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  • Gold Member

FINALLY got an open water set in last night. This is my latest start of my 20-year tournament career. And by quite a lot -- almost two weeks later than the previous latest.

 

Felt awful, of course. And cold -- more like early-mid April than early May. But at least I've started to climb the hill again!

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  • Baller
Skied my first set last night as well here in Southern Ontario, very late start for us as well. Many of the same feelings you had were experienced by myself as well, but it was great to finally get started!
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  • Baller
@Than_Bogan‌ that's right, you got a new tractor! How was it? Also, just out of curiosity, what is your normal plan when it comes to skiing early? Free ski? Shadow 28's? Run 22's? Try to run a tournament set? Etc....? Just curious to see what others try as a training routine.
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  • Gold Member

I got to ski on me new-to-me '07 last fall and it was great. Now that I've got the steering wheel right-side-up, it'll probably be even better! But my boat isn't in the water yet; I skied off my regular ski partner @MikeT's boat.

 

My routine begins with as many sets of open water as I can stand, where I just crank back and forth at -28; drop to rest and/or turn around; and then repeat. I think this would be hard to do on a slalom-specific lake, but is easy on our public lake. And it has the further advantage that you can select whichever shoreline has the least wind -- pretty important in the early season before the leaves are on the trees to block some wind! At this early stage, I'm all about building strength and endurance that I'll need later.

 

Then sometimes I'll throw in -32 and even -35 on open water, trying to build strength and endurance. With my late start this year, I doubt I'll do that.

 

When we reach the temperature where it's tolerable to drop frequently, then we'll head into the course.

 

That begins with a week of nothing but -28s, although sometimes toward the end of that week I just have to "cheat" and do a couple of -32s in the middle. Then I'll slowly do a higher fraction of -32s until that feels good, at which point I'll toss in a couple of -35s. The routine now starts to look like mid-season a bit, with doubling up on -28, -32, -35. But I won't try -38 until a) my -35s are feeling really good, and b) the water is not freezing cold. That's typically in early June, but this year it may be a little later.

 

I think this slow ramp-up has some general value, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend quite THIS slow to everyone else. I am fighting two things: 1) freezing temperatures in the early season and 2) low strength and durability. So I really need to take my time. It can be really annoying at times -- I feel like every season I am completely starting over even after a good off-season in the gym. But before I know it I'm back banging my head on -38 and every so often getting laughed at heartily by -39.

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  • Baller_
Finally got back on the course here. Air 85. Water in the low to mid 60s (depending on which end of the lake). It will be a while to get back into skiing shape and I think the weather will be a bit up and down yet.

The worst slalom equipment I own is between my ears.

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