speed

my mother will buy me sporting goods, but a lot of the time she doesn't want to know what i do with it.

yesterday on the mountain we suffered from the couple days' thaw and refreeze, but even with all that, the conditions weren't all that bad. sure, there were some hard patches where it was hard to get an edge, but even where it was scratchy there was mostly enough soft snow to dig in all right.

and you know those chunks of ice that get thrown up by the groomer? we used to call them "death cookies". they make for bumpy gritty skiing and you KNOW you're going to have to sharpen your edges (which i am at the moment putting off). anyway, they weren't so large that i'd have called them "death cookies"; maybe they were more like "death croutons".

but once i got acclimated, i was able to put some muscle into my turns and carve .

all last week i kept clocking my speed (yes, i was carrying my GPSr. so i'm nerdy. i hope this is not news to you)

-anyway, i was clocking my speed and no matter what trail i was on or what i did, i kept topping out at about thirty-seven MPH.

37.2
37.6
37.4

never 38. so yesterday i thought that maybe i could break forty and i really put some intent behind it.

still only 37 and change. but then i zipped up my jacket and went into a tight tuck.

49.7 MPH!

and i might have gotten a little faster on that run, except that i had a moment when i thought: if i fall at this speed, it's gonna HURT.

and i straightened up just a little and caught the wind.

i took a few more runs, but never did get that fast again. it's tricky to do, partly because when you get to the steep pitch there's always the possibility that people will be entering the trail just below you and you have to scrub a little speed until you can see.

of course if people are there, you have to scrub a LOT of speed.

if conditions are good tomorrow, i'll have to see if i can break 50. boy, that'd be something.

i have to go sharpen my edges.