If You're Gonna Ski, Go For A Ski

One of my goals for the winter was to ski every trail at Great Glen Trails. Not just ski them all during the season, but ski them all in one shot. Today seemed like a good day to give it try. I've been crazy busy, and some real therapy was in order.

Before you get too impressed, you should know that we don't have a huge system. (Quality, not quantity.) My goal was to ski everything we groom, which is about 15k. Of course, you can't ski it all in any kind of linear fashion because...well, it's not a simple circle. Since I had been thinking about this for a while, I mapped out what I thought would be the best route.
It was impossible to not back track in some fashion or ski over the same trail in the opposite direction. Because of this I think I probably skied closer to 18k or so. Really, that's a guess. The actual distance doesn't matter. When I said I listed this as a goal, I had no question I could ski the distance, it was more of a case of finding the time and the opportunity. In any case, it was a really nice afternoon, so I made a break for it.

I ended up skiing for 1:21:00, and I managed to miss only two sections of trail each no more than 10 yards long. Since it this wasn't an officially sanctioned event, I'm going to say it counts. My goal was to ski steady and easy, which I did. I kept moving, but I wasn't going all out. I hit the easy loops around the field first. Well, they should be easy, but that meant a lot of double poling, not my strong suit. Plus, I think I was thinking about the hills I had yet to climb and that made me feel sluggish out of the gate. Once I headed up into the woods, I thought, "Well, that wasn't that bad." Really, the rest of the ski went very smoothly. I felt it on my final climb up the Sluice at the end, but I was still skiing pretty well. It was great, and I'm psyched I was able to knock it off. I think these longer, more steady workouts are going to be key to solid fitness going into the summer.

For anyone that's crazy, here's an intersection by intersection breakdown:
Start at the Lodge, through the tunnel, right on the Geepers Loop to #1
to #2
to #4 around the Bellows Loop
to #6
to #4
to #5
to #23
to #25
to #2
to #5
to #8
to #12
to #7
to #11
to #12
to #14
to #19
to #26
to #34
to #45
to #47
to #46
to #53
to #52
to #47
to #46
to #45
to #47
to #52
to #55
to #56
to #49
to #44
to #40
to #50
to #54
to #50
to #54
to #38
to #40
to #33
to #51
to #52
to #47
to #45
to #34
to #33
to #29
to #38
to #25
to #23
to #29
to #27
to #26
to #19
to #27
to #26
to #19
to #14
to #8
to #11
to #7
to #6
to #4
to #2
to #1
Right around the Geepers Loop and back to the Lodge.

I think that took me longer to type than to actually ski it. Did you actually read all that? I'm not sure it was the absolutely most efficient way to get it done...I'm sure it's not...but it worked out pretty well.