Training at Temple

With the race coming up on Saturday I didn't want to do too much today. After work I headed up to Temple and did some laps at Casidy tow.

First off I set out a 100m vert skin track, and skied that.I also assessed the avalanche risk in the area as the patrollers had not opened it today. There had been a (class one) wet slide. The powder was just over ankle deep.Any activity was likely to be smaller sluffing, which had not occured on my first descent.

After that I wanted to see how i'd go in race conditions, so did my skin track three times, with five transitions. The first lap took 8mins! On the second lap I fell and had to take my glasses and put them into my jacket. so the second lap was completed in 21mins! So then the race was on as I wanted to complete the last lap in under 30mins. And I managed to finish in 29.30mins. Obviously with slight margins like that falling can cost a couple of minutes, so it is better to lose a few seconds on the down hill, and ski safely, rather than tumble and completely blow the race. Phew! Full on eh?

The good news is the transitions went well, and I sorted a few issues with gloves and whether to take off the up or down hill skin first when transitioning to down hill... I'm not going to tell yet! Don't want to give things away, but it makes a world of difference!

Things are looking fantastic at Temple too, with very few rocks showing. It was great to meet up with a few more of the locals up there too. Tim and Carena were up there and of course Ben is the manager. The photos are Ben doing important management type stuff, and the bridge to Casidy tow with new snow loading.As for training tomorrow- do I work on reducing my lap times, or do I start the rest process? Did I leave training too late???? Surely 3 days is plenty!