The Olympics start today in Torino. In the spirit of the Olympics, last night I decided to go speed skiing--my first time ever. The weather called for a sunny forecast and 50 degrees in Seattle, which would probably translate to 35 degrees in the mountains.
The trail I chose is called the Iron Horse Trail and the
John Wayne Pioneer Trail. It's off exit 54
on I-90 in the Cascade Mountains (I took my GPS device :-). The exit numbers correspond to miles so it's only about an hour away from downtown Seattle depending on traffic. I tried this trail a year ago with cross country skis of which I own a pair. It's a flat course--which makes it good for speed skiing. Some people from work had recently gone speed skiing and I thought I'd try it. I knew it wouldn't be that difficult for me because the movement is somewhat similar to inline and ice skating. And as I mentioned, I've cross-country skied before. Actually, I wonder if in the Olympics the cross-country skiers use speed skis. The difference between the two is that speed skis are shorter than cross-country skis, the boots are a bit stiffer I think, the poles are a bit longer and the movement is side-to-side versus mostly straight.
I started out a bit shaky and fell down a couple of times. The surface was a bit icy in shady areas and had frozen ski marks from other skiers. I knew it was going to be windy; in fact, when I checked the weather before I left there was a wind advisory. As I got to the opening of the trail by the east side of Keechelus Lake, the wind was blowing very hard and really slowed me down. And so it took me an hour and a half to get to the end of the trail. It's not really the end of the road, but the point where the trail intersects a snowmobile road about 7.75 miles from the start.
The way back was a lot easier, but I was dehydrated and so frequently stopped to eat snow, which was very good :-). I should have taken an energy bar or gel with me too. I got back in just over 3 hours. I still need a lot more practice to be comfortable, although I felt great when it wasn't windy and I could push it up to about 8-10mph. I had my iPod Nano with me and that made it even more fun. My only disappointment was not seeing almost any wild life along the trail. I only saw a few crows and what might have been a hawk flying high close to the finish. However, there were a couple of recent animal tracks on the snow along the trail. Perhaps I shouldn't be disappointed as the trail is close to a highway and I know there is lots of wild life in Mt. Raineer National Park.
One more thing: I tore away some of the skin on the inner sides of my feet. The problem had happened to me previously during rollerblading which I mitigated by puting tape around the affected areas. I'll do that next time I go speed skiing, which I hope to do again this year as there has been plenty of snow in the mountains.
Total:
15.5mi X-C skiing[Backdated on 02/15/2006]
Finally I found a different run! It's called Green Lake :-). For those unfamiliar with Seattle, it's a very popular artificial lake on the north side and today, even with the weather at 40 degrees and very windy, there were many people there walking and running as it was getting dark. The scenery is very nice as most of the time all you see is the lake, but there are moments were a road with lots of traffic comes close to the walking/running trail. Still I liked it a lot and ran twice around the lake for a total of about 5.68 miles. I think it was closer to 5.8 or 5.9 because I lost the signal for a couple of minutes after I made a pit stop (that was inside a small building). I'm attaching a zoomed-out map that shows the position of Green Lake with respect to the larger Seattle area.
