Geilo!

Normally, October 31 has meant a day of amassing a large amount of candy. This year however I have a more modest supply of candy (sent by my Pinkerton cousins, thanks a ton) and no one to offload my Woppers on. Instead this October 31 has been made special by my 7th ski of the year (0 at this time last year) and the half way point in the nordic training year.
First the skiing. In my upbringing the town of Geilo has had a special place as a symbol for skiing being more important than a certificate signifying perfect attendance. It is know as "The Place Where The Stigums Go No Further" due to my mom's many trips there as child and her having never gone any further on the train. I also feel confidant in saying that, after adjusting for obvious exaggeration, my mom spent approximately two times as many days in Geilo than she did in school during the winter years of her youth. I came to Geilo from the opposite direction, with no hope of matching my mom's stellar 2:1 ratio, and of course skiing both down and up the hills. The Geilo trip started on Friday with the 9:07 train from Voss that arrived in Geilo at 10:56 accompanied by heavy snow (there was a lot and it was really wet). We (me and 7 biathletes) made our way to the apartment we were renting for the weekend and soon embarked on a skate ski. The highlight of the original ski was easily skiing on the road which had been perfectly groomed by a plow.
We also headed out for a ski later in the day which was my first classic ski of the year and my first experience with a Norwegian "lighted loop". Having looked at the forecast and seen that klister was going to be the best option for the whole weekend I did not bring any with me as it is nordic sacrilege to use klister on ones first classic ski of the year, instead I used a little VR60 and a lot of tricep wax. Before I detail my experience with skiing under the lights I am going to describe the conditions and trail in Geilo. They had blown snow on one loop that was about 3 km long (total guestimate based on an ability to write the first number that came to mind with total confidence) and was rather steep with two large uphills and two large downhills (one of which was an s-turn). The snowblown loop was the only thing groomed and was mostly part of the larger lighted loop. The only two places that the lights did not cover where naturally the two big downhills. While I pride myself on gaining seconds on the downhills, skiing blindly down deeply rutted, unfamiliar s-turns is not s necessarily a skill I would put in my resume. Having survived this near death experience (assuming falling would have actually lead to my death, a slight exaggeration), I proceeded to make a training trip specialty, egg and bacon pasta, garlic bread, and Dole Family Pack salad. I can neither confirm nor deny whether I was asked if I was going to be Gordon Ramsay in the future (to my family that constantly disrespects my cooking ability I would like to say "take that unsubstantiated, noncommittal factment (fact and statement all in one = factment)"). (There is definitely something wrong with that end punctuation I just have no idea what.) The next two days involved a skate interval session, more tricep wax and s-turns at night, and a Norwegian attempt at Italian pizza (hint to Peppes Pizza, your italian pizzas should have names like Salsiccia Pizzaioli not Yellow Bird). Now I am back in Voss looking forward to some rainy roller skiing (sarcasm half intended, if you didn't get wet roller skiing in the rain would be awesome).