Forget Day 1. The demands came too quickly, for too long, after what had been a quiet season so far. I haven't warmed up with busy weekends leading up to this. It's as bad as hopping out of bed and trying to lift the refrigerator.
Today was better. I got out to ski after the morning rush. By the time I got back I no longer felt like ripping someone's abdomen open and staking them out for the vultures. I didn't even have to pull a few livers off my ski pole. The traffic was heavy, but spaced so that I could thread the jams by skating from lane to lane between clots of slower skiers. Unlike at a downhill area, a faster cross-country skier doesn't rip by like a badly-designed rocket. Everyone has a lot more time to think.
Even if the skiing had been crappy, the after-effect is always peace. Arms, legs, core muscles and mind are all engaged, and all purged by the exertion. I feel like the water I drink saturates my body more completely when I've sweated a bunch of it out through every pore, rather than just sending it right to the kidneys and bladder. As much fun as cycling is, cross-country skiing is much better. And cycling is damn good.
It was finally time to get out the good skis. I did not get to use my Salomon Equipe 10 classic skis at all last year, after I fell so hard in love with a pre-production demo set that I bought them. Today I got to fall in love all over again.
We still worked almost a ten-hour day with an hour drive at each end. Seven more lie ahead.
I'm going to bed.
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