First XC ski of the season

I went cross country skiing yesterday for the first time in almost 2 years. I rode up to Snoqualmie with my friend, Cara (great company), and dropped her off at Alpental so she could telemark...then I went on to Hyak for a nice solo ski. I remembered that my ski boots always give me blisters on my heels and tried a preemptive strike with bandaids, but I missed the mark on my left heel and shredded it anyway...oh, well, at least I saved the right one. I think I was the first person out on the trails and I was psyched when the grooming machine came right at me about a half mile out...sweet, I thought, fresh tracks all day! I didn't see anyone for over an hour (even after I took off my snow caked yellow lensed bike glasses because I couldn't see anything at all)...and I skied (ok, it's really just glorified hiking) up Mt. Catherine. It was dumping snow on me the entire time...my head and hat were a total snowball all morning. By the time I got to the top, there were no tracks to be seen anywhere as the snow had filled everything in completely (so much for the fresh fast tracks I thought I'd get). But it was beautiful and, at the top, I wouldn't have been gliding anyway because of the grade--it's just a bit of an uphill slog. I was smart enough to pack my "teflon" jacket and lobster gloves for the descent, so I quickly changed out of my soaked lighter layers and put on the warmer stuff. Coming down in the powder was really fun and I kept my heartrate up a bit because it required some pushing off to keep good downhill momentum. I never got cold (major win) and I think I skied off most of the remaining soreness from my butt...but, of course, my quads are sore today from skiing. I had a great workout and did almost 10 miles.

9.75 mile ski
2:14

This morning I had a really good swim at the Helene Madison pool masters workout again...swam with 2 guys and chatted with one afterwards who's done several Ironmans. I realized while I was swimming that I haven't taken a rest day in at least 2 weeks, and perhaps I'm almost due. However, it's just felt necessary to be in motion as much as possible lately and stacking up workouts has seemed like the right thing to do.

1 hour swim
3,500 yards