The Telemark, and the adventure of skiing on styrofoam .

BRRRRRRR.....it is really cold here. Im not sure what makes -10 in Norway so different from -10 in Franconia, but holy cow was it cold. The walk home just icing on the cake today! We had a hard time slipping the course because the snow was so hard. The water content of this snow is so low that it has the effect of being across between ice and real styrofoam; hard and sticky. Not wet sticky, but the opposite, cold sticky. I would compare it to a cold telephone pole. Let's pretend that your skis are your tongue, when you put your tongue on the frozen telephone pole, it sticks. Well the same thing was happening to me today with my skis. Everyone had the same problem. It is so cold that the snow just ins't fast. Did I mention that this type of snow has the tendency to make giant divots or bumps in the snow. That being said I spent the first run fighting the ruts, trying to no avail to cut down the line, it was just to bumpy. I jumped like a frog, and still missed the line. The course leading up to the jump is flat, and I am afraid that I am not big enough to carry good speed over the SLOW flats of Bjorli. Oh well. i finished in front of my start number always good. Second run started out much better. I took a tight line going inside the ruts, at the expense of my forearms, so I was faster, but still not enough to make the line, I missed by about a foot (the Norwegian who was at the jump told me, I wasn't looking down). After the jump was where I ran into trouble. I hit one of those bumps, except this one was a cross rut from the first run with a bigger hole right where I landed after being bucked by the rut. Needless to say that the following second consisted of me skiing on one leg, me skiing on no legs, me skiing on my face, and finally me hiking to finish the race. DFL, but I am still happy because I skied very well on the top section.

Tomorrow is the classic, one run of pain. That is as long as the temperature does not drop below -20.5, in which case it will be a telemark like today. Either way I am going to attack and try to make my last race in Bjorli my best!