xc skiing on ice

This past week I went skiing twice on some borrowed skis I got from Rider.  Since he is in Seattle for the year, I thought I would put his skis to good use and help change up my winter training.

Since the high on Tuesday was only 15 and the snow on the Illinois and Michigan Canal trail by my house was torn up from all the snowmobiles, I decided to do some canal skiing.  This idea came to me when I almost got taken out by one of these trail killing machines.  After flying by me, the snowmobiler proceeded to jump his sled from the trail down onto the frozen canal.  If he could do it I could too.  The snow was thicker on the canal, but it was also undisturbed in large sections which made for slow skiing conditions that got the legs burning very quickly.  It was fun cutting my own path atop the frozen surface and I got to explore some runoffs of the canal as well.  Though after this weekends thaw I don't think I will be doing this again soon.

Thursday I made my way to the only groomed skiing terrain in the Joliet area at the Woodruff golf course.  The local Nordic club grooms a 4k loop on the course which consists of sweeping turns, hard uphills and bridge crossings.  The conditions again were not ideal and I fell a couple of times due to the hard packed icy surface.  I was doing more sliding than skiing for most of the loop.  I know as soon as I get to ski in some better conditions I should be able to get a better uninterrupted workout in.  Still it was a fun week of new training.

-Along with YouTube technique videos, thanks for any tips I got from people, they helped in my quest to become a better skier.  I am definitely growing more found of this sport and will look to purchase my own gear during the spring sales for next years winter off-season training.  Maybe I'll even get into some xc ski races next season?