Today was a big ski day. Mary-Ann and I decided to ski up to Ormand Lake. The Ormand Lake trail is about 13km one direction. The trail has a steady incline which provides a respectable elevation gain. The trail is used in the summer by hikers, ATV'ers and animals. In the winter snowmobilers make trails up to the campsite and animal tracks are found on the trail in abundance.
We appeared to be the first skiers on the trail. This day was the perfect snow for speed. Not necessarily for climbing up hills nor going down those hills - if you still have a penchant for falling on those long skinny skis! Fast snow means slipping easily and picking up speed. However on the flats stretches it was almost effortless to move through the powder snow.
The snow was falling lightly and the weather was about -2.
The day was overcast but not too cold. It was a great change to be skiing in the woods rather than the windy open expanse of the lake. I hadn't been up this way for 2 years and it had been much longer for Mary-Ann. We saw plenty of animal tracks made by smaller creatures like weasels or martins. We crossed a few sets of moose tracks their deep prints indicating a very heavy creature. We never saw any critters though.
We had been skiing up the trail for almost 3hrs hours and we still weren't at the campsite. My motivation was flagging. Our movement was slower than expected given the trickiness of getting up the hills. I had worn my 10Lb weight vest to get an extra workout and preferred to break trail up the trail for the same reason. I was feeling guilty that I hadn't run in 3 days and I knew I should be getting my mileage up. Instead I opted for being the work-horse of the team to at least convince myself that labouring uphill with my vest on would improve my running endurance come race day in March. By this time though I found myself fatigued, the constant slipping backward on the trail and struggling to say upright became annoying and the vest started to get noticeably heavy and annoying too - oh and my fingers were cold. Call me a whambulance!
Mary-Ann was confident that the lake was just around the corner and I really, really wanted to believe her. Normally I can keep an upbeat attitude but eventually I looked up at yet another undulating hill and decided that I had lost all my interest in struggling in the name of a workout and I had enjoyed nature enough for the day. Mary-Ann was game to keep going despite that fact that she was getting cold and couldn't stop too much. Once I said I wanted to turn around she was fine with that too. Both of us were happy to get out and have fun. And fun was to be had getting back home.
It was astounding how fast we could pick up speed, even with snow-plowing. When I started to go too fast I would head for the deeper snow in the hopes that I wouldn't fall over. I'd say I was 50% successful on the not falling part. But when I did fall it was rather interesting to get back up. Twice I simply unclicked from my bindings rather than become a contortionist to get myself back upright.
Getting home took a quarter of the time. I heaved a sigh of relief when I finally took off my weight vest whew! Mom and Ray were watching the Brier Cup. I've never been a watcher of curling but I'm kind of getting into it especially as I'm sipping a Rye & Pepsi. I was never a Rye drinker either but once I added some lime to it I found the drink quite tasty indeed.
The night is winding down and I'm fairly sure I'll be calling a night early... soon... probably just after I finish writing this.
I'll close with one of Ray's sayings that I get a kick out of: "He has one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel..."
Have a good weekend!
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