Happy Trails

Skis were lined up all along the building, 3 times the length of this picture. Cute little bebe skis!

It had been a LOONG time since I was out on skis.  I had one aborted attempt last week, but no actual skiing since the first week of January.  :o     This made me really anxious since I have signed up for a 45km ski race in the first week of March!  I did a lot of gym training in the fall and got out on the trails for some 15 and an 18km ski in December, but with the research project at Arlanda haven’t worked out much since coming back to Sweden.

I worked graveyard shifts (21:00-06:30) Friday and Saturday nights, so I got home Sunday morning from the airport around 9:45 feeling not quite ‘at my best’.   However, it was a beautiful sunny day, and Jennie and Richard were going to drive out to Hogb0 to ski with Camilla, Urban, Oscar, and Vilma.

Camilla and Vilma, finished and looking forward to some hot chocolate

Who could pass that up, even with 6 hours sleep in the last 2 days?  It ended up being a nice re-introduction.  I used my old waxless skis because I did not have time to get my new skis and wax together  in the 45 min between getting home and leaving again, so it was slow and noisy on the trails.  It was such a beautiful day that EVERYONE was out: grandparents, uber-athletes,  kids, and even some dogs.  How humbling to be crushed by a graceful 11-year-old kid skating by!

People walking back from the trailhead

At any rate, I did 20km with a minimum of crashing (I sat into 2 downhill turns when I popped put of the tracks and could not recover). The last few kilometers is VERY hilly, steep ups and downs so lots of herringboning and then some not-that-controlled fun going down. I finished feeling like I could do more, which surprised me. However, it was group fika time and I was happy to live to ski another day. I am writing this the next day, and I feel a little tired and stiff but not really that bad. Maybe 45 km won’t be so bad after all! :S

Me: blinking, sweaty, and sleepy.