complementary activities in a winter funderland...

The weather outside is...

...snowy, which is awesome. Indeed, the EC radar for here is showing what looks like a snowy streamer making a beeline for Ottawa. It's not like the mountains of snow they're getting in the UK but any amount for our purposes is good.

I'm writing this over a breakfast of rice, my just emptied cup of coffee still sending light waves of hazelnut vanilla through the air. The type of snow that's falling right now is the really lovely kind, too. Great big fluffy potato chip flakes are tumbling through the silence of Sunday morning.

We went cross country skiing yesterday. We gathered our skis and poles and sauntered over to our beloved Sawmill Creek Constructed Wetlands. Ever since the city both expanded the trail network and improved what was there already, I had been chomping at the bit to find out how the skiing would be. Ever since we became aware of this very-close-to-home gem, we had always made it a point to go there as regularly as possible and that included for skiing. Last winter, I only managed to get out twice and that was before Christmas. Afterwards, the weather just wasn't good for skiing. Adam managed to go there a few more times by himself but even he admitted the conditions just weren't the best.

So, we went out yesterday afternoon and did some trail setting as no one else had been there recently. Oh, we did see tire tracks and footprints - some of which weren't human - but as far as we knew, we were the only ones on skis. We wound up skiing from the southern entrance to the SCCW all the way up to the Walkley transit station and back - 5 kilometres. This morning our plan is to do that trip twice. Given the amount of preparation necessary, such as waxing one's skis and the elaborate ritual of layering clothes for the trek, it's really best to do as many kilometres as possible. That's the plan anyway.

Soo...what does this have to do with catriking? Well, I really don't like not being physically active in at least some manner. I get such a big kick out of my catrike that I really prefer to be in as good a physical condition for the season as possible. Since we don't catrike in the winter, neither of us wants to get out of shape for spring. So, we make it a point to have two utterly perfectly complementary activities so that we always stay in a good shape. I use the long catriking season to prepare for the cross-country ski season and the cross-country ski season to prepare for the catriking season.

It's still snowing and I still like it. When I hit the trails again today, I will thoroughly enjoy them knowing that I am in training for catriking season '11.

**********Later, as in, after a good lunch**********

Well, we did 7 kilometres and not the 10 I had originally said. Lots of reasons, mostly to do with me getting tired from the extra duty upper body workout. This is what happens when one waxes too cold!

In the catriking world, there really isn't much of an analogy. If the tires are pumped up properly and one isn't riding on several centimetres of mashed potatoes then conditions shouldn't be too - uh - challenging. Cross country skiing is different...but at least we got good exercise. Gotta keep those arms and legs in good shape for cycling, right?