Monday, February 7, 2011

SKIING!!!

I just spent this past weekend up north in Parry Sound with my second family!!! ;)  I really do love going there!!!  Thanks again!  And this time I didn't get sick, yay!  I basically go up for an awesome mini training camp in fresh air and get the best sleeps, usually about 8hrs worth, eat yummy food, and relax! :)

I arrived Friday afternoon and immediately was sent out to start skate skiing!  Sooooo much fun!!!  I have improved so much from last time and the hills that I barely made up my first time out were not so bad this time.  I am still slow out there but feel that I am getting the hang of it.  So I still have not had a day off from physical activity since I started training.  It has been more than 30 days now.  Not bad!  Although the last few days were cross training in the form of cross-country skiing and shinny hockey!  That's right!  I also got to skate and play hockey twice this weekend!  Friday night we went out to the local outdoor arena and the three of us had the rink to ourselves!  That was pretty sweet!  I even tried to do some figure skating things and was able to do all my single jumps.  I didn't have guts that night to try any doubles but with some more time I may have.  We did the same sort of thing on Saturday, did another 8km or so of skate skiing and then played shinny in the evening.  Sunday I managed about 12km of skiing!  That was tough!  More hills and a few more falls but I loved every single minute of it!  And I even spent some time with the Nachos watching the Superbowl that night.  Although I honestly have to say that football is not really my cup of tea.  I tried to get some of the rules and stuff but I don't find it that exciting.  I snuck in one more ski session this morning, about 5km worth and then I did an approx 8km run in the snow, cold, and ice.  Great way to end my weekend! 

I logged in a total of about 11.5hrs of training, skiing, and skating last week.  It was a little less in volume as I did my threshold test on Thursday before I left.  Basically I was to ride all out for 20min with the goal of not going too hard at the beginning and dying but to be consistent throughout.  It went well too!  I exceeded Ming's expectations! Haha!  He predicted an average power of about 180W.  I started a bit conservative and was building slowly within the 20min.  By the end I was giving it my all and I was hurting.  But a good hurt.  Ming told me to start at about 160W but I found I was easily holding 180-190W.  As the test went on I got stronger and stronger and I averaged 203W for the test with an average cadence of 92rpm!  Cadence is something I have been really working on as I tend to have a low cadence on the bike.  So 92 is really good for me! Yay!

Here are some pics from the weekend:

The snow is so pretty!
 
Me in action!


A masters ski race - Marianne is third in line on the far left in the above photo.




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