I had my first lesson on cross country skis in the white stuff yesterday at Bear Valley Cross Country. My instructor P.J. was very good at covering the basics. “Don’t wave those polls around! Don’t plant them too far forward! Remember to plant them next to your feet. Have you thumbs brush your thighs as you move your hands back and forth – thumbs to thighs, thumbs to thighs!”

Additional rhyming advice was offered for recovering from a fall. “Bring your knees to your skis.” She instructed. Because the boot is attached to the cross country skis only at the toe, I could pretty easily move my legs so my knees could be placed on top of my skis and then slowly rise back up.

We also covered several ways to go up and down hills (pretty easy) and how to use my “abs of steel” to do double polling to move forward. I played along and felt no need to disabuse her of this notion. Heavy winter clothing covers a lot! And besides, it was hard to admit that at the moment, cross country skiing for more than a few minutes at a time felt more like having a “steel clamp” around my lungs instead.

Both P.J. and my coaches have explained how we should have an athletic stance with our knees slightly bent and be leaning forward when on the skis. That’s not too hard during dry-land training, even when we lean so far that we fall forward simulating our movement on skis.

But on snow it takes a lot more energy and strength. I felt like Groucho Marx leaning over my skis and building up momentum as I swung my arms and moved forward with a gentle swaying motion. All I needed was the cigar and eyebrows.

After about 5 minutes of this, a tank of oxygen would have been more helpful. I could not maintain that kind of stance and forward momentum for much longer without stopping to catch my breath. After my lesson, I kept skiing and later added up my distance to be only about 5 km over about two hours of time.

For excuses I have that the temperature was about 20 degrees and I was at an elevation of over 7,000 feet above sea level. But I did not feel cold and the Anchorage race will be at sea level. Maybe I’ll have a chance to finish the entire 25 km marathon when I get there.

But I have to finish! I am committed. I can’t and won’t quit now!

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Yesterday I drove to Bear Valley Ski Resort with my sons Nick and Mark. Nick is home on leave from the Marines and Mark is home for Christmas from Chapman University. We left at o’dark hundred which is military time for too frick’en early in the morning. Actually, we left at 5am, a bit later than I wanted to get there in time for a 10:30 lesson.

About ten minutes after leaving the house I was on the San Mateo Bridge and remembered I did not check to make sure I packed the tire chains. “Oh, let’s not turn around now!” I said. “The weather will be beautiful today and we probably won’t need them” But about every 30 minutes I couldn’t help worrying that we would.

We got as far as the town of Arnold on Highway 4 before we encountered the CHP stop to make sure all vehicles had tire chains. It snowed on Christmas Day and the roads were plowed but still covered with snow and ice in many places.

“Is this an all-wheel drive vehicle?” the officer asked of my Prius.
“No, but it’s front-wheel drive.” I pleaded.
“You can only go on if you have all-wheel drive but you still must have chains. If you don’t have all-wheel drive then you have to put your chains on. I’m not going to install them, you have to do it.” He explained. “And by the way, if you don’t have chains you can be fined around $450.” He added.

Yikes! We turned around and went back to the Chevron station we saw a few blocks back. I had to go to the bathroom anyway and I noticed they had tire chains for sale when we passed by earlier. I went back out to check the size of my tires but first looked in the back of the car. There were the tire chains under Nick’s snowboard! They were there the whole time.

We got them installed without freezing our hands off (it was 16 degrees outside) and we were then waived through by the CHP at the checkpoint. So far, so good, except it felt like the fillings were going to fall out of my teeth because the chains made the car vibrate so. I aimed for the snowy patches on the road for cushioning and drove slowly at about 25 mph.

I hadn’t planned for the time needed to install the chains and subsequent slow driving. We passed by the Bear Valley Village that looked like it was overnight lodging and sledding for kids. We kept driving and arrived at the Bear Valley Resort a couple miles later at 10am. I gave Nick the car keys and ran into the lodge to be on-time for the lesson at 10:30.

“I’d like to pay for the rental & cross-country ski lesson.” I announced to the rental clerk.
She gave me a confused look and said “But cross country skiing is only done at the Bear Valley Village.”

By then I lost track of Mark and Nick. I left them each a cell phone message that I was taking the shuttle bus to the village and they could pick me up later. I got to the cross country ski rental counter there at 11 — too late for the morning lesson.

Here’s a list of what NOT to do when you go to the snow:

• Arrive late and at the wrong place for your lesson
• Wear sneakers instead of boots for stomping around in the slippery snow
• Leave your snacks, water, sunblock and chapstick in your car, 3 miles away
• Ignore the checklist your coaches give you so you don’t forget anything
• Lose track of your tire chains or leave them at home!

This was the first trip and I now have debugged the process of going to the snow. At least I was dressed warmly. And a cross country instructor at Bear Valley was happy to give me a lesson at noon so things worked out after all.

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Paula and I went on the kayak tour of Elkhorn Slough on Saturday. It was a fundraising event for Coach Larry on our team. Larry woks for Kayak Connection and they generously donated $35 to LLS for everyone that attended.

Paula hurt her shoulder a few days earlier so I did most of the paddling. It was a good way to work off the fajitas from that Chevys fundraiser a couple of days earlier!

We saw many birds and sea life in the slough. Highlights for me were the gaper clams and otters. The clams were periodically squirting water from the slough banks during low tide. One otter swam right by our kayak. And Larry pointed out a mother otter in the distance with its baby riding on her stomach.

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Besides direct appeals for donations to friends and family (and any stranger that will listen), Team in Training members are encouraged to hold fund raising events also. Abbie, one of our team mentors did a fundraiser at a Chevys restaurant in San Leandro. It was a bit of a drive for us during rush hour, but we wanted to get some good Mexican food and contribute to the cause.

Abbie gave us a flier so that 25% of our bill was donated to her fund raising. I gained a pound and a half – a major set back to my weight loss program. At least it was for a good cause. Burp.

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I finally remembered to check back to the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot website and look up my timing for the race. It took them a few days to post the results and here is a snippet:

Yes, that’s me finishing 1949th out of a total field of 2420 with a my race time just under 1 hour and 11 minutes. But I was 109th in my age group!

I just beat out one of my team mates Mary Leigh who came in 1956th and 42nd in her age group. Megan, another teammate came in 1375th. You go Megan and Mary Leigh!

The fastest time was 34 minutes and 50 seconds by a 38 year old whippersnapper. OK, so I have some room for improvement. Wait ’til next year!

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Thanks to all of you that donated to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! You know the money will go to help find a cure and to support the people and their families that are dealing with these diseases.

And you have also helped me quickly approach my fund raising goal and personally win some cool items and sports wear with the TNT logo.

But I don’t want to have all the fun. I am sending all donors that contribute $250 or more a Team in Training hat or shirt. You get both with a donation of $500 or more!

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Karla is the Honoree Captain of our team. She encourages our honorees to come forward and share their stories at team events. This is actually an important part of our training and contributes to our motivation and encourages our honorees as well.

But another important duty Karla has is to take care of Yupik. Yupik is the name our team member Christine applied to the stuffed moose that is our mascot. and is the name of an Eskimo people in Alaska. At each weekly team event Karla selects one of us to add a decoration to Yupik. By the race day Yupik will be quite a well-dressed dude.

Of course if you are artistically challenged like me you dread being selected. But that’s what happened during our last hike to the top of Mission Peak. I made the mistake of hiking next to Karla as we climbed to the top of the peak. She must have been so impressed that I actually made it to the top that she selected me to bring Yupik home.

Yupik already had a scarf and a cape when he arrived at my house. Ruthie, our chocolate Labrador Retriever offered to help take care of Yupik too, but instead of teeth marks, I thought something befitting my Silicon Valley location was more appropriate.

So off to Frys I went and found the perfect thing - a digital photo keychain on which I loaded all our team photos. You can see it in the photo hanging to the left of Yupik’s neck attached by a cable tie (I hope it’s not too tight Yupik!)
And in consideration of the holiday season and how dark it will probably still be during March in Alaska, I thought some battery-powered lights would be appropriate.

Hey decorating a moose isn’t as hard as I thought!

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There was still not enough snow at Bear Valley in the Sierras for us to drive up for our scheduled training in the white stuff. But a storm came through last night and dumped about 4 inches.

Meanwhile our team met at the Marin Headlands, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area just north of San Francisco on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. We had a break in the weather but it was cold! A good chance to try out the winter clothes I purchased recently.

Here I am with M’Lis, Nina and Mary Leigh, huddling to keep warm before we got started on the hike.

One of our honorees made up s little goodie bag for each of us containing snacks, chapstick, tissues and a few other items that will come in handy during our training and race. The team posed for a photo to say thank you!

Then off we went on our hike in the beautiful Marin Headlands with views of the Pacific Ocean to the west and the city of San Francisco to the south. It’s a good thing I dressed in layers because I got pretty warm as we climbed the hill. Up we went for about a 1,000 foot climb.

First the jacket got unzipped then I stuffed it in my Camelback pack. Up we went and then we were treated to those wonderful views. The weather was clear and cold but another storm is moving in. We were lucky to hike on such a clear day.

Here I am on the hike with our team manager Julia from Team in Training. She shared several fundraising event ideas along the way. Our team continues to do well on the fundraising front. We are also a more, shall I say, “mature” team and our members are fun and easy to work with.

And she says she likes our team the best. Aw shucks! She probably says that to all the teams.
Then I borrowed Coach Larry’s ski poles and got some practice using them during the hike. Cross country skiing uses both the legs and upper body to propel you through the snow.

With these recent storms dumping snow in the mountains we will have a chance to actually ski in a few weeks. Our next team training will be at Bear Valley on January 3rd.

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I entered my age into my new heart rate monitor wrist display and it automatically computed the five heart rate zones. The monitor has a nice feature of setting an alarm if hear rate is below a zone or goes over the maximum for a zone.

Many of our training sessions are recommended to be “low aerobic” which I interpret to be getting your hear rate into zones 2 and 3. So I set the alarm to go off if I am below the minimum heart rate for zone 2 and above the maximum for zone 3.

I tried it out at the training at Kezar this week. I need to get in shape! My heart rate kept increasing into zone 4. It felt like the alarm would go off by just stepping on the track!

I turned off the alarm that night and adjusted it the next day to beep if my rate is out of zones 3 and 4. That keeps me out of zone 5 which is supposed to be for going all out to win the race.

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Today was to be our first trip to the snow at Bear Valley Ski Resort in the Sierras. But there’s no snow! So instead we went off on another team hike.

This time we climbed to the top of Mission Peak in Fremont. The mountain is named after the Mission San Jose at it’s base. Despite the proximity to this old church, it was a hellava climb! Especially the last part to get to the peak itself where it was steep and a bit windy.

Along the way we stopped and did our basic 8 core strength and balance building exercises. My balance is definitely improving. It’s not because of changes to my inner ear but strengthening muscles in my legs and back I didn’t know I had.

On the way down I worked on staying in an athletic stance with my knees slightly bent. That really works the quadriceps - those muscles on the front of your thighs. My teammate and mentor M’Lis wanted to rename the place Mount Ow My Legs Hurt. Actually, she had a less polite name that I shouldn’t publish here, but you get the idea.

We also saw some cows. That’s me on the right in the photo above. Most of the team made it to the top and you can see me holding onto my hat in the middle of our team photo.
Jim, one of our honorees joined us on the hike. He is going in to Stanford Hospital for a bone marrow transplant just before Christmas. And he plans to be out in a couple weeks and rejoin our training in January. Go Jim!

Jim is a real inspiration. We choose to be on the team and push ourselves. Jim has a choice too and he chooses to maintain a positive attitude and believe he will be cured. And with good reason - there have been many advances in treating these diseases through the research funded by your donations.

We also learned today that our Ski Team has raised more money so far than many of the other Team in Training teams! If you are one of our donors than a hearty thank you! If you are able to donate and can do so now then click on the link below. Thanks in advance!

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