You may wonder why a blog entitled, The Slat Rat Chronicles doesn't mention skiing. Seems a bit odd...
Well, my cross country skiing is on an indefinite, very long term hiatus. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has thumped me to the point where I no longer have the strength to ski. Even easy classical skiing is probably out of the picture - although, I will say that I'm not quite ready to give up on that yet...
Not only is lack of strength an issue, but my under performing immune system is also a bit of a boat anchor. My Natural Killer Cell function is between 13 and 17. A healthy person's NK function is up around 50-80 or higher. The only folks with NK functions in my range are individuals with AIDS, CFIDS, or cancer. For the past three or four years, every single time I try to start working out or skiing on a regular basis, I get very ill within one to two weeks. It is my goofy theory that taxing aerobic exercise just overwhelms my wimpy immune system. So until we can improve my immune system's performance, I should not ski.
Clem and I also really miss skijoring. Clemmie and I used to be one hot skijoring team - we regularly won middle distance races: five to eight kilometers. Clemmie was extremely competitive, very fast and strong - over short distances. But she pooped out after about 8K. So we didn't do the longer distance races. Clem says she didn't poop out, she just got tired of hauling me up the hills!!!
Clemmie has a completely blown left ACL so she can't run much at all any more and skijoring is definitely out of the question. So we both hit the wall at the same time. At least we cooperated on the timing front. But, skijoring stories, such as today's great article in the Anchorage Daily News, generate big time nostalgia attacks.
However, both Clemmie and I still absolutely live for snow!!!!! So, currently, we are two very happy snow bunnies!
2:28:04 PM 
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