Opinion poll/quiz of the day:

Poll #1523201 Eurodif
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14

"Eurodif" is:

What do you think "Eurodif" is/makes/does?

Did you actually know the correct answer to that?

It's been relatively warm recently, no real cold weather. Still, it's not exactly the season for kayaking on the Milwaukee River:

( ice )

Ever watch TV news? This is the template for every story.

So. Totally. Me.
( Frazz )

Speed skater Andrew Love has made a lot of skating videos, some of them compilations of action set to music.

Blackbird is set to the well-known song of that title, video from the 2006 US National Championships, held here in Milwaukee on the ice that I'm skating much, much, much more slowly on.

King of Pain is an appropriate title for any sort of serious athletic activity. Though I can't hear that song without thinking of a somewhat different one, the King of Suede.

Not so much music here:
What it looks like to do a fairly fast lap with the US national team. The straightaways are 100 meters. Go ahead and count seconds, 50 km/hr would be 7.2 seconds. I've had three lessons so far in speed skating, if you saw me I'd be going maybe a quarter that speed, then at the end I'd trip over myself and make friends with the pads surrounding the ice.

I'm just back from a short walk through the woods. Clear sky, -16°C air temperature, approximately full moon high overhead, Orion high in the sky, the Seven Sisters shining--or maybe five of them in the hardly-black moonlit sky. Even after the warmth and rain last week the ground is mostly snow covered and reflective, the trees are bare and cast little shade, and it's not dark out at all with the moonlight. The cold dry winter sky is hardly black with all the moonlight but is still clear and the brighter stars show clearly. Even though, as I always say, it's just waste and pollution, the smoke rising from each chimney on each roof of the row of buildings is pretty. It takes a lot more clothing to be comfortable at -16°C walking than it does when skiing (cold weather makes for fast skiing I always say, because the harder you work the warmer you'll be, and on a good cold night that means going very fast!) but it's easy enough to dress for comfortable walking. (Medium wool socks and fairly ordinary boots, the heavy thermal pants under ordinary jeans, sweater, light jacket under the outer jacket, thin glove liners and heavy gloves, a neck gaiter that's probably not really needed, and hat with headband under it for complete ear coverage. For skiing I might use the same heavy fleece pants with tights over them, just the light underjacket alone over a warm shirt, and much thinner gloves over the liners. That's plenty if the heart rate will average in the 140s and peak in the 180s.)

Joyce took some photos of me running the Instep Icebreaker 1/2 marathon. A few below, a few more on her flirckr page

( photos )

The Instep Icebreaker Indoor Half Marathon was this morning. My time was 2:00:19. This was my first organized formal race of any distance in any sport. That's about five minutes faster than my best time at the 21.1km distance in training. It was a lot of fun. And for some reason I'm really tired. The people who just can't get enough have the Gold Medal Challenge, the half marathon today followed by the full marathon tomorrow. There was also a relay marathon today, I know at least one person did that and the half and will do the full. I'm just not quite up for that... While we were running a few of the members of the US Olympic long-track speed skating team were training on the ice. All around a great event, if you are looking for a marathon or half marathon at the end of January in the Milwaukee-area, this is the event for you. The weather indoors is always perfect, about 10°C. Outside today: Cold rain and fog. Good day for an indoor event!

I went skiing at Pike Lake on Saturday. It's a nice place in the summertime, and while it's not the best skiing area around it's fun to go to occasionally. There was some sort of unusual weather condition right in that area the previous night, and the trees were covered with ice crystals. It was very pretty. The ground was white, the sky was white, the air itself was slightly white with thin haze, and the trees were covered with white. A low-contrast wonderland. Photos below, there are more on flickr.

( photos )

I had intended to go to the ice center yesterday after going to the library, but it was beautiful and sunny and clear out, and a reasonably comfy -10°C or so, and I ended up spending the whole afternoon walking around the city and in the parks near Lake Michigan. (Photos!)

At night I went out for another walk (which ended up being 7.2 km and 1:20) mostly on my local path through the woods, also partly through the local neighborhood where most of the Christmas lights are still up. The sky was clear, Orion was high overhead, the nearly full moon lit the snow covered ground. I saw a jet with all the strobe lights flashing leaving a short contrail that the moonlight lit. The temperature had dropped to -17°C, and I was a bit overdressed for it, but that's easy to remedy.

( photos )

The snow is not quite as dramatic as the forecasts, but there is indeed snow out there. I was just out on the snowshoes for the first time this year, out around by the local river. The snow is not so deep that snowshoes are essential, but walking is indeed easier with them, and a step in a deeper soft spot is a lot less dramatic. It's pretty out there in the winter. The river isn't frozen over yet, so the sky is reflected in the rippling water.

The official report is plenty of snow at Lapham Peak, the park with the lighted ski loop, so I'll probably be headed there after work tomorrow. The snow should still be there, tomorrow's high temperature is forecast to be -15°C. That sort of thing is always fun. I've put the insulated tubing on the Camelbak.