Big storm scheduled to roll through starting tonight and going all the way through Tuesday. Unfortunately the weather guys are saying that the first half will be rain which in my opinion is a really bad deal. It's February and it should be snow. Not much we can do about it so let it happen.

Al Kraft who I have noted on this blog a number of times works at Meritcare in Fargo. I am not exactly sure of his title, but I do know that he is a wizard at Exercise Physiology. Long story short, he had asked Tom Smith (IPC Cycles, Fargo) and I to assist in a lab assigned with Concordia College students. Tom is in the photo doing his VO2 test and looking like the man on the moon. I did the test right before Tom and looked the same way. Very tough due to your nose being plugged and you have to breath through a mouth piece hooked to a tube. You start out on a treadmill at a pre tested speed that goes up a half mile an hour on the minute. the test only lasted 9 minutest but it was tough. Not exactly sure how all of the numbers stack up, but you are breathing into monitoring equipment that measures your O2 levels along with how much volume your lungs consume. My lay person results were that my VO2 max was 54.4 percent and that I move 5 liters of air a minute - for what it is worth........ After being in Grand Forks at a North High swim meet all day, I decided to participate in the luminary ski out at Buffalo River State Park. The conditions were very icy, but I enjoyed the great weather, almost full moon and big bonfire. Lots of work goes into making the luminaries and setting them up which I appreciated.
I did not win any parent of the year points this morning - Ben had a swim meet in West Fargo for the Gators that I should have supported. The weather was scheduled to be prefect for skiing so I was cleared by Ben and went to Maplelag with Linda, Carbon, Gerber and Struchy.

The sign above is for two of my favorite legs at Maplelag. Newly Glasford will know just what I mean. I skied classic all day in preparation for the upcoming Finlandia Ski Race in Bemidji this coming weekend. For those who ski Maplelag, I was able to do North Loop, Roys Run, jumped on Sukerbusch over to Bullhead Lake and finished up with Sukerbusch and Sap Run - 24.35K total. Should have could have hit 25K but did not want to jinx myself for the whole distance to be skied at the race. One of those days that were just right! I put Blue Extra on when I started with a 20 degree temp but should have put Red on when I was finished because it was over 30 degrees. Lots of arm work today which I will feel tomorrow.