Sunday, December 20, 2009

My First True Skate Ski

Got up early this morning, 5:30 or so. When I went out to get the paper, it had just started snowing. But by the time I had read most of the paper and done the Sudoku,there was about 0.5" of fresh snow. Good enough, I decided to try out the new and freshly waxed Atomic Skate Race skis, today sans dog.

First I had a bad surprise when my Forerunner 305 would not turn on. It sat in the cradle after uploading the new data, sometimes it turns on. I took the spare unit and headed to Como Park. The track had not been groomed nor had it seen much traffic this morning. Two, maybe three skiers had skated, the traditional nordic track had also seen a little use, for obvious reasons numbers are harder to estimate. At first, the skating seemed to come quite naturally, but I have to admit that I got winded pretty quickly. I also noticed that the tracks left by my predecessors seemed much longer than my own. What was I doing wrong? I was getting so tired that I half decided to stop after only a single lap, but in hindsight I am glad I kept going because all of a sudden it clicked. I had been trying to use both of my legs with equal strength. When I started I push-glide sequence, things began improving. Push right, glide left helped me recover on the glide. Now I began paying attention to alternating the push leg. I definitely feel that my right works better as the pushing leg but I was able to switch to left on my right turns and when my right needed a little break.

Things to work on: my climbing technique, and switching back and forth between right push and left push.

I ended up having a faster and less tiring second lap. As a special treat, I observed a hawk eating a squirrel, just meters from where I was skiing by on the trail.

By the way, the Forerunner started working again after a soft reset. I don't know why Garmin makes it so difficult to find that type of troubleshooting and self-help information. Instead I read about the soft reset at this site.

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