That isn’t a question that you want someone to ask you.  And that is a question some PT/massage therapist asked me out of blue yesterday when I was skiing from the North End to Hayward.

It all started great.  We had a plan to meet up with Stacie and Karl, then head south to Hayward.  Trudi was going to drive the van down there and ski North.  The snow was pretty great, which means stable for me, and the k’s were going by pretty quickly.

When I got to OO, I was a few minutes ahead of Bill and Karl, so I went into the warming hut to try to stay warm.  I was sitting there, just for a couple minutes, when they showed up.  A guy in the warming hut knew Karl and started talking.  Then his buddy started talking to us.  He was saying that there was a fatbike race going on and that it was 100 miles long or something.

Next thing I know, his eyes get a little big and he just reaches over and grabs my shoulder.  He says that it’s the worst shoulder he’s ever seen and wanted to know if it “even worked”.  He asks me if I could ski.  I say to him that it’s been doing pretty good here and ask him what he sees that makes him concerned.  He said it was pivoted wrong and folded in.

Anyway, he pushed around on my back alittle and once again said he was amazed the shoulder even worked somewhat.  That was kind of depressing.

He sent me a text with a phone number of some guy in Texas that is supposed to be a shoulder God physical therapist.   I thought I was past that point.  And in reality, I thought my shoulder was working pretty great, considering.

The IPC Nordic World Ski Championships (Para Skiers) is in 3 weeks here in Cable.  Skiers from 18 countries are going competing.  I’m wondering if I’m crippled enough to compete?  Probably not I guess.

Anyway, it gives me something to think about.  I have to say that the skiing the last week has been exactly the right thing I needed to be doing for both my shoulders and hip.  Everything has held up pretty great and nothing was aching much.  We skied over 40 km yesterday and it felt pretty easy.  I wasn’t really tired and felt pretty good.  It is amazing what a little grooming will do to make the conditions a lot easier.

We’re packing up and heading south today.  It is supposed to be cold everywhere, but really cold here on Sunday.  Like a high of -8 and a low of in the -20’s.  Plus, we need to start making our way down to Austin for cyclocross Nationals next weekend.

Karl and BIll skiing up to the high point on the Birkie trail yesterday.

And hanging at OO 1/2 way through.

At the North End warming hut before we left.

Yesterday was a strange day.  It started pretty tame.  We got loaded up after spending a great week with Dennis, getting in some great skiing and nice walks in the woods.  Bill, Trudi, Bromont and I were all in my van, with Bill’s car at the MSP airport parking, left there by the Walberg’s, who left on New Year’s Day.

We stopped in Spooner, at Alley Cats Coffee, then headed south to Minneapolis.  We didn’t have any problem finding Bill’s car and then we kept going south on I-35.  I had been trying to get ahold of Michael Fatka, since we were driving through Ames around dinner time, but hadn’t been having much luck.

About an hour North of Ames, Trudi’s phone rang and it was Ed Bauman, the guy that pretty much got me into the sport of bike racing.  Ed lives in El Segundo, CA, and is about as hard to find as a Ivory-billed woodpecker sometimes.  Ed had been MIA for a couple months and it was good hearing his voice.

Then about 45 minutes later, Michael calls, right when we’re at the Ames interstate exit and tells me Tim Hinz, a good friend and former Levis team mate, is in Ames too.  So we arrange to meet them at Panera and exit.  Michael showed up a few minutes later, then Tim.

It got me a little worried talking to Ed, seeing Michael, plus Tim, nearly the same time.  I’m just a little superstitious, enough that something felt either in align or misaligned, I wasn’t sure.  But, it seems like a weird trifecta of odd occurrences.  We sat there about an hour talking and then headed south.

I knew the weather was going to get bad.  I got a text from Vincent saying that I-70 was closed, nearly the whole way across the state of Kansas.  Luckily, we weren’t driving on it much.

Just about at Kansas City, about an hour from my house, it started sleeting pretty good.  Plus, the temperatures was hovering just around freezing.  Pretty soon, it was all out snowing with the temperatures plummeting.  Pretty much all the way from Kansas City to Topeka, on I-70, it was ugly.  I’m not sure how slick it actually was, but it looked pretty icy.

Exiting at Topeka, it became apparent how bad it was.  It was solid ice with a thin layer of snow on top.  Any little hill became nearly impassible.   Bill crept to our house to get his stuff out of the van and then headed home.  It was around 11:30.  I felt super stressed out, my shoulder and neck muscles were toast.   I was super happy I didn’t have any farther to drive.

It took a little bit to empty the van in the snow.  I then went down to the building to shovel and put salt on the sidewalks.  I’m not big on throwing a bunch of salt down, but it was solid ice under snow, which makes for pretty horrible footing.  I finally got to bed around 2:30am.

We’re here for a day, then driving south to Austin with Vincent.  That is, of course, depending on whether Vincent can get here from Denver today.  I’m sure I-70 is much better than last night, but it can be pretty ugly in these conditions.  Vincent has a new Sprinter, which, I assume, isn’t that great on ice in high winds.

Okay, I’m hunkered in for the morning.  There is a cyclocross, The Soudal Classic at Leuven, live in an hour, at 8 am CST.  .  Click here for the links.   KU is playing basketball later this afternoon.  I might ride inside during the game.

Other than that, I”m just going to sort and wash some clothes, then repack for the next week in Texas.

The gang back together at Panera.

Tim, Michael and Pete, Michael’s new dog.

Mena, BIll’s dog, ready to leave Cable.

Trudi and Bromont were tired from their morning romp in the Northwoods.

Alley Cats, my all time favorite coffeshop, in Spooner, Wisconsin.

Upon arriving back in Topeka, it was super ugly.