Sunday, March 7, 2010

Getting Schooled at Afton

Zach and I hit the trails at Afton this morning, later to be joined by Bill P.

Zach and I took the liberty of declaring the trail season to now be officially opened.

Problem is, there is still a ton of snow at Afton. It is all groomed and packed down for XC ski, but not really ski-able anymore.

Want to know what running in peanut butter is like? Go out there for "a loop".

I was hoping for a fast loop. Hoping for solid pack ice or some cleared trail, but no dice. I got schooled.

Not only did I get schooled by Afton, but also by Zach.

In the past 2 years, I have been the guy egging Zach on, telling him to run faster. I recall many times saying "come on man, step up to the plate... it's in you".

Well... he did last year at Voyageur and Superior.

Today he dragged my ass all over that place, leaving me in the dust going up the meat grinder. I tried making excuses with my recent workouts, and Zach bought it (maybe), but truth is.. I got schooled.

Look out for this guy. He's looking lean and mean.

We did everything but the "Snowshoe Loop" in 2:30. I was hoping to do the whole thing in 2:20-2:30, but oh well.

Did the snowshoe loop with Bill, and he put the final nail in my coffin today. I glycogen crashed and burned coming out of the loop.

Opted for the visitor center fire, and coffee. No beer today.. too early.

Snow sucks the life out of me. So it was a rough run. Gotta get those over with.

Afton has a few more weeks of melt before it is normal. I sure hope Zumbro is melted in 5 weeks.

4 comments:

Julie said...

Wowzer, sounds like a tough run!! You are right, the snow just makes everything harder! The good news is that you did it:) I hope that you have a fantastic week!

brothergrub said...

Zumbro with snow would just be mean.

SteveQ said...

There's still a nasty snowpack at Zumbro - they got a foot more snow than in the Twin Cities and there's no ueban heat island effect.

And, yeah, Zach's coming on strong.

Christopher Swenke said...

Been running on that CC Ski pack all winter and its sure makes for one heck of a workout. I hope it pays off this summer.