Head Kore 93 Test

Yep, I went up to the mountains last Monday. So much for laying off skiing for a while. That's just me, an impatient self. But I did manage to contain my enthusiasm. There wasn't much to contain, actually. The spark is gone and skiing is now more meditative than exciting. So I did 3 sessions of mostly green slopes and some easy blues and then came back home.  I still struggled afterwards. It's not a total crap out, but a nagging drag with 2 bad days within the mandatory 3 day recovery period.

It's same story over and over again. For a month or so, the novelty of a new activity boosts my exercise tolerance. Then, things go back to normal and I struggle. I'll just have to cut back on skiing for the rest of the season: instead of 3 sessions of greens and blues, make it 2 sessions of mostly greens. That's about half as hard and half as much as skiing #8, the hardest one that took me to crud and moguls. I'll get back to hard skiing at the beginning of the next season after rotating with biking and hiking for the summer.

The Head Kore skis are definitely stiffer and faster than the beginners pair it replaced. It carried enough speed off Christmas Tree slope to the chair, I actually had to break hard to stop. It doesn't have any metal layer, so I expected more flex and less speed than, say, Volkl Mantra M5. No such a thing. The speed may have contributed to the aftermath despite the relatively easy day of skiing.

I'm going back next Monday again. The mountains is supposed to get dusted with snow up to half a foot over the weekend, cross fingers, and I got a new jacket to test. Two, as a matter of fact. I first bought Columbia Cushman which was so comfortable and warm as well as stylish. I tried it at REI and instantly fell in love, even though I was actually looking for a more versatile shell that I can layer and also double as a rain jacket. And one happen to be on sale on Amazon so I bought it. Then I bought Marmot Minimalist jacket, a Gore Tex shell that I was originally looking for. Now I'll have to go back to the mountains to test them out.

HEAD Kore 93 Skis

Well, here they are, bindings mounted and boots clipped in. Aren't they a beauty? In all likelihood, I'll fail to rein in on my enthusiasm and end up skiing hard on them the next time. I hope the shiny new things will bring back the novelty effect, at least for one more time, and spare me from the post-skiing struggle. The mountain is dry for now -- it has been the driest February ever in California's history with zero precipitation -- so I'll have to wait till the next storm to find out.

Novelty Effect, All Gone

I'm not getting the post-exercise high anymore. For the last 2 skiings, I went straight into funk and dizziness without the dopamine high the next day. Skiing #10, half blue and half green, resulted in 3 days of struggle out of 4. Skiing #11, an exact replica of  #1, was mostly green and I still ended up with one bad day. It's as if my exercise tolerance to skiing has been lowered along with the fading novelty effect.

I'll have to lay off skiing for a while and go back to walking and biking. Switching to different exercises for a while may bring back the novelty effect. Like the 2 mile walk on 2/1 that was surprisingly refreshing and pleasant. Maybe rotating to different exercises a month at a time is the answer.

I finally got a new pair of skis just as the novelty effect from skiing faded away.  OutdoorXL in the Netherlands had Head Kore 93, the Ski Mag's top choice, in my size and on sale. Paired with Atomic MNC 13 bindings, it should be a keeper for the rest of my life. UPS trashed it though and half of the bindings went missing during the transportation. They are sending me a new one. I'll test-drive it after a new storm hits the mountain. That'll be at least 2 weeks away as the Norcal is now in a dry pattern.

Analysis of Skiing #1 Through #9

Here is what the after-effect of skiing looks like:

The skiing is categorized into two: easy and hard. Easy ones are colored yellow and hard ones red. Any day that included Disney is labeled hard because all runs off Disney, including Pony Express, is steep and long. Mistle Tow off Christmas Tree is also steep, but it is only about half as long. And all runs I did off Judah/Jerome are long but not as steep. (You can find the trail map here).

The health level is similarly catagorized, with good days in yellow and bad days in red.

We see that easy skiing resulted in 3 or more good days out of 4. On the other hand, hard skiing resulted in 2 or more bad days. More specifically, the days that included 2 Disney runs back to back resulted in 3 or more bad days where as 1 Disney resulted in only 2 bad days. The skiing #8, which was the hardest of all, wasn't a back-to-back Disney, but it did include the moguls. (The black and blue Disney left me, well, black and blue.)

The skiing #9, which meant to be an easy one, included 2 Disney. That explains the failure to replicate skiing #6 and 7 for "soft landing".

So, it's rather obvious that my limit is green and easy blue slopes. I may be able to get away to 3 sessions of 8 runs each on those. Whatever I do, I'll have to avoid Disney runs, which are both long and steep, like a plague from now  on.

No Soft-landing

The temperature reached 70F on Saturday.  I had to take the advantage of the warm weather. I finally gathered my wits in the afternoon after wallowing in fatigue since the skiing #9 and went out for a 2 mile walk. I haven't done long walk for a while and it felt good. The novelty effect must've kicked in.

So, it turned out to be 3.5 day struggle. No soft landing, in other words. Dopamine didn't kick in either. Instead, I got so dizzy the day after, I almost fell over the coffee table. I went straight into PEM without the dopamine kick. The post exercise high has been steadily going down with each skiing and there is none now.

Spending several days out of a week wallowing in fatigue and ache is getting too disruptive. It's like I'm back in the old days of CFS. I have a life to live, I'll have to cut down on skiing. So no more weekly skiing. I'll give it a rest for another week, and then retry skiing #6 and 7 one more time to reproduce soft landing. Then it will be bi-weekly skiing at the most.