3,000 feet for breakfast

I work a full time job. I have aspirations as an athlete... an endurance athlete. The combination of these two facts frequently affect my sleeping patterns. At 4am this morning my alarm went off. Ugh. Snoqualmie hadn't gotten snow since Sunday, and it's been warm all week - perfect. My sole purpose was to get some vertical climbing under my belt on my new race skis, skins, and boots in preparation for ski mountaineering races this winter. I tried to regain the feeling of excitement I had the night before as I cut my skins, got my gear ready and practiced using my new Dynafit bindings, but it was a futile effort. The important thing is I got up anyway. I was skinning up Summit West by 5:50am in the dark and loving it. My race skis are sooo light! They're a pair of Piuma Trab 170cm, sidecut of 100-70-90 (yeah I know, but they're race skis!)... and my Gramont Mega Ride G-Fit boots feel like slippers they are so comfy.

My first two runs were in complete darkness.. add a little fog and you get a scary scene. I could only see about 4 feet in front of me as my headlamp just reflected back off the fog that enveloped the entire ski hill. I say hill because it's just over 747 feet of climbing from the bottom to the very top. However darkness and spotty snow coverage made it somewhat challenging. As the sun came up the fog burned off and it became a whole lot more enjoyable... well, as enjoyable as skinning up Summit West can be. I got in 3,000 feet of climbing this morning and made it to work on time - booyaa.

"Either you ran/biked/kayaked/skied today or you didn't."