Or maybe bigger problems require harder workouts?

Hillbounding, Dawn

Hillbounding at dawn, this is what I saw as the sun crept above the horizon and started to burn away the overnight mist.

Twenty times up the hill, with skate hops in between, then an easy run through the woods along the reservoir. It was a beautiful morning.

New Bounding Hill

I found a new bounding hill for my Nordic training sessions. It’s grassy, relatively smooth and convenient to work.

After bounding up it 20 times I only felt like vomiting a little.

Experiment

Saturday was the first rollerski of the season at Littleton. It was too soon. It felt like we had just gotten off the road a few weeks ago.  Some people like rollerskiing.  Not me so much.  The novelty has worn off.  I think I’d much rather be on a bike dodging the rutted pavement, potholes and crazy drivers.  I will admit however that the drivers seems to give you more forgiveness on rollerski than on a bike.

I’m trying an experiment.  I replaced the worn out wheels on my V2 rollerskis with the slightly less worn ones from my Marwe’s.  This way I get the benefit of speed reducers with the superior Marwe wheels.  The only hiccup seems to be that these wheels run much slower than the V2’s.  So slow in fact I don’t think I need the speed reducers.  I had a hard time keeping up with the fast group on Saturday.  Maybe it was the skis.  Or maybe it’s just me.

It Was Time…

…to replace the static cords on the Ercolina before they broke during a workout.

It’s Time…

…to replace the rollerski wheels.

That means it’s officially spring.