Some of you know that I am living on the East Coast these days. (When I was in the Cities, I was the most prolific poster of trail reports on Skinnyski ever, which became a blog of its own, which had race reports, which became BirkieGuide.com, and then when I moved out east I made my own trail report site because one didn’t exist.) Despite marginal snow conditions in Boston, we’ve had enough snow up north that I’ve been getting some good training in (70-90k most weekends) and keeping up down in the city with November Project and manmade snow.

This weekend, however, I’m coming to the Cities for the Loppet. When I found out that you could ski two marathons for $130 and there was a ski orienteering race to boot, I was in. When I found a $175 roundtrip airfare, the deal was that much sweeter. The only option here is a three hour drive to the Craftsbury Marathon, again relegated to a 12.5k lap race. I’ll fly three hours, and race all weekend. And I mean all weekend: in 26 hours, I’ll race more than 90k. A little warming up and cooling down and I’ll have that elusive 100k weekend yet!

Which brings me to something that’s hard for me to do: tapering. Usually, I’ll run/November Project two to three days a week, and ski most evenings. Sometimes I’ll even drive a couple hours in the evening to ski real trails and hills. This week, I am having to limit myself. This afternoon, for instance, I did not go for a run. Wednesday, I’m not waking up early to do stairs. Friday, I’m probably going to take the day off. Isn’t that crazy?

So, tapering. It’s a thing! And after this weekend, it’s just three weeks to Birkie. So I’ll have to do it again then, too.

(Which brings me to some weather speculation: the next 16 days—more than half the time to the Birkie—on the GFS model show temperatures staying between -20 and +20. No real snow, but also no melt. It could be old, cold snow at this race. Thanks, #PolarVortex.