XC skiing

Yesterday Bill, Cory, and I headed out to Kettle Moraine State park for some XC skiing. Lets just get a few things straight, Bill has never skied, I have only been once and Cory was leading the pack with a whopping 2 outings, you got to give it to him he is racing after all!
Anyway we rented some skis from the Back Yard Bike Shop and were off. We planned on hitting an easy trail just to get the feel of things and naturally didn't look at a map to find where the easy trail was. We started and the XC trail looked more like a down hill trail with out the lifts to get back up! We all did our part making craters in the trail, the groomer is going to have his work cut out for him to smooth the trail again! After we survived that loop we looked at the map and found the easy loop we had initially intended to go on...it happened to be exactly opposite direction that we went to the first trail. By the end of the day we logged a total of around 5.5 miles in 2:03 hours. Anyway one with a math background will tell you that is 2.7 mph average...ouch I could walk faster!
Oh well it was fun and was a good workout. I think I am going to try to get over there once a week.
I would like to say riding has been slim, but not the case. It has been too cold to ride outside so all of it has been on the trainer. It has been pretty boring but after a couple weeks you learn ways to pass the time. My favorite is trying to get the sweat running off my head to hit the headset bolt, if it hits just right it makes a cool splash!
Christmas is this weekend and it will be nice to have a couple days off work and off riding.

Biking or Skiing....I can't decide

This weekend didn't turn out as nice as originally planned. I changed my schedule around so that I could get my 3 hour ride in on Saturday because it was supposed to be 30 degrees. Well after getting some house work done and my car sold. I was off to my ride/ski. I loaded the NRS and a pair of skinny skis out to Rockport. As I was driving over it started to snow...hard. I started with the skis. I have never done this before so it took some time to get the hang of things, but before too long I was moving right along. About 30 minutes in I was pretty proud of myself and figured it was time for some down hill. Problem is these skis don't turns as good as alpine skis. I went shooting down one hill that curved to the right, needless to say I didn't "curve" I was headed right toward a couple large trees guarded by a row of thorn bushes! I ate snow in a last ditch effort to stop. After some more time I did figure out how to turn and after a little over an hour it was feeling good.
I got back to the truck and unloaded the bike. I headed across town to Cory's place to pick up my booties. It was a fun ride, sliding on the snow. I got a lot of weird looks, but really I get the same thing riding on a 70 degree day in the spring. I guess people just don't understand how good it feels to get out and exercise. Anyway I got in 1.5 hours on the bike and then jumped back on the skis for a 30 minute warm up then cool down.
In all it was a good workout. When I got home I managed to get sick off of an overdose of cookies....I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR!!!!

More snow = Warmer temps.

Today we are supposed to get another couple inches of snow. It seems like we are getting more snow early this year than we have in the past few years. I like the snow, it puts a new twist on riding. I would like to give XC skiing a try but usually we don't have enough snow to ever do it. I might try to get my hands on a pair of skis this year and give it a try.

I re-learned an important lesson in warming up before lifting. Usually I ride to the YMCA from home, about 15 minutes. That gives me a good warmup to my lifting routine. Tuesday it was getting late and COLD so I broke down and drove across town. I figured I better warm up a little so I jumped on the treadmill for a 15 minute run. I felt alright and figured I was warm. I went down to the weights and jumped right into the squat. After my third set I realized that I was not warm at all, I got tight and was already stiff! Every time I get up or walk since then has been a reminder of needing proper warm up and stretching.

We went out and picked a tree yesterday. I suggested we take a saw and go out in the woods and just cut a tree down, or if you are not into completely killing a tree, just cut the top off one. Well needless to say Cathy didn't go for that, so we went and bought a tree. It makes the house smell nice so that's good, now just to keep the dog from drinking out of the water dish.

New Car

and in new I mean: the-farthest-thing-from-new-that-still-runs. As I mentioned before the VW took a hit a little over a week ago. Since then I have been driving rental vehicles, a 15 passenger van, a Grand Am, and a Santa Fe. Out of all those the 15 passenger van was by far the best ride! Over the past week I have been talking to insurance, and looking for a car. Last night we went over and picked up a little 1998 Mercury Tracer. This thing isn't anything special but it is wheels and should get me to and from work. Now that all that mess is taken care things should get back to normal a little.
Christmas is coming WAY too fast, I haven't started shopping at all! I think we are going to go pick up a tree tonight, because it is a rest day for me.

Anyone still there?

I would be more than surprised if anyone still reads this. Sorry for being so sporadic on posts. This past week has been hectic looking for a new car, and in new I mean a car as far from new but still runs as possible! Then Cathy's parents came down this weekend to help paint the kitchen. It looks really nice and I am glad they were able to help out, it made things go a lot faster.
On the riding side of things; I have been putting way too much time on the trainer already, actually it isn't that bad. I like the rides that have intervals, it helps break up the 1.5-2 hours of going nowhere. Saturday Cory and I took the mt.bikes out for an off road tour of Janesville. Just as we left it started snowing, I jokingly mentioned that we should have brought a ruler, so that if 2+ inches fell we would have to get off the trail for the XC skiers. Well on our second lap around Rock Port we were pushing about 3 inches of snow! It was coming down so fast that our tracks were completely covered by the end of each 20 minute lap!
This week it sounds like it is going to be COLD so I can decide to put every piece of cycling cloths I have on trying to stay warm, or sit on the trainer and sweat.
I will try to keep this more up to date, but they might be trainer blogs...EXCITING!!