Sorry for my lack of updates. There is a reason for this lack. I have been searching for something of late. I have been hesitant to post anything because I have been searching for “The Perfect Blog Post”. Does such a thing exist? The perfect combination of nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. that appeals to every sense? Not on my blog. Could such a thing exist? Possibly… No matter; many cool things have happened here lately but I’ve been short on ideas of how to piece together a well rounded, and possibly perfect, update. I have given up this search for the Holy Grail of blog-pieces, and have succumbed to writing a mere description on what’s been going down in my ‘hood recently as opposed to the epic novel each and every event outlined in this update could have become.
Where to start…
Ok, something cool happened last Friday. It’s something that lots of skiers try to do. Can you guess what this is? ….. ….. I WENT FAST! Boy, I went fast, and it felt good. That day I had a 3 x 3 min sprint pace effort intervals with 10 minutes rest. This workout aligned well with the procedure for a Kinesiology study that Mallory was doing with Lakehead, so I decided to partake. So my workout got changed to 3 x 1 km w/15 minutes rest; something that would simulate sprint heats.
So I got my warm-up done and started my first all-out effort. As usual, the difficulty increases ten-fold after about a minute or so of skiing, so I took that opportunity to flood my thoughts with focus for the task at hand. I held together well on the finishing straight and didn’t flail whatsoever. Time: 2:22. Felt hard. Really hard recovering from this effort, I was huffing and puffing for a while…
2nd time around. Skied one section better than the first interval, but skied another section worse. Time: 2:22. Felt slightly tougher than last time. I recovered much better than I did last time so going into the 3rd interval I was ready to throw down.
3rd shot. I was out to own my other 2 times, so I decided a different approach was needed besides the normal sprint speed that I have used all year. So I decided to bust it wide open off the start, sort of guessing that I may explode before I reached the finish line. I was technically decent yet again, but got hit pretty hard yet again at the half-way point because of my over-exertion off the start line. Again, I took this opportunity to drive home that razor-sharp focus to hold everything together to the line. The technique foci for that day was instilled in my every movement and I held strong right to my lunge at the line. Time: 2:19. And yes, I know I maybe could have squeezed another half second if I had busted out the famed “double footed lunge” that has made its emergence onto the World Cup scene this season… You know of what I speak, Valjas and Somppi…
So on the whole, a big day. I learned how to race a sprint 2.1% faster! So look out.
Alrighty, on to the next sweet thing: Hour of Power (times 4.5) at Sibley.
Phil-hep, smiling already...
Last Sunday, myself, Timo, Somppi and Phil decided to put in our long distance work-out on the meandering trails of the Sibley Ski Tour. The weather was incredible, the snow was incredible, sun was shining bright, and not much more could have been hoped for. We set out on the 50 km trail. Perhaps a bit ambitious for a 3 hr easy ski, but whatevs… Phil and I especially couldn’t contain our joy and proceeded to laugh and hoot with joy and euphoria for a solid hour. At that point we settled into a rhythm. Timo got dropped cause his skis weren’t so hot. Phil’s skis were rockets so it worked out well skiing with him since I was skating and he was classic-ing (classicking, classiccing…I dunno how to spell it…). Somppi was usually with us but would always get dropped hard on the downhills.
But yeah, so this ski was incredible! It was so sick skiing on the rolling, winding trails in the beautiful Sleeping Giant Nat. park. Twisting, gnarly downhills. Zigzagging flats with looming white pines overhead. Endless rollercoaster sections. Even an epic climb thrown in that we took to get to the lookout to check out Thunder Bay (the actual bay part). This ski had it all! In the end, our total mileage read 60km and total time was at 4:30. A little overdone perhaps, but well worth the near-bonk.
I don't know why this is such a mug-shot...i personally blame the photographer...
Good stuff…now those are the main cool things that I can think of… This is actually quite difficult putting in the big jam sesh, jamming at top speed for a solid chunk of my day, especially when you were up into the late hrs of the night whipping mighty curve-balls at Mario’s Bowl that in the end would leave your fingers swollen and mangled beyond recognition. I think this topic actually deserves another trip into the pain-cave to describe my first 10 pin bowling experience with old friends and a couple of Finn bowling-connoisseurs:
For about a week or two us nomad NTDCers who have been in town have been meaning to hit the bowling alley. And hit it hard might I add. So last night, me, Sara, Phil, Somppi, Timo and Becky figured we’d unleash some punishment on a bunch of bowling pins. And thus the tale unfolds…
We arrived at Mario’s Bowl at 9 pm to find the place packed. Who’d a thunk it? We had a 10 minute wait, so we all went our separate ways to get focused and into the right mind frames to shoot for the 300 pt mark. Once our names were in the system, and the bowling shoe laces were done up, the frenzy began. Somppi was bowling well, after his “family day” outing from last week. So was Phil, starting off strong with a few strikes. Myself however, I got the jitters out with a few brutal frames in an attempt to re-create the insane spin I am famous for in the Wii bowling community. My first match was a little short of the perfect 300 game I was going for, settling with 114, 1 short of Timo. Somppi rose to the occasion with an indomitable 200 points!! (his later games barely broke the 100 pt mark though…brutal!) Sara’s ambidextrousness proved its worth with her fair share of strikes and Becky’s childhood bowling lessons soon dominated everyone with stone-cold consistency. As the night wore on, our scores worsened (with the exception of Timo…who couldn’t get much worse…haha, the trash-talk continues…). My fingers were done for the night after the first game. Playing another 3 didn’t help them much. Phil mangled one of his fingers good, with a slip that ended with him plowing his hand into the 14-lb ball as it contacted the alley-floor… But yes, a fine night for a fine group of individuals. At 11 pm Becky had to drag Timo away like a mother drags her 7-year-old son out of a candy shop as the big Finn tried to take after his Pro Bowler cousin from Finland…
Tomorrow is the Sibley Ski Tour. Me, Phil and Somppi will battle it out over 20 km, while Timo goes for gold in the 50 km against #1, Steeeff (emphasis on ‘f’ like Steve Prefontaine in the movie “Prefontaine”).
Over and out, keep it real homeboys.
T-Pain.
