1st day X-country skiing- skate skiing

First time today for my x-country skiing quest. My goal, if you recall, (or care) is the Stowe Derby, Feb 22^nd and 15k as quickly as possible…I had the idea 45minutes or so. Is that possible? I have no idea…but will work on ascertaining if that time is even vaguely realistic. 

Firstly putting on skate skis is not as simple as you would think. It took a bit of figuring out, well 5 minutes max, and within 12 seconds I fell down. That I put down to, well not being on skis of any sort in a while! Then interestingly I found out it was tougher to get back on my feet than I would normally have expected. (Of course what expectations I had were based on my own self belief, my own athleticism, and what other pre-conceived notions that exist in my addled mind. 

Once I got those 2 bugs figured out, off I skated. I would rate my initial few hundred yards, as a little unsteady, and certainly there were no elements of grace or fluidity! I also found out that my poor technique, was absolutely exhausting me. If you’re even a tad “nervous” and by that I mean unsteady, unsure, or generally uncomfortable you tend to burn more energy I guess its all that adrenalin, and certainly I have no “efficiencies”. I was less than optimal! I was over muscling and brutal, in my own critique. 

I’d ski a couple of hundred yards and then stop. Gasping for air! I can run 7 miles effortlessly in 50-55 minutes pretty comfortably, so this was a shock. Now I understand why Olympic x-country skiers are probably the fittest athletes in the world. At one point today I got smoked by some blonde girl, wearing multi colored spandex! She just flew past me without breaking a sweat! I was impressed and in awe, I mean this girl made x-country skiing sexier than downhill! In fact I have seen infinitely fitter healthier, and this girl in particular, sexier than anyone I’ve seen at the downhill skiing at Stowe! These people are super fit!

 I teamed up and got some impromptu lessons from Phil of Burlington, That was helpful, and the observations he made I tried to put into practice. The pole planting aspect is more “technical” than I thought and my downhill skiing, skating, double pole plant took over naturally. I’m meant to do a sort of modified single pole plant/ push thingy…yep that’s exactly how my brain processed the instructions Phil gave me! 

The trails we took eventually led us to the “cabin”, that’s a lot of uphill! Honestly it was the most exhausted physical activity I’d done in a while! The downhill back was worth it…one spill, and a couple of reasonable parallel turns. In all I skied for the better part of 2 hours. The uphill was unrelenting, and maybe not quite what I had in mind. I must find a bit more of a “flat” trail for skating, or at least undulating. 

I was told the snow conditions today were not optimal for skating, a little soft. I’m in for the challenge now. I’m signed up for a skate lesson tomorrow. I want to nail this skill set.