Thoughts about…

XC Ski Season Comes to a Close

Hey everyone, welcome to my monthly newsletter. It’s May of 2025. I’m not yet back to work. I’ve got maybe another week, week and a half left before I start my summer job. In the meantime, I’ve been getting a lot of projects done. Unfortunately, I was sick for about a week and a half. I think I’m over it now. I don’t really notice too many symptoms. It was a cold or flu or something like that. Very annoying.

So, my cross-country ski season effectively came to a close. I made the call last week. I did log my 111th day. I figured that’s a good number to end on. I storage-waxed my remaining skis to put them into summer storage. Since that time, I’ve started to do a little bit of trail running and some hiking.

View of Lake Tahoe from Heavenly Ski Resort on April 2, 2025. © Jared Manninen

Being sick for that amount of time, which I don’t usually get sick, maybe once every year, once every two or three years, but I’m kind of a baby about getting sick because I don’t get sick that much. So I end up feeling sorry for myself, basically. I decided that’s a good indicator that I need to take better care of myself regarding long-term health-wise. So I started trail running and hiking a bit more consistently. And I’ve been getting feedback from a friend of mine about how to build slowly, but build for the long-term.

So that’s been really exciting for me because I haven’t done much trail running at all in the last few years. And I used to like running a lot. I’ve run a couple of marathons. Ever since high school, being in wrestling, fifth grade through my senior year I was running all the time for endurance and for keeping in shape and keeping the weight off. And the Marine Corps was a natural extension of that. We used to have to run our physical fitness tests. In theory, we were supposed to run 18-minute three miles, which would yield 100 points. I think my fastest time was about 19 minutes and some change, which is still a good pace. But I know I’m not there at this point in my life. It ain’t gonna be 18-minute, three-milers for me.

View of Caples Lake on April 3, 2025. © Jared Manninen

So I’m approaching this trail running experience as a long-term endeavor. And it’s just been fun because I don’t have a lot of that “young person” mentality that I have to push it every time I go out. In reality, you know, I’m putting into practice that idea of working smarter, not harder. That’s kind of the approach that I’m taking. Again, my friend has been helping me with this. So we’re approaching this running experience methodically in that I’m shooting for certain beats per minute and not going above that, so that I can keep a really – not low effort – but a moderate effort pace throughout this time. And it’s just fun because I’m pretty analytical and methodical in what I do. So having these mini-goals each time that I go out, whether I’m actually running or hiking, because at this point, it does feel like I can get my heart rate up pretty high just from hiking. So we’re just trying to keep between 120 and 140 at a normal pace. And then eventually, hopefully, make it so that 120 to 130 is my standard pace.

But getting sick really took a lot out of my momentum. It wasn’t the way I wanted to finish out the season. It kind of felt like I went out with a whimper, not a bang, as far as the cross-country season went. But if we’re in this thing for the long haul, I guess it’s all relative. There’s always a reason to stop doing stuff, but there’s always a reason to start. So here I go on this trail running experience.

View from Hope Valley on April 8, 2025. © Jared Manninen

The good thing about that, too, is that I’m not obsessing about doing Big Years, meaning I’m not obsessing about finding birds or finding wildflowers and plants. Even though this year is a Tahoe Wildflower Big Year, and I am documenting some of the plant species that I find out there, I’d be doing that no matter what, whether it’s a Big Year or not. I just like documenting those type of nature observations. But on these trail running experiences, what’s kind of nice or kind of baked into this whole thing is that once my heart rate reaches 140 to 145, I am forcing myself to slow down, to walk, in order to let it drop to 120bpms. And then I start again. So, there’s a lot of walking involved and, like my friend told me, it’s going to take a handful of months in order to be able to run at that pace without having my heart rate spike. So it’s going to be frustrating, but for me, that just means I get to look a little bit closer at the plant and bird life. I do carry a point-and-shoot camera with a digital zoom so that I can document my nature observations. Basically, I’m making this whole thing work for me.

View of Kirkwood Ski Resort on my last day of winter work on April 13, 2025. © Jared Manninen

Speaking of documenting nature, I spent the last two weeks “digitizing” the presentation that I gave at the South Lake Tahoe Library on March 25th that was about my 2024 Tahoe Big Year experience. So that’s available now. Is it the best thing ever? Probably not, but it’s a pretty good video if you want to know a little more about doing these Big Years. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea because it is about birds, and not everyone’s down with birds. But, for me, the birds, the wildflowers, the plants, the trees … learning about this stuff has made my outdoor experience so much more worthwhile and rewarding. I actually have developed a good body of knowledge so that I know what I’m looking at nowadays. And it’s very exciting to me because I get to experience nature from this point of view in addition to doing those strenuous trail runs or those high octane cross-country downhill experiences. It’s just, again, another way of appreciating the outdoors.

View from Heavenly Ski Resort on April 17, 2025. © Jared Manninen

So, like I said, I made a video of that presentation and what I essentially did was to capture the audio from the presentation, and then I synced up my photos of all the birds that I saw in 2024 to that audio file. So it’s like you’re getting to see the actual presentation of when I was giving it. However, you just don’t get to see me! It’s just a bunch of photos of birds the whole time. So it’s something you could just listen to, but I do encourage you to watch it because I got some nice photos! If you have any interest in birding, especially if you have interest in birding in Tahoe, it’s now a good resource. But, yeah, that was a long process because I logged 221 birds in 2024 and I had to edit and insert all of those bird photos, label them, add a bunch of overlays with text and other parts to clarify certain things that I said. Then, probably the biggest task I had to accomplish was to transcribe the audio file. I do use software to help with the voice-to-text transcription, but I still have to edit it. And the video is about an hour and 10 minutes, so it’s long. I mean, the presentation was a full house with 70+ people in attendance, so I did the actual presentation and then answered questions at the end. So take a look at that, and let me know what you think.

Cross-country skiing at Grass Lake on April 18, 2025. © Jared Manninen

With that, I’m gonna sign off. Again, I realized this isn’t an essay. Rather, it’s more of an update, but this is essentially how I live my life. I’m always trying to build into my life better practices so that I can enjoy a better daily quality of life. And sometimes I just need to put all of those new processes into place. I need to get into a rhythm before I can sit down and share any bits of wisdom I may have gained from those changes. You know, I only have so much head space that I can devote to certain things. So, again, I do apologize for not having a true essay this month. But I hope you watch my video about the Tahoe Big Year because it is kind of like an essay. Take care, everyone!

Even though I’m not doing Tahoe Big Years in earnest anymore, I still like to photograph nature 🙂

I’ve put away all of my cross-country skis for the season. Here are the final xc ski-related videos that I made last month.

At some point, I’ll take up roller skiing again. In the meantime, however, I’m content with hiking and trail running. I’m just trying to stay active as much as possible!

Thanks for being a part of my life. Until next time…

-Jared Manninen

Tahoe Trail Guide is an online resource for hiking, backpacking, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing in the Lake Tahoe region. In addition to trail data, I offer backcountry “how-to” articles and information about the local and natural history of Tahoe. Tahoe Swag is a collection of art and design products I create based on my love of the outdoors and appreciation for Lake Tahoe and the surrounding Sierra Nevada Mountains.

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