cross training for cross

As any good sandbagger will tell you, it takes commitment to win races. Commitment to stubbornly avoid facing people who are faster than and commitment to train enough to dominate lower catagories once the season starts. In that spirit, I did not take a long weekend out of town to relax, I took a trip to vermont in order to "cross train"!

It is incredibly important to realize that even thought the afternoon Dorothy and I spent Nordic Skiing at the Trapp Family lodge was fun (yes "those" von trapps, though none of them were singing when we were there) for it to count i have to define it as cross training. And lucky I did or i would have needed to bring a bike up and figure out how to ride for 3 hours in the fresh snow we got that morning.

I have to say it was nice to find something that we can do together without fighting. we have never been able to really bike together. I always want to go faster or longer and she just wants to enjoy it. But nordic skiing seems to be something that since neither of us have any real skill at, we both enjoy without me getting aggravated. And lets face it, its totally my fault that we cant bike together.

Trapp Family lodge is one of the bougie-er places to ski nordic. There is a nice lodge and very fancy hotel with a resturant featuring harpists and such, if you are into that sort of thing. The Nordic lodge has rentals and also "demos" for nicer equipment. Trails are groomed, which may not be in the true spirit of cross country skiing, but made it easy for rookies like us. Best of all its CHEAP! We were able to borrow skis and boots from my family and spent less than 40 dollars on 2 trail passes. When ever I go downhill skiing the last few years ive really felt like its just a waste of money, especially on busy days when you end up waiting on line for lifts half the time. It was refreshing to be at a place where it was un-pretentious, un-crowded and everyone on skiis was friendly and said hello. I imagine downhill skiing must have been similar 20 years ago.

We mounted up on our skis and made a pass of the practice field to get a feel for things, and then set off on "sugar road" which was a nice flat wide trail with groomed in tracks through the woods. We felt pretty confident at the end of the road and kept going on an intermediate trail aiming for "the cabin" where there were rumors of hot cocoa. We pretty quickly realized that nordic trails are judged as much for how much work they are as how technical they can be. There were a number of climbs that left both of us duck-walking uphill. We got a bout an hour and a half out and realized that he cabin was closed and it was getting dark. Then we learned the real challenge of Nordic skiing. All the climbing we had been doing was now a lot of fast descending. Both of us were competent snow-plowers, but pretty quickly we were on hills that overpowered our stopping power. It was clear at several points that short of bailing off the trail, we weren't going to be stopping ourselves, so the goal became to stay on the trail. It was like a snowy, cold version of the mine car ride in temple of doom! But no-one died, or really even fell down that hard. so I guess it was a success.

Im hoping to do some more nordic skiing this winter. Only if its "cross training" though. I cant afford to be wasting my time goofing off!