Fact Finding in the Tug Hill Plateau

Tomorrow is the annual "World Famous Osceola Christmas Race" in the Tug Hill Plateau north of Syracuse. I'm not sure that it's world famous, but it is a very well attended race in New York State and is typically the first JO Qualifier, so there are always a lot of high school racers out. The other reason that it might not actually be World Famous, is that no one actually calls the race the World Famous Osceola Christmas Classic, it's simply called the "pie race".

The race is always held the Saturday before Christmas, is 5km for all classes regardless of age, and the winner of each category receives a homemade pie. The top 3 in each age group also receive homemade pottery and the proceeds from the race benefit the Camden High School Ski team. Chad has won this race five years in a row or something, and swears by the homemade chocolate pie that he brings home to his wife every year. It's definitely a cool tradition and RNR is bringing a big squad up there tomorrow to hopefully come home with some pies, pottery and podiums!

I've done this race a couple times in the past, but this year will be a classic technique race, so it will add a different twist. Hopefully my race re-cap is more positive than that of my last classic ski race. The first race of the year is always a bit of a crapshoot to know what to expect, and when you factor in that it's my weaker technique historically and will likely be the shortest race I do all winter, I'm not sure what to expect. However, doing a low-key race like this is much more relaxing than, for example, having your first race of the year be in the Olympic Trials (as was the case last year). If I come away from the race and my technique allows me to push my aerobic capacity (i.e. if I'm able to get my heart rate up where it typically is in a skate race), then I think I'll get a decent indicator of the improvements in my classic skiing that I've been trying to make, and wherever that leaves me on the result sheet will also be a good indicator of my fitness level. So thats the goal for tomorrow - to get some feedback.

Speaking of goals, I'm going to try to approach every race this season with a specific goal for that race. For some races, this might be winning, or top ten, or good shooting, or skiing uphills strong, it depends on the race. The reason for this is pretty simple - I would like to get to the end of the year and not look back on 15 races and just see where I placed in each race and not be able to clearly see what I need to work on and what areas need more focus. Results can mean many different things, for example, I would say that last year the Lake Placid Loppet (7th place) or the NorAm Cup races in LP (8th and 9th place) were my best races of the year and the NYSSRA championships (5th place) may have been my worst. If I only look at the results sheet, I don't get an indicator that will help me improve as a skier.

I feel pretty good about the training I've put in through the fall and especially the past month, so it's time to see what's under the hood so to speak and stop speculating on this blog about where I'm at, time to do some fact-finding.

Does this make us a family of "Yellowjackets"?

Nancy finished graduate school last weekend and is now the proud owner of an MBA from the University of Rochester. This is a great accomplishment and she's been working very hard towards finishing it.

Now that we both have MBA's from the Simon School, as does my Grandfather, I think that the U of R has overtaken all other schools in either of our families for combined degrees.

We had a very different name for their mascot during my baseball-playing days at RIT, which cannot be re-printed here. But now that we will both be receiving alumni newsletters and requests for donation from the U of R, maybe I should start embracing my Yellowjacket pride.

On second thought, I might not as well.

Full-on winter

Winter has made it's way to Rochester. We've been receiving a few inches of snow each day for almost the last week. I skied at Mendon Ponds last night and the coverage was excellent, it was mid-winter trail conditions. My first ski was last Saturday at the Lima Country Club on some pretty thin snow. It was a lot better than roller skiing, but last night was the first real ski in good conditions on groomed trails and I was reminded in about the first 5 minutes (after I got used to the length of my real skis compared to my roller skis) why I am so passionate about cross country skiing.

Now that winter is here, it's time to get ready for all of the following idiosyncrasies associated with ski racing and training in the Rochester area:

- More miles will be put on my car in the next four months than the other 8 months of the year combined...by a lot.

- training in the daylight is limited to Saturday's and Sunday's only.

- eating dinner at 9pm on weeknights seems early.

- I will have a runny nose until at least March.

- My attic is fully converted into a waxing hut and already seems like a disaster and I've only waxed each set of skis once.

- The drying rack in our bathroom is always completely full and our boot dryer is the most valuable appliance that I own.

- I will mentally thank Gore at least 4 times a week for developing "Windstopper" technology. I think whoever named Chicago the "windy city" had never visited Rochester.

- The proportion of meals that involve peanut butter will be at least 50%. This is mainly out of convenience, but it has always been a staple in my diet...good thing I'm not allergic.

- My co-workers will ask me, at least weekly, if I do triathlon or if I have any recommendations on alpine skis for the children. Neither of which I have any clue about.

There are probably a lot of others, but that's a quick list anyways. I'm excited!

Getting antsy...

This should come as no surprise, since most of my posts over the past month have at least mentioned skiing in one way or another, but I am getting pumped for ski racing to start. I haven't been in a competitive event for about two and a half months. Last fall, I competed in a serious of running races through the fall, but I intentionally did not do any of those this year. Over the spring and summer, I logged a good amount of training and racing (due to more consistent bike racing) and decided to take a break from competition and really try to focus on consistent training. It's been nice to take a break from having my weekly training plan revolve around some type of event. I am also hoping that doing more strength and specific-ski training in the fall will pay dividends this winter (I guess we'll see). For the most part, it has been consistent (with a few hiccups due to workload and travel), and as far as I can tell, things seem to be going well. It's tough to know until you get out there and race though.

This time of year is really tough. Mother Nature seems to be teasing us big time - the weather has went from - windy and cold, to sunny and 55, to pouring rain and 40, to wet snow all in the last week. We now have about an inch of snow sitting on top of semi-frozen ground, which is basically useless. It has, however, eliminated roller skiing as a viable training option, so it's been back to running, bounding, treadmill incline intervals and box-jumps until we get more snow. That routine is getting old, especially when your buddy in Buffalo sends you pictures like this (taken this morning):

Anyways, I'm trying to be patient and I know it's only a matter of days before I'm on skis, and it won't be long before I'll be pinning a race bib on and getting after it!

An interesting way of telling time

Happy Thanksgiving! Can't believe it's actually Thanksgiving 2010 already. My nephew Colin is 1-year-old now, and it seems like he was born about 15 minutes ago...I have way too many things to be thankful for to list here....So, instead of that, I'm going to simply quote my buddy Kevin in describing his recent trip home from Tajikistan, which provides an interesting twist on the skewed reality that we both have with regard to telling time during international travel:

"Well, I left my hotel room during the 2nd quarter of the 4pm set of NFL games on Sunday and got home just in time for the 4th quarter of the Monday Night Football Game, so everything went pretty well." (that was all the same day)

That's what international travel can be like...

Anyways, big things coming up soon - ski season getting into gear (trips to Vermont, LP, and likely Utah on the agenda, hopefully some W's and maybe even some OK classic skiing), Nancy's finishes grad school in two weeks, holidays, big bucks, etc, we'll see, but many many things to look forward too...

A few pics and a new PR!!

Here are some pics from the wine tour that Kevin and I took our Georgian friends on a couple weeks ago. Any time that Kevin and I are in Tbilisi, Temuri and Ivane not only make us feel at home, but also include us into whatever they have going on with their friends and/or family. These visits have really taught both of us a lot with regard to the importance of the time that you spend with your friends and family. With that in mind, we felt it was appropriate, during their visit to Rochester, to take them on a wine tour in the beautiful Finger Lakes Region with some of our close friends and family. Some pics:

Ivane, Kevin and I. One very successful businessman and two aspiring businessmen.

Nancy, Jason and Anne (Jason's girlfriend).
Ivane and I. For some reason, Georgians don't seem to smile too often in pictures, but believe me, Ivane was very happy on this particular day.

Kevin, Nana (Ivane's sister) and Kate (Kevin's sister).
Right to left - Anne, Temuri, Alice (Temuri's wife), Nana, Brendan, Alice's friend (She's a Georgian living in Toronto, so she came down for the weekend to visit), and Jason.
Nancy and I with Temuri and Alice.

Overall, it was a great day spent with friends and family. According to the famous Georgian philosophy, time spent with friends and family doesn't make you any older. I truly believe that none of us aged that day (although, I will say that my liver may have needed a little recovery).

In other news, the Romanians left yesterday, and that was also a great visit. I am continuously amazed by the great friendships that I've developed over the years and developed a few new friends over the past several days.

Final note, I have been very (cautiously) curious about my fitness level going into ski season given that the past month has been spent hosting customers and getting slammed with other work. My weekly training volume has been a little bit down and my weekly sleep hours have been very much down. I have been working out a lot, but also spending too much time in bars and restaurants with customers. Given that, I figured, for better or worse, I needed to get a baseline, so yesterday, I did a roller ski time trial on a course by my parents place (it was opening day of deer season, so I went hunting first thing). After reviewing my training log, my previous PR on this course was 22:57 (coincidentally on opening day of deer season in 2009). Yesterday, I was happily surprised to see 22:08 when I passed the "school bus stop ahead" sign that marks the finish. Not sure what that means, but it definitely gave me a nice mental pick-up going into the final weeks of training before the snow flies and it's time to break out the spandex!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Wow...I think in early October I wrote that things would calm down and return to a normal routine, that couldn't be farther from the truth unless this is my new "normal" routine, in which case, life will be one long endurance race....I do not remember a time in my life where I have had this little down time - it's been a never ending string of "leave the house at 730am and get home at 10pm, rinse, repeat" since I got home from the Ukraine a few weeks ago.

A couple notable events of the past few weeks are:

- I hosted a visit to Rochester from my friends Temuri and Ivane from Georgia. They were here on business, however, we did make time to do some wine tasting in the Finger Lakes region two Saturday's ago. I'm not sure they were impressed with the wine, but I'm positive they had fun and enjoyed our time together.

- Last weekend was my good friend Knodel's 30th birthday party. It was held in a bowling alley in Buffalo, NY. As such, I bowled for the first time in like 10 years. It was a good time, and I wasn't as embarrassing on the bowling alley as I thought I would be, although Nancy did beat me the first game.

- Following the 30th B-Day party, I met the Ogbornes (Ron is a good buddy from Penfield), at the Sabres game, which was a lot of fun. They live out in Arizona now, so we don't get too many opportunities to see them, so the timing of the game with the 30th B-Day party worked out perfect, and the Sabres won in OT to top off a great day with a variety of old friends.

- I'm now in the middle of hosting a delegation from Romania. They are many of the same guys that I spent a week with in Washington, DC last year, so it's been good to catch up with them, and to show them around the area a little.

Other than these events, it's been "sipping water from a firehose" at work and it doesn't seem like there's an end in sight.

One of the positive's from the past few weeks is that I've managed to re-institute a morning workout regiment. When I was in college, we had baseball practice at 6am for about 6 weeks each year during the winter. I absolutely hated "6am's" and swore I would never put myself through that again for any reason. This is a tactic I've used when on the road for work, but have never had to consistently implement while in Rochester, but the last few weeks, I have managed to get in some quality workouts in the pre-dawn hours. I'm still not sure that it would ever be sustainable for me as a long-term training regiment, but for short periods of time, it has been re-assuring to know that when things get hectic for a few weeks, I can manage to keep a training schedule and obey my alarm clock, even when it reads 545am and it's 35 and raining outside.

I have some good pictures from the events mentioned above, hopefully I'll have a chance to post them soon.