Saturday (continued...):
so I caught the bus up to Kniebis and sat in the sun, reading my book 'Powercourse for Beginners: French' and talking to this nice german guy, while waiting for the race to start. I've decided that I want to start learning french! It was next on my list of languages I want to learn (french, spanish, dutch, mandarin), and I think I've got a fairly good grasp of german now, so it was time to start:) This book is really quite good, I'm already up to modal verbs and perfect past. Only problem is, I have no idea how to pronounce most of the words. The book (which is in german for even more fun:P) came with an audio CD, but I don't have a CD player with me, so I'm going to start with grammar and correct my mangled pronounciation (I tend to make the unfamiliar words sound italian:P) later:P

It kicked off at about 3:30. The competitors had already done a ski jumping contest in the morning and their strength in that discipline decided how long they had to wait after the first guy started before they could start. The guy who won the ski jumping (I think they said he's a national champ in his age group) was so far in front that he didn't have to ski hard at all to win. I thought he was retiring because of injury or something like that because he was going so slowly and no-one clapped for him lol. The younger kids did 5k to the accompaniment of much 'Hop!Hop!Hop!Hop!Hop!'ing as they passed the spectators, while the 16-19 year olds did 10k. Man they're fast! I timed one of them, and he did a 2.4km lap in 6.5 minutes, which is incredible!

I stayed just long enough that I screwed up the bus connection and would have had to wait 2 hours for the next one. It was getting dark and cold, and I really didn't feel like waiting, so I hitchhiked again. The first car I thumbed pulled over. Imagine my surprise when I heard 'I'm just going to Freudenstadt' (in english). My saviour was a 50ish year old Scottish woman with an amazing story. She was once a Rocket Scientist, working for NASA, until one day she had a Damascus Road Moment. She came into her house to discover a 1m wide rainbow reflected on her ceiling with no plausible explanation for its presence. That experience completely changed her life, and she travelled to Germany to study at this bible school in Kniebis, which her twin sister had recommended. It sounds a bit flimsy hearing it second hand, but believe me, she was absolutely rivetting. She's quite anti-clerical, but despite this, she's studying to become a woman pastor (which I thought was an excellent idea). She drove me all the way to Baiersbronn so we could continue the conversation, and we ended up sitting in the car outside a supermarket for about 20 minutes. It was truly an amazing experience, she would make such a good pastor! I'm glad to have met her, but I don't think I'm going to take her up on her invitation to come with her to Strassburg to this weekly bible study evening.

That night I went to Baiersbronn dance party venue: Bar Astoria. It was terrible. I got there at 9.15 or so, and apart from the barkeeper's girlfriend, who I followed in, there was no-one. Things didn't improve as the night went on. About 15 guys rocked up at about 10, drank red bull and vodkas and sheepishly danced with one another. I tried talking to a few of them, but they just weren't interested. I ended up leaving before 11 and swore I'd never go back. An expensive (3 euro entry, 2.50 per pot) yet lame night.

Sunday:
My knee was feeling better, so I went to Kniebis and did 45km. My calves were very sore for some reason, but after 7.5km they loosened up. It was a lot easier than last time, I wasn't tired afterwards and it took me over an hour less:) Marathon time was about 3:20.

Monday:
I got up earlyish and set off on a very slow jog. So slow that this old lady opened her window and asked me what was wrong:P After half an hour of that, I had breakfast, then lazed around for a while. I knew I should get moving if I wanted to go skiing, but I couldn't summon the effort. The reward for my laziness was getting to Freudenstadt at 2pm to discover that the next bus wasn't til 4pm haha. I decided to kill the time by going to Experimenta, Freudenstadt's equivalent of ScienceWorks. After about half an hour I finally found it, only to discover that it was closed on Mondays haha. So I ended up sitting in the sun, reading the french book. This very nervous german girl interrupted me at one point to give me a Valentines day survey and take my photo lol.

I finally got to Kniebis at about 4:30 and did 30km classic. I wasn't feeling very energetic, I'd double pole quite quickly on the flat bits, but as soon as I got to a hill, I'd revert to a plodding hairy leg because I couldn't be bothered diagonal striding properly. The Baiersbronn Ski Team had another of their practices at about 5:30. They did one lap extreeemely quickly, then did a little bit of technique drills and went home. It didn't seem like a very good training session to me. They were out there for less than an hour and didn't do anything that looked like it would build endurance. Oh well, it must work for them because I saw a few guys with jackets from the national team.

Caught the last bus home and got lectured by the bus driver for putting myself in danger for staying out that late and not having a girlfriend who would care if something did happen:P

Ate waaaaay too much for dinner and was in serious pain from my bloated stomach haha. I couldn't even watch TV because having my head in an upright position made it worse:P

Tuesday:
Very happy with today's results:) I went to Kniebis for a time trial and managed to do the 8 laps (which adds up to 19.2km not 20km as I once thought) in 1:12:34, a 17 minute PB from last week! Last week I started off with my fastest lap of 10:30, and today I managed to do every lap at least a minute faster than that! I'm chalking it up to improved fitness, but mainly to better technique. I've started using my arms a lot more effectively and the power from that means I go a lot faster with hardly any more effort. I think there are still a lot more gains to make from improved technique. My left ski still drags a bit and that must add up. I'm going to buy some rollerblades when I get back and go for a spin once a week to keep my technique in good shape.