As a CU student, I always took great pride and joy in the fact that my first ski day of the year came before Thanksgiving. Sure, it was usually a half-day spent getting my ski legs back on a handful of groomers the resort of my choice was actually able to open, but it was one of those small luxuries of living close to such excellent skiing.
When I moved back to the East Coast, I thought those days were gone.
But last year, I started a new tradition: the Thanksgiving-break ski day.
I’m smiling because I’m skiing before Thanksgiving. Whee! November 2011.
With family members still living in the Boulder-Denver area, we have good reason to head back that way for the holidays. So last year and this year both, I squeezed an early-season ski day into our already-rushed, overbooked holiday travel schedule. This year, that meant meeting up with our friend Lauren, who patrolled with us at Whitetail for the past two years, at her other patrol-home, Loveland. She introduced us to members of her Loveland Ski Patrol “family,” waited patiently as we huffed and puffed up any slight incline (did I mention Loveland’s base elevation is more than 10,000 feet, with a summit elevation of more than 13,000 feet?), and reminded us how great it is to have our own patrol “family,” which now spans multiple states and resorts. 
The super-chill, early-season ski day also left me super-motivated to continue my pre-ski-season workouts, which I’ve been doing for months. Though there’s not much a girl can do to prep her lungs for altitude changes or her feet and shins for ski boots, I’m proud to say that my TRX classes and strength/agility workouts left my legs feeling awesome all day.
Do you have an active Thanksgiving tradition—a ski day, turkey trot, family hike or other activity?
Amy Reinink 
Jealous of the slope day!
We always run the Alexandria Turkey Trot 5 Miler – it’s flat and fast so you can race like a banshee or just cruise easy. Then, the day after Thanksgiving we go with a bunch of Happy Trails runners to Shenandoah National Park for a day of trail running the “greatest hits” of the park. It’s perfect.
What awesome traditions! I LOVE that turkey trot, by the way—it’s my favorite in the DC area.
You were IN MY BACKYARD and didn’t say hi. Hrrmph.
I KNOW … I’m a terrible friend. Our holiday trips usually involve blowing off a wide variety of friends so we can spend time with our family members, so you can consider yourself part of our holiday tradition! (Har, har, har). Seriously, now that I know you’ll be in Erie, it’ll be super-easy to meet for a run, or swim, or drink!
Yay! So glad you made it out!
No traditions for me, unless you count the “Guess which gate the train to D.C. will be boarding” game in Penn Station on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. 🙂