Cross country skiing

There's something I've been wanting to try all Winter- cross country skiing. It didn't happen when we lived here before. But we are both a lot fitter now. My cardio strength is pretty good and so cross country skiing seems like the perfect supplement to swimming in the Winter (like going for a run).

Winter is going to end soon and we didn't want to miss the opportunity. Personally, now that the weather  is warmer I hope that Winter lasts another month or so. A good month of -10 weather followed by a rapid transition to +10/15 in April, would be perfect. The annoying weather is when temps hover around 0 to plus 5 during the day and everything melts and gets dirty, but turns to ice overnight. I would happily skip the "grazniy sezyon"- dirty season.

I had tried to find out about cross country skiing once before. I found a little building where students get skis. But I was effectively chased off by an old man who persecuted me for being a foreigner. Another thing that kept me from going by myself is that I have never tried it before and I didn't want to go alone the first time. Taking Melody with me was an important first step, not to mention a lot of fun to do some exercise together. This sadly is not that easy as we have to get a babysitter to do so.

Now that I have tried it with Melody's instruction the first time round, I am sure I can go on my own next time.

Over all cross country skiing is easier than down hill skiing, but I think it is also more exercise. We started out in the "stadium". Perhaps a bit more practise there first would have been good before heading off into the forest. The first path we took into the forest took an upward incline, and I the absolute novice was stuck pretty quickly, at first I was sliding backwards, and then when we finally decided to turn around I was falling over on the way down. I was a bit discouraged at this point.

But then we found a flatter path and made our way back to the stadium for some more practice. The next attempt in the forest was on a slighter incline and a more successful jaunt.

 Finally getting the hang of it now.

Following our journey into the forest we went back to the stadium and did several laps of the stadium for the pure exercise and sport of it. It felt great to do some real exercise outside. Aside from the reasons given earlier, the deep cold spell in the middle of Winter kept us off the course. Two weeks of the flu for the whole family followed the cold spell and this kept us off again. But now that the deed is done I hope that we get to go several more times before the snow melts. I'm not actually in a hurry for Spring to come. The good thing is that this is all very local for us too, and cheap. :)

This guys shows us all "how it's done".