According to Carleton’s weather station, the temperature at two this afternoon was about +5°F, with windchills in dipping down past -10°F.
This is undeniably cold, but with the City of Lakes Loppet coming up in a week and a half, I needed to do one last long ski this afternoon – at least a couple hours, and at least the race distance (25km or 15 miles). Well before the temperatures went all Irkutsk on us, I’d chosen today for that long ski.
Since waiting would do me no good – at least in a race-readiness sense – I emptied my workout-clothing drawers after I saw the forecast, and then this afternoon I just did it – 2:44:38 total time and 31km total distance. Except for the first five minutes, when I was just out of the warm car, I wasn’t cold at all. In fact, the only time I shivered was when I got home and failed to change out of my sweaty clothes fast enough.
That’s all to say that good clothing beats bad weather any day. Here are all 22 items I wore on my ski:
- ski boots
- “expedition” weight ski socks
- polypropylene sock liners
- heavyweight long underwear baselayer bottoms*
- windbriefs*
- boxer briefs
- heavyweight ski tights*
- wicking t-shirt
- midweight thermal baselayer shirt*
- heavyweight outer jersey*
- windproof vest*
- balaclava mask*
- ski hat*
- thermal glove liners
- racing gloves*
- ski mittens*
(All the asterisked items were one or another brand of ski clothing, mostly the incomparable Craft, from Sweden.)