skates or skate skis?

Yet again I beat the odds and made something questionable work. Wedneday I had a couple options for activity but chose the one I craved the most but had the least chance of doing successfully. Yep I went skiing. Now I know this a far fetched idea for central ontario during January. I must be mad and should be locked up for even considering that you can ski at an area that man has not fabricated the snow. Well I did forget my meds that day and headed to the big backyard.

I wanted to skate ski but just for backup measures I packed what also might be needed for a classic ski. I was going to shuffle along on skis at all costs. Arrival in the back lot lead to the conditions that I expected, bulletproof slippery with a dash of traction on top. Looking questionable at first, walking in skate boots was not recomended but once I locking my toes in the bindings it wasn't as bad. A few minutes later and I was on the north trails and I was slightly surprised. It wasn't half bad, a perfectly smooth sheet of ice with about a half an inch of snow on top. No tracks, no machine grooming, just mother natures work. I some cases it's the best I've seen this winter.

I continued forward instead of back to the car cursing and swearing. Hit some big hills and received m first vomit paced intensity of the year. It hurt, I liked it. The downhills were perfect, smooth and untracked. I just went with the flow which eventually had me over to the west trails for some steady paced 1 skate, the time on the bay last weekend helped with the balance. I found a couple sections where someone attempted to groom, bad idea and I would have loved to have had steel edges in that area. Over the next two hours The big loop of Copeland was done. My legs felt great, the body was tired and my ability to endure vomit pace has increased. This lead to the rest day yesterday, it was more of a forced day off, busy work day, errands to do. By the time I walked in the door I wasn't craving an indoor ride. It happens, weekend is looking good though.