This year while skiing at the Thanksgiving camp at Silver Star mountain in B.C. there was a heightened awareness of cougars in the neighboring hills, this story from North of Vancouver emphasises the point!

(CNN) — One lucky boy in Canada can say without a doubt that he has his own personal guardian angel — not of the spiritual kind, but of the furry.

On Saturday an 18-month old gold retriever saved her owner from being attacked by a cougar while in the backyard of their home in Boston Bar, British Columbia, about 130 miles north of Vancouver.

The dog — named Angel — leaped into action and threw herself between her owner, 11-year-old Austin Forman, and the cougar that was charging at him.

Sherri Forman, Austin’s mother, said her son was outside with Angel around 5:30 p.m. gathering firewood from their backyard. She explained that Angel normally runs around and plays when she is outside, but on this afternoon she was behaving differently.

“He had come in at one point to tell me how cute Angel was being because she was sticking pretty close to him in the yard, which was unusual for her,” Forman told CNN.

In hindsight she realizes that Angel was protecting her son from an unseen danger.

When the cougar charged, Angel ran to protect the boy. Continue Reading »

Glide wax consisted of Holmenkol blue and red mix, Star F1 fluoro powder, and a V03 Finite tool rolled in structure over a CV1 Zach grind.

Kick was influenced by Frank’s keep it simple and don’t over think it philosophy, binder plus Swix VR45, I added a 7″ section of Ski GO 0 to -2 red for slightly more kick and I felt my skis kicked easily and glided ok. I added an “optimization” layer of Swix FC1, cold corked and brushed for glide over the newly rolled in structure.

Warming up a half an hour before the race I noticed some skiers had placed their race skis in the tracks at the start so as to be sure of getting a reasonable place near the fron of the mass start, so I went ahead and put my skis in the third row back, since I have been trying to ski more easily off the starts and save some energy for the “back half” of the races.

The gun  went off and everyone sprinted off, I was able to stay in a fast and compatible group of skiers for the first km without over exerting, so far so good. Even up the first VERY gradual uphill before the big downs to come, I could tell my kick was better than most and glide acceptable; we then skied down to the big fast S turns to a lower lying trail under the pines that had been glazed in places the day before. This was mostly double poling and kick double poling, and I worked to hold my place. Soon the long series of uphills started, and I could ski up in the tracks the whole way; I was fortunate to have waxed on the warm side for kick, as many people didn’t have sufficient kick.

Towards the end of the uphills at the end of the first of 2, 5km laps, I felt I had worked hard, but was not going under, so I was able to ski actively on the flats and give the same energy to my second lap. I held my place through the second lap and passed one skier on the long uphills, as my kick was still adequate, although the tracks had gotten slipperier due to the heavy traffic, warming air temp, and moist snow falling.

I was able to finish strong and ended up having a good solid race, without dying with 2 km to go, like I often do!

I skated for an hour after lunch and headed to the car for the 3.5 hour drive home savoring one last free cup of tea from the greatly improved Craftsbury Nordic center which is now under new ownership. The food and company were great for 3 days and there is not 1 rock in sight on any of the trails. It should be a great year up there if this “early” snow continues to fall!

Joe

I’m fresh off the mass start 10km Craftsbury Classic held Jan 3rd in Craftsbury, VT.

NOAA was predicting 5-9″ overnight Saturday, and an additional 3-5″ Sunday; initially it was going to be wet snow in the mid to upper 20’s and Saturday, the day before the race, I was wishing I had brought my Fisher Zeros…

I waxed 2 pairs of skis with a no-flouro Swix purple glide wax Saturday, and after repetitive 2 ski glide outs on a variety of terrain, determined them to be nearly identical for glide. One pair was a 10 year old pair of Madshus and the other a 2 year old pair of Rossi’s, both of soft flex, the Rossis softer than the Madshus by a small amount. Seeing as lots of snow was predicted, I was planning to use the softest pair in my quiver figuring the tracks would be awash in loose snow.

After glide testing I waxed the Rossis for kick so I could remember how to classic ski in the hills; we don’t have hills on our manmade snow in Weston, and it had been 4 weeks since I had been in Silver Star for the Thanksgiving camp. I noticed that the tracks were glazing anwet, with temps in the high 20’s, so I went warm, Swix VF45 + a variety of other hardwaxes in the +1 to -2 C range; none provided totally secure kick on the wet tracks. I did not bring a lot of warm hard waxes because when I left Cambridge, Wednesday temps were predicted to be single digits overnight and only warming to the teens!

Of course I has eaten lots of chocolate, cookies and cake over the holidays and felt as if I had gained 10 pounds! This combined with the slippy kick Sat. morning left me feeling heavy, slow and tired; how could I possibly be ready to race the next day??

I took a short rest after lunch and sensed the air getting slightly colder; I decided to try a formula that has worked for me before; klister covered with hard wax, but this time I was going to try and cover a warmer klister, Swix KR 50 “Flexi” Klister +3°C to -4°C (37°F to 25°F), with Swix VR45 hard wax.

I applied this over a very thin layer of blue klister binder, cooled it for an hour, then very lightly crayoned on 2 thin layers of VR45 hardwax and corked lightly. It didn’t look pretty but boy did it kick like a mule. I felt strong during my afternoon ski with the secure kick the klister underlayer gave me.

I spend the evening waxing for glide and ruminating over the many options I had for kick wax the following day, then I consulted NOAA once again and thought of Frank, a very straightforward racer in our masters group at CSU, Cambridge Sports Union.

See Craftsbury Classic, Race day to find out how memories of Frank shaped my kick wax decision…

I arrived at Craftsbury nordic center last night, eager to try my new headlight, a Seca 900.

After checking into my rudimentary dorm room and unloading enough wax and equipment for a World Cup National Team, I started to secure the light and battery to my bike helmet. It fit best on the very top of the helmet, with the battery pack just behind.

I set out for a 1.5 hour skate ski around 4pm, so I began in the late afternoon dusk and soon darness fell. Most headlights are not too impressive until it gets really dark, however this one was quite bright even with some natural light still around. I quickly discovered the three brightness settings using the triangular gray button pictured on top of the light.

The first is a full 900 lumens, the second about 1/2 that and the third a flashing light. Running on high, the smaller “race” battery I have will last for 3.5 hours, and it gave no indication of dimming during my 1.5 hour ski. I could not believe how bright and far this light shines! I had read it was like a car headlight and it truly is THAT bright. It was a pitch black night, snowing hard and I skied 21 mph (gps record) seeing so far ahead and to the side, I’m sure I could have skied 40mph and still had plenty of light.

This light literally turns night into day; several skiers I encountered said I looked like a freight train coming down the track; problem is I felt like a freight train too, as a result of eating in excess over the Christmas holiday. I will train easy but relativelg long as this Sunday’s classic 10km race approaches to try and start to whittle away the pounds before the more important races later this winter.

As far as the snow conditions for Sunday’s classic race, we will have at least 3-4 inches of new, wet snow falling at around 25 f; I should have ignored the bitter cold forecast and brought my Fisher Zeros…

Joe

December is race preparation month. After skiing upwards of 4 hours per day on snow in Silver Star BC, I came home, recovered for a few days and decided some intensity was in order.

Yesterday was snow/sleet/rain and wind so I decided to go inside alternating the treadmill with the Ercolina for 10 times 3 minutes hard, but sustainable.

It took me 5 full intervals on the treadmill to get close to my race pace HR, using speed as the variable at 15% grade I ended up at 4.6 mph for the last treadmill interval (the 9th “wide interval ending just beford the colored intensity zones become gray on the picture above) (click to zoom).

Next time I’ll start at 4.6mph and more up from there if I am under 165 hr after 2 intervals.