ski on brown snow? Yuck!

Date	Place of exercise	Duration	Classic Sprint	Pull ups	Start time
22 Feb	Park and Town	25 Min	1:02.89	5,5	9:30

Ran back from the rental car office.  As you can see, the classic sprint still is not working for me.  I had nothing in my ears today, so I could hear the slow plodding of my steps agonizingly clearly. 

Maxim got back from a ski trip yesterday. My body is interesting.  That's the 'interesting' that you say when you can't say something nice. My first run down the mountain, I wiped massively wiped out, straining my shoulder.  I finished the day, but with the thought in the back of my mind that impending doom was just near. The next day, the shoulder was drastically injured and I chose not to ski.  I didn’t even know if I would ski on Sunday. When Sunday came, with its bright sun, and six inches of new snow on the mountain, I recognized that I could not pass up such an opportunity.

I began the day letting the rope pull me up the bunny slope. I decided I should try to ski properly.  Until that day, I would move down the mountain quite erratically; fast, fast, fast, then turn and stop. I did a series of J curves down through the snow.  Not pretty, but somewhat functional. I never felt like I know what I was doing.  I asked my Norwegian friend if he thought I should get shorter skis.

Always the diplomat, he answered, “Well, yes, shorter skis would solve some problems, but I also think there is something to be said for shifting your weight.” So I decided I would take it easy on Sunday, stick to the bunny slope with my injured shoulder and learn how to make like a snake as I go down the mountain. 

After many tries, I figured it out and I ran into Maxim on the way down the mountain—just was I was hoping for. After lunch, we stayed together as we went down several more slopes.  Maxim even landed a 1 meter high jump that was really cool. 

The first day, we didn't even go to the slopes. We swam in the pool and heard everyone tell us how terrible the ski conditions were.  Rain, rain, rain.  We thought that the only thing that might save the day was that the slopes were about 5 miles from the hotel--and mostly up.   

The next day we went to the slopes anyway, partially because I was with a family of Norwegians who have skiing before they can walk. We hemmed and hawed a bit before going up. I tried to get Maxim to make the decision whether we would try to go up the mountain or not. He steadfastly held on to his adolescent answer of “I don’t know!  I DON’T KNOW!!” whenever I asked if he thought we should go skiing, and “Do you want to go skiing?”

I decided we should go until we started putting on our rented boots. The my wishy-washiness boiled to the top and I said to Maxim, “…or maybe we should just go back to the hotel to swim and stuff. What do you want to do?”

“I want to ski!” Ah, finally, a bit of excitement, or at least a glimmer of interest. I am perpetually trying to find something that will stir his pot besides video games.

The mountain was largely brown—brown trees and a lot of brown dirt. The next day, I would come to see that the snow was even brown.  One of the runs down the mountain was open. It was a blue run—I’m still not sure which is the easiest—all I know for sure is that black is the toughest.  Maxim liked it because it was challenging—we had to dodge the areas of mud and bare rocks—most of which were marked by pink poles graciously put there by staff at the resort.

Back to my ‘interesting’ body. On the very first trip down, I made a terrible wipe out and strained my shoulder. The rest of the day, it was fine, but I knew that I would pay for this mishap in the next day.

We all found seats outside and ordered lunch about 2:00. Pretty soon everyone wanted to go in—a good sign—we were all getting cold. The sun was gone and it was starting to rain.  Rain, in itself, of course is noting good.  But rain during cooler weather on a ski mountain might mean something more—snow! 

The next morning when I woke up, it was still raining.  Not a good sign, but you much remember that 6 miles up the mountain, it might not be raining. In the middle of my yoga exercises, which were only limited because of my shoulder injury, I looked out to see huge flakes coming down ferociously. Surely, the mountain was full of the stuff.

I took my computer up the mountain and spent the day writing while Maxim and our Norwegian friends skied through an intense snowfall that prepared for the next day.

So…on Friday, there was not enough snow; on Saturday, there was too much snow; and on Sunday, we were in the Goldilocks Zone with just the right amount of snow. 

The weekend was a success!