Racing last night may not have been the smartest thing in the world, but I had to cement my first place in the standings over the huge women's field of Tuesday night racers. I definitely did not have the pep in my legs that I'd had last week, and after getting dropped from the lead pack (it was clear they'd waxed their skis, those cheaters), I did not relish the idea of skiing alone for the remaining four laps, so I looked for Anna, and we worked together at the front of the second pack for the rest of the race. I think we were stringing it out pretty good, because there were no challengers for position or people trying to get between us.
The snow was in fairly good condition, considering that it had been raining all day. It was the sugar-slush for which Weston is famous, and it got pretty deep in some places. I was not skiing very smoothly, wasting a lot of energy in some places trying to stay light and quick on top of the slush, and I think Anna was skiing a lot better through it. We traded leads for a while, but I could tell I wasn't moving very fast when I was in front, because she would come back around me relatively soon. Coming down the hill to the finish, Anna was in front, so I drafted her for all I was worth and tried to slingshot around, which might have worked had I had the power to actually V2 fast. It came down to a slush-flail-fest to the finish, and we more or less tied, neither of us knew who had won it, so I figured that since she'd pulled more, she won. Wooo competitiveness, it's quite the throwdown between us cut-throat girls. HA. I was impressed how many people were racing who had also done Craftsbury--I know I'm still feeling the effects of that slog.
This weekend is at least one of the VT Eastern Cups. Mass Start 10k skate, it could be fun as it could be chaos. Not that chaos isn't fun... Here's to hoping my post-race hack goes away before then.
4 comments:
wait wait wait....Prospect is holding a MASS START skate race? Are they out of their minds? They don't have the snow or the open starting field to even consider doing that, at least for an EC sized race.
Well, I'm not going to start bashing Prospect, but lets just say that I'm glad to be seeded near the front this year. Hopefully the course will go to the top of the alpine mountain and back down. Twice.
I just looked at the course map...the start will be interesting to say the least, DP up a sizeable hill...then a pretty sharp narrowing. Then a whole lot of rolling flat, some ups on boomerang, and a great big downhill down steffen, then a really tough lame uphill on the other side of the alpine mountain and then do it all again.
That is their typical course. Mass start up the hill is good, it quickly weeds it down so that the narrow holeshot becomes doable.
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