White Mountain 30km

How does one train for a journey like we're planning to undertake?

Right, right, hike a lot.

But we want to enjoy the winter while we're here, so we're skiing. Not that Mother Nature has been all that cooperative. While the Tahoe region is getting hammered by storms, and even southern New England has gotten a good bit of snow, northern New England is having a rough time of it so far. Rain, warm weather, ice, a little snow mixed in. Makes for interesting conditions out on the trails, that's for sure...

But that didn't stop Ryan and I and approximately 105 other people from getting out on Saturday, January 22nd to ski a 30k (18.6 mile) race in Jackson.

It was a balmy minus 6 degrees at the start, they altered the course a bit to accommodate the minimal snowpack and the frigid temperatures, and I haven't skiied since last Tuesday due to lack of snow, etc. What's wrong with that? :-) We bundled up in as many layers as we possiblely could, skiied with our friend Sven, stopped at all the "feed stations" along the course to drink the warm Poweraid they were serving, took our time and had fun. We were able to see the fast skiers as they headed back to the finish line, due to the out-and-back route of the course, and there were some good icicles going on some of those guy's beards! Of course, my pigtails and hat were crusted over with ice by the finish line, so I shouldn't talk!

So, while we might not out hiking much in these few months before our departure, we figure with events like these, we are definitely training our bodies and minds to tough it out and keep at it, which will be a big part of things on the trail. After all, it's not an adventure if you're having fun all the time :-) There has to be a bit of suffering thrown in too, just for good measure!

By the way, we were towards the back of the pack in the race, finishing in 2:52, but we got out there and we did it, and to me, that's not too shabby... :-)