Winter 2022

 

Where to begin?! Winter was super awesome this year... once it finally snowed. Every December, I'm reminded of how much shoulder season sucks. And Ryan and I learned never to book a real vacation at the end of November again. It was not fun coming back from Vegas to another month of cold weather and barely any snow. It was another month before we took our first spin at Jackson XC... when my life changed! Ok, it's not that dramatic, but it really did! I finally learned to skate ski (mostly!) and that has changed everything.

December was pretty dull and gloomy. And I was in a lot of pain. When you do stupid things like running the Boston Marathon untrained and in the wrong shoes, you get injured. 10 years ago I would have been fine. I could wing marathons with zero training and still eek out PRs, but I learned my lesson this time. The nagging ankle pain since Boston turned out to be posterior tibial tendonitis, and every step was painful. I started dreading my runs. Ryan and I had to cut a few runs short due to my pain, but like always, I pushed through it until I realized I couldn't anymore. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I still had plantar fasciitis along with this, so it was double the pain. My New Year's Resolution would be to stop running! After work on NYE, I ran a 3 mile snowshoe run through Whitaker Woods, then hung it up. It was the best decision. I didn't miss it at all. 

We got in a few good runs right before I called it quits on New Year's Day. Run in the fresh snow on Tamworth roads, Mt Willard to make some new memories for Ryan and Bear Brook.

By this time, the snow had fallen and trails were groomed. We had season passes to Jackson XC this year so it was finally time for me to skate ski. It was easier said than done. I'd really never picked it up the year before. I tried, but I had pretty cheap gear. Old combi boots and skis literally child sized. No joke. I paid $25 for them at the ESSC ski sale in 2019 when I thought I'd pick it right up no problem. I tried maybe 4 times before I gave up. In 2021, I kept trying. Ryan found me a pair of really nice race skis for free last year, but for some reason I couldn't ski on them. My ankles literally fell inward. I could skate a few steps then my heels would literally fall onto the ground inside the skate. I was SO frustrated, but I kept trying them. I kept saying that I literally couldn't ski in them. He tried to figure it out, but there seemed to be no explanation. Meanwhile, this continual improper form is what caused the plantar fasciitis. I was gripping so hard with my toes and feet to stay on the ski that I fucked it up. Done. PF for the rest of the year. The last ski of last season, I went back to my old "kid" skis, and I could suddenly do it. I figured the other skis were just too advanced for me or something.

So this year, I went back to the kid skis. It was insane the amount of effort I had to put in to ski in these. They were so soft and my feet wobbled on the downhills. My first out-and-back on Boggy Brook took over 52 minutes (I would cut that time in half by the end of the season). I was getting an insane workout, but ideally, I shouldn't have been putting in that much effort. So that became frustrating, too. My technique was terrible. I thought I was the worst skate skier ever. But, at the same time, I fucking loved it. Ryan and I both became addicted to skate skiing this winter. I kept trying and thought I was improving so I figured I could ski fine in the nice skis now. Nope. Couldn't ski a step. Wanted to cry. Hung them up. Back to the small skis. I must have looked ridiculous trying to make these skis work, but on the bright side, by the end of January, I was super fit. I suddenly had muscles I'd never had before, and I couldn't get enough exercise. Most days were doubles of xc skiing followed by some type of "backcountry" skiing (quotes because real backcountry skiing was basically nada this year.).

Finally, by the end of January, I was talking to Ryan about how wobbly my boots were and how I noticed my ski track bowed out on my left leg instead of being straight. I also said I couldn't skate downhill because it felt like I was going to fall due to the wobbling. That didn't seem right to him so at home we pulled the skis out with the boots to get a better look at them. First the combi boots on the kid skis. Ryan realized that the boot moved back and forth on the binding easily, and the skis were way too soft and short for me. Then we put the boot on the "new" skis. How stupid did we feel? My combi boots were for NNN bindings. The new ones were SNS!!! OMG. How did we not realize this a year ago. No wonder I couldn't ski on these skis. I had the wrong boots for the bindings. Being ignorant of the gear was the cause of my plantar fasciitis!! I was so happy and angry at the same time. I was happy to figure it out, but so mad at myself for being so dumb!

Anyway, we had just bought Ryan an entire new skate set-up so I didn't want to spend more money so soon so I hit up ebay and found a pair of SNS boots in my size. They are absolutely hideous, but they did the trick. My first time using the proper set up was on fresh groomed powder at Roberts Farm, and it was amazing!! I would have been struggling in the old skis and boots, but  I was finally having fun. 

Me posing in my new, ugly skate boots

Skate skiing got so much more awesome after this. I worked hard to finally get it down, and I'm close. There's some little technique I'm not getting, and another woman at Jackson XC who saw me ski wants to give me a lesson at the beginning of next season. 

I LOVED skate skiing so much. Ryan and I spent nearly every day we could up in Jackson all winter. I never wanted it to end! We ended up entering the Long Haul Loppet 21K Race, something I never thought I'd be able to do at the beginning of the season. Conditions weren't great, especially for the 4+ miles uphill on the Hall Trail, but I finished right at my goal of under 2 hours. 1:59:30. 5th female. Over the course of the season, I nordic skied over 400 miles and Ryan did over 500 miles. It was hard to watch it end, but I guess it was inevitable with another low snow year. I can't wait for next season. I am the fittest I've been in a long time which helped switching back to running again. It only took a few runs to get used to it again. 

Winter weekends meant a lot of driver's ed for John in Ossipee so sometimes Ryan would go ahead to Jackson to ski and we'd meet up later for another ski of some sort. Came back to my car to find this on it from Ryan. 💓

One of my last skate skis. Finally got out to Hall Ledge

Unlike last year, we got very little backcountry skiing in. Conditions mostly sucked. I was lucky to hit the Sherburne Ski Trail a decent amount and have one of those days be the most amazing powder. My quads were dying since I was in the backseat, but it was seriously amazing conditions. Hit up Wildcat once. Cranmore twice. A lot of King Pine since we have season passes there. Had one great day at Hypnosis Glade, also fun powder. Thought I was going to die in the fresh deep snow at Maple Villa Glade. Got up there and realized I had no idea how to ski in fresh deep snow. Made it down but not without some panicking. Haha. I was able to practice this more later on on the Sherby and in the great conditions one day at Bretton Woods. Ryan and I did mostly lift serv and hit some fresh powder moguls. All of things he'd been trying to help me with finally clicked. I finally understood what he meant! So hoping to for better snow next year. 

Cranmore ski. We didn't realize Ryan had accidentally picked up one of my poles when I took this.

 

In addition to all of that, we did a 4 event skimo race series at Mt Abram, put on by our friend, Jesse Wall, of TruStrength Athletics. This is something I really enjoyed a lot even though the weather was crazy in some way every single race. The first one was -7 degrees, and I literally froze the tips of my thumbs. The "snow" was basically ice so it was really challenging. The first two races were around 5 miles, the third was over 8 miles, and the last one was over 10 miles. I was around 3 hours for the last two races. Great endurance workout!! Especially since I'm in the Heavy Metal Division. I ended up winning that division for the women, but only by default. Haha. Ryan was in 3rd for the series going into the 4th race, but he had tweaked his glute while bowling the weekend before, and with his goal race, the Tuckerman Inferno, the following week, he DNFd after the first climb. Definitely the right decision since he was in peak condition for the Inferno.

While heavy metal is slow, it's a freakin' grind. I was cooked by the end of the last two races. I love this stuff, though, and I want to get better next year. I will never be a great downhill skier, but as soon as I can actually ski downhill in the new skis I bought from Ski the Whites, I'll be able to move quite a bit faster. I can't wait to do these races again next year.

After the frost nip at the first race.

Ryan in a shirt with him on it.

Post-race lunch at Mr. Pizza

One of the few photos of me, and I'm wearing a mask. Haha.

All winter Ryan had been training for the Tuckerman Inferno. He wanted to do really well there this year. He put in a lot of work strength training and hitting every sport in the Pentathlon. He even did a practice run of all 5 events one day. It was pretty awesome watching him transform his body into this powerhouse of muscle over 6 months. He was so ready for this. I crewed for him just like last year. There isn't much to do, but the little things made a difference. 

Unfortunately, the snow situation was very grim, but Great Glen Trails was able to just pull it off for the fat bike and nordic ski legs. Ryan's brand new race skis suddenly became his rock skis, but it was worth it because the nordic leg is what got him back in the running after finishing 20th on the fat bike (this is combined for solo and relay so it's not really accurate since relay people don't have to add transition times to their splits). His fat bike is SO heavy that he was in the back within the first half mile of the start. But he's become such a great skate skier that he made up a lot of time there. His biggest gain would be on the snowshoe run where he would finish 3rd, only behind two relay runners, and his transition time added on 2 minutes. So it was here that people were breaking, but he left the transition strong. I followed him out to run up to the ravine to watch him ski part of the last leg; I couldn't even keep up with him. He ended up passing two people who had been ahead of him the whole race. 

Not every day that you get seeded next to an Olympian (Kris Freeman)

I never even noticed he still had his helmet on. Haha. He didn't realize it until a half mile in so he ditched it.

Once he got to the bowl, I was able to keep track of his place. I couldn't believe it when I realized he was next to ski down and only 2 solo skiers (plus the first woman, Josie Fisher, who is an amazing athlete!) were ahead of him! I couldn't believe it! He'd done it. He was going to finish 3rd Tuckerman!!! He'd worked so hard for this and had an awesome race. 20th to 3rd! Full Results

This was such an important moment for him after so much bullshit and chronic injury over the last year and a half. Watching him struggle last year was hard. His ex-wife almost broke him, but he finally let it fuel his fire. His huge fuck you to her and anybody who believed and supported her. He is finally out of that rut, physically and mentally. 

Ryan's Mug Shot. Get it? Haha.

Seems like so much good stuff this winter! And don't worry. I haven't forgotten about John! He's just doing his own thing most of the time now, although we get to spend a lot of time in the car together with him driving. He turned 16 in February!! He finally finished driver's ed in March, but he still hasn't gotten his license because he's 6 hours short on night driving. I think it's going to take until the end of May at this point. He's not super motivated to get his license because his car is the Kia Soul which, according to him, "just isn't cool." 😄 It's also a standard, and he's still uncomfortable with it. So he's procrastinating. Like the opposite of me when I turned 16. I got my license that day! I told him to ask his dad to buy him a car. It's the least he could do. The only problem is that we don't know where his dad is. He's on foot somewhere walking across the country. I honestly think he would buy John a car if John asked. He has the money. He did help take John to driver's ed every week. Put off his trip until that was done. It really is the least he could do since he doesn't pay for anything else (although he paid for half of driver's ed after I asked). 

Anyway, we actually had a huge snow storm on John's birthday. John invited his friends to join him for skiing at Cannon. It was long, rough drive there, but we made it. John and his friends skied the entire time. I went out for one run, but the conditions were not fun for me. Fresh powder that was being blown off of the ice underneath by the wind. So I skinned up to the summit then hit the bar for lunch. The ride home was also sketch and long. Ryan made burgers for us and then we had cake. Pretty fun day for John.

John ended up finally getting Covid-19 3 weeks ago. It started over the weekend and since he mostly stayed in his room, we never caught it from him. When he did come out, interaction was brief. Once he had it, he wore an N95 when he came out of his room. Ryan and I still haven't had it. We had it in the house, and we still didn't get it. I don't know how we continue to dodge the bullet.

Another awesome thing that happened over the winter was that I got my car back!! My Kia Sorento finally got its new engine in February after sitting at Nucar Kia for 4 months. It took almost 6 weeks to hear back from Kia that they would replace the engine for free under the recall. And then it had to be shipped from S Korea so it took awhile. I was SO psyched to get my car back!!

Winter was a blast, but way too short. So it was back to running. It felt so awkward since it was almost 2 months of no running. I'd done one 3 mile test run the beginning of February, and that was a huge nope. The next run at the end of February felt so foreign to me. My legs felt like they'd never run before, but my lungs were bored. I did a very slow comeback through the 3rd week of March, then just started hitting it pretty hard. Cardiovascularly, I was ready for that, but the legs took a bit to catch up. I'm pretty pleased with how quickly I got back to a decent place in just a month. I owe it all to nordic skiing for sure. New muscles, so much fitness. It's just building up the distance that is going to be tough, and I'm having to do it quickly. So far, so good, though.

1.5 weeks ago, Ryan and I made the decision to race the Northern Nipmuck 16 mile Trail Race. I was not ready for that distance, but I pushed through and finished first female. I haven't pushed like that in a really long time, and it hurt. Ryan finished 2nd overall. On the way home, we stopped in Worcester for the best thai food I have ever had. 

Time for random photos! Dogs and us!

Photo Fred Ross took of Ryan when he randomly ran into him on Mt Pierce

Flowers from Ryan

John driving Ryan's Jeep

Sweat earsicle

Ryan's prison tattoo cover-up. Haha.

Valentine's flowers from Ryan

Phoenix in her new winter jacket

Mt Isreal. My first mountain run in over 2 months

Couldn't stop laughing when I saw this one.

Kevin Tilton collage that I made from Ledge Brewing. He didn't know I was taking them. Haha.

Mount Pierce run

We rollerbladed 18 miles on the Nashua River Trail then ran in Beaver Brook. Margaritas and tacos after

Mt Chocorua run. Mixed bag of conditions that day.

Heavenly Hill

Explored some new-to-us trails in Tamworth

Cooking the parasitic worm in beans. That's what the kielbasa looked like anyway.

Might be racing again soon so the blog might actually make its comeback as a running blog! I'll never race as much as I used to again, but I'm finally ready to throw a few more on the schedule this year.