Siberian Math

"Hi Mom! We didn't get any exercise today!" express
Max & Zorro as they climb this tall snow pile to greet
Nancy at the end of our run.

Today's outing was a lesson in "Siberian Math" or "how much exercise did we really get?"

Our outing covered 8.4 miles with 6.4 of the miles on a single track trail that prevented the Siberians from jogging shoulder-to-shoulder. So, we spent 6.4 miles in our single file skijoring configuration with Max & Zorro splitting time in lead versus jogging in second position.

Now, with single file skijoring, the guy in front is doing double duty as he is running in lead and pulling the gangline taut to haul the human (so, in essence, the guy in front is doing all the work). The guy in second is jogging behind his brother with a loose gangline.

We have a had a long-standing saying that a Siberian jogging with a loose gangline is actually resting & recharging! That is, unencumbered jogging is really just resting for them. I have seen this again and again: the guy jogging in second slot, with a loose gangline, is actually resting while jogging.

Ok, follow the logic of this... Jogging in second position in single file skijoring is really just resting, not working. Now, our outing today was 2 miles of shoulder-to-shoulder skijoring (everyone working) and 6.4 miles of alternating single file skijoring (one Siberian working). Thus, each Siberian really worked for 2 plus 3.2, or 5.2, miles of the outing. "HEY! We only worked for 5.2 miles - what a ripoff of an outing! We want MORE!" exclaim Max & Zorro after applying Siberian Math and determining that there was no reason to stop "so soon" today :-)

Max in lead as we cruise along. Notice Zorro is airborne - this tells you that we actually go
pretty fast in a single file configuration. On flat or slight incline/decline terrain, we can
easily maintain an 8 MPH moving average with bursts over 12 MPH. That is pretty
fast for such a tight configuration.

Zorro in lead, Max resting as we jog along.

We had about 2 miles of shoulder-to-shoulder terrain as shown above.

An interesting 8.4 mile outing today with 950 feet of elevation climbed but only a measly 5.2 miles of work for each Siberian - you have got to love Siberian Math!