I made the commitment to get out and exercise five days per week. A few of you might be privy to the fact that there is snow in Houghton. In fact, there is lots of snow in Houghton. You might be surprised to find that we had enough base to skate ski after only three days of snow. It’s still snowing.

I took the skis to Tech and waxed them in the chalet, yesterday. I ran out of Rex blue after dribbling it onto only one and half skis. For those of you who don’t wax your skis, Rex blue is the best wax for skiing in temperatures in the mid- to upper-teens. Well, having one half of a ski to do, I had to get creative.

I scraped some of the wax off of the first ski and melted the shavings onto the second ski. It took quite some while to carefully spread the wax along the base of the ski. I’m pretty sure there is a Finlander out there, somewhere, who is shaking his or her head at me for this feeble attempt to wax my skis. Nevertheless, I had myself on those skis and flying around the Tech Trails in only 45 minutes.

Okay. I wasn’t flying. I was still snail-pacing it, but at least I completed all of the green loops on the upper trails. It usually only takes me about 45 minutes to skate all of those trails, but it took me one hour and 20 minutes, yesterday. Yikes. At least I was out there.

I’m interested in reading about your early-winter experiences and how you are continuing to get your sanity trail time. Please share in the comments below.