Bits of Sunday

I sometimes call myself "The U-turn Queen." Let's just acknowledge that I have a poor sense of direction. I used to fret about it, but now I just make myself the u-turn and it's fine.

Yesterday, I went out cross-country skiing for only the second time this season. I went alone, out to this gorgeous, wonderful park. This park has a maze of trails, but they're marked with numbers and a map at intersections. The numbers get higher the further you are from the warming hut and parking lot.

And I skied. I'm a lousy skier, but as long as I'm out enjoying myself, it doesn't much matter how clumsy I look. And for moments at a time, I float along and it's glorious! Just wonderful!

I was skiing along, and at first it was totally awkward and blah, and I thought about turning around and heading back right away. And then it started feeling good. I was going slowly, focusing on trying to slide and relax, and it felt good. So I went a bit further. And then I thought I should head back rather than get too tired, so I looked at where I was, and planned my move to the next intersection, and then I needed to go left. But that took me to a hill, and I snowplowed down it with great care (because I felt awkward and it's sort of icy).

But at the next intersection, the sign was shot out. I know :( Think about someone peppering a sign with shot, and think about that sign being in a public park. Ugh. So I went the way I thought would take me back without making me climb that hill. And there were hills, and I snowplowed down, and herring-boned up.

And the next sign I got to was #65, and showed that I was at about the half way point of a long side-loop. Oops! I could have made a u-turn, but I didn't because I figured the way forward couldn't be as difficult as the way back. It was about that difficult, but I finally did make it back. (I DID whuss out and take off my skis to climb up two hills and down one.) Every so often someone else would ski by in the opposite direction (mostly, friendly folks, who said hi), so it wasn't like I was exactly breaking new ground in the wilderness.

All in all, I skied for an hour and 40 minutes, and my heart monitor said I used 900 calories. No wonder I was hungry! And now today, I'm just a bit sore. (I've read that heart monitors tend to overestimate caloric use, but still, that's a lot of calories.)

But, Paris-Nice will be on TV shortly (the prologue)! I, myself, am planning to ride along for a bit. Yay, it's the beginning of the TV biking season!

I should grade a bunch today, too, and I will. And I've already written the midterm for tomorrow, so at least that's done!