10 weeks away?!

Fargo marathon is less than 10 weeks away. That’s a little scary.

Especially since this week is supposed to be my first big week. And, of course, I’m coming down with a cold. Argh. I’m still healthy enough to do base mileage, but sick enough where I know I’d have to work pretty hard to hit my times for marathon pace or threshold work. I don’t need many more base miles — I really, really need to start on the faster miles.

Oh well, guess it’ll have to wait another 1/2 week or so. 🙁

In other news, Nate and I did one last ski race this weekend. My brother, who has skied a grand total of 2 times (ever) went with and decided he was going to try to do the race. There was a family rate, so there wasn’t an additional cost to sign up. So, we did a quick 20 minute “learn how to ski” lesson, and then brought him to the start line. He can sort of move on skis, but is always close to falling and doesn’t know how to move up hills, slow down on downhills, or turn…
It started at the base of a hill. The gun goes off and he gets about 1/2 way up — and then the starting officials give him a hand — by helping PUSH him up the hill! 🙂 I still laugh at the mental image of this happening!! He was able to get up the hill and to the first turn by the time Nate had done the entire first loop — Nate covering 4k in the time my brother covered about .5k :).

My brother didn’t end up finishing. I think he could have if the race was entirely on the man made loop, but it went off onto the other trails which were icy and much narrower. He didn’t think it was safe to try, and I agree. Oh well. Maybe next year 🙂

I didn’t do well. Sigh. I actually fell HARD once, just narrowly missing a wooden post. Argh, why can’t my feet move fast enough when I want them to? I was really lucky not to have crashed into it — my only casualties were an over-extended thumb (still puffy and doesn’t move well 2 days later), couple bruises, and a scratch under my nose. Lucky.

I realized during the race that my problem is that I don’t know how to move FAST on skis. There’s no difference between a 50k pace and a 10k pace for me. I looked back to a race in 2007 to compare individuals I’m skiing around. I finished 45 seconds behind Bob Woodruff at the Elk River race (20k) in December of 2007. March of 2010 I finished 25 seconds behind him (10k). Either he’s improving at the exact same rate as I am, or I’m not improving at ALL. Really, 3 years of ski racing, and no improvement??

Good thing it’s time to hang up the skis for a season. 🙁 Now, to get healthy so I can start pounding out some hard miles!!!