Final Eastern Cups

The last three Eastern Cups have gone by in a blur. We were at Rikert the weekend before Masters, and then Craftsbury the weekend after. I only did the skate race at Rikert, knowing I'd be needed for waxing at the classic sprint. Plus, conveniently, I don't really enjoy classic sprinting the way I enjoy skate sprinting. Fun to watch lots of my skiers qualify for the heats and move through them with aplomb. 

Rikert

Sunday's individual start 10k was one of those races that's just sort of meh. I didn't have good energy, and made up a lot of my time on the downhills, which were icy and sketchy enough to scare other people. Really enjoyable and ripping fast skis. 

Ed on the wax team, at both Rikert and Craftsbury ECs.

I started third bib. I wanted the first lap to feel in control, so consciously backed off on some of the hills. I could definitely feel the accumulated fatigue from last week at work and yesterday's classic sprint insanity, and my quads didn't really like the idea of going up hill. The downhills were insanely awesome, I was carrying so much speed through the bottom of the hills it was just not fair. I had a pretty empty course through loop 1, my 15-s girl visible and slowly getting closer. I caught her on the long climb, and stayed behind for a bit before finally going around at the top, to give myself clear snow before the downhills. That worked and I opened a bit of a gap, passing my 30s girl too.

Second lap I sort of wished the race were over already. I let myself push harder on the uphills, and my legs protested harder. I came through just after a Mansfield gal was starting, and that was a nice motivation to catch her. Some traffic this lap, but I was still finding space on the downhills to do my thing with confidence. I was on a such a high, just knowing that everywhere I went, I was leading the race. Go me! But that didn't erase the fatigue.

Third lap I was totally done. Tried to keep moving but I was dropping seconds right and left. Skidded a little of the icy corner at the top of loop 1, but still came out of the hill with a ton of speed. Had to do a lot more V1 up the long hill on loop 2, just unable to keep the speed up in V2, arms and shoulders and quads and hips just totally trashed. I managed to put in a pathetic little surge over the top of the final hill and keep my space, avoiding taking out the girl who was on her butt on the next icy corner, and did what I could into the finish.

13th overall, which was a big improvement over my seed spot of 22, and met my goal of a top 15. Sweet!

Craftsbury
The third weekend of Eastern Cups was supposed to be at the Trapp Family Lodge, but they didn't really have enough snow for that. So, the backup site was Craftsbury. 5k classic on Saturday, and 10k mass start.

I started 15s behind Lily K of Harvard, and my goal was just to enjoy the day and ski well, no shuffling. I felt pretty fresh in my warmup, which was also a welcome surprise - last week was crazy, and I was expecting a lot more accumulated fatigue. Skis were great, and I had closed a lot of ground to Lily over the first flattish km, and actually closed the gap on the first B climb after the sleeper hill. Sweet. Forced myself to stride the steep bit even though that took a lot of arm wax, and that was what got me ahead of her.

Skis were ripping down the long descent, and I recovered nicely. Up the A climb I kept it light and swingy, letting Lily pull ahead of me and pace me up the hill. Still not really digging deep, and I recovered well again on the long descent before Screamin' Mimi. Heading up, Lily attacked from the bottom, and I let her drift ahead again. I admit, I did a little shuffling through the striding zone. Then we turned the corner and I obeyed my directive I'd given the kids in the course tour, and really punched it over the top. Slid past Lily and my 30-second girl, and gave it some good hard double poling to gain momentum.

Some recovery down the gentle S-turns, and then remembered to properly stride past the cabins. That was really the only part that felt like real work; I probably left a good 15-30 seconds on course just through a lack of give-a-damns, but that was fine. That was fun, and skiing it at 10k pace instead of 5k pace greatly upped the fun factor.

Huh. The tracks aren't going that way... Guess I wanted the other side of the trail? 

Going forwards again. 

Sweet boards.

Fatigue caught up for Sunday's race. I did a few too many course tours, but that's my favorite part of race day, so I can't blame me. I love mass starts, so no way was I sitting this out, but two hours of warmup was a little on the long side.

I had a good start spot, in the third row, but as we went off I realized just how much of a hole I was in. It felt like the girls were all going so fast, and I was having to work so hard to keep up even on the flats and downhills. When we finally got to the first little hill, it was a relief to do some V1, and I realized I was at the back of a pack of around 20, already with a gap behind me. I stayed relaxed up the first real climb, just taking my time and keeping the tempo low, and that was enough to keep me in contact.

Down the long hill the first time I was behind Lillian from SMS. She skied it well, and I wasn't closing any distance. Damn. Things started to splinter a little heading up the A climb, and I was with Laura and Lillian and a couple girls peeling back from the main pack. I knew this was the decisive moment, and if I wanted a reasonable result, I'd have to pick up the pace and go with them. But I just couldn't do it, calves were exploding and quads were heavy and arms weren't working too well either, just feeling sore and heavy. Well, ok. I guess it really is the sort of day where even staying in a tuck feels like too much effort.

I stayed behind Lillian and Laura up Screamin' Mimi, did the slight push over the top, and then drafted them across the stadium. Chilled out up Chip Hill, even though there were some girls in sight. Up the first B climb I finally started to feel a little better, and noticed that the long strides were working for me. There were some GMVS girls straggling ahead of me, and I decided I wanted to catch them. I was with Lillian again down the hill, but then along the bottom of the course I started doing more V2, and that was both more efficient and faster than the GMVS kids.

I passed Lillian finally on the steepest point of the A climb, and started to hunt for real. There was a Ford Sayre girl closing on me, too, but I was mostly concerned with what was in front. I think what was happening was that my skis actually felt fastest on the uphills, which is why I was feeling good there, because the snow was chopped up into more of the granular stuff. Anyway, I reached the corner of Screamin' Mimi at the same time as the Ford Sayre girl, and didn't fight her for the position; I have no skin in this game. But we'd just closed on the GMVS girls, and I wanted to get by them, and now there wasn't space. Grr.

Into the next uphill I tried to get by, but the FS girl was flailing all over and totally blocked me out again. Now I was getting frustrated. Don't make me get aggressive, you won't like me when I'm aggressive. Tried for another pass just after the downhill, but she blocked again, I don't think intentionally, and one of the GMVS girls started a kick, and I was stuck behind the other two. Finally the FS girl completed her pass, and I took the long line around the corner to get past GMVS, but geezum that was annoying. I suppose this is why most people don't like mass starts. Anyway, cruised into the finish a few seconds back of the GMVS girl, for a reasonable race.

Could have done with a little more oomph and possibly a few more give-a-damns, but it was worth doing and I enjoyed myself.

Silver Fox Trot
The final weekend of Eastern Cups is always the Silver Fox Trot and the Cheri Walsh Memorial. The Silver Fox Trot coincided with the Dartmouth Carnival, which made for a really deep field, pretty awesome. It was another of those two-hour warmup sort of days, and I will admit I wasn't feeling super fresh on the start line. My calves were an issue today, really tight and started to explode on the final few km.

The race itself was pretty unremarkable. The snow conditions were glazing and icing, really difficult balance conditions that aggravated my strained calf, and I felt like I wasn't skiing particularly smoothly. I caught up to the UNH girl who'd started 30s before me by about the midway point, but struggled to generate much speed on the gradual stuff that comes in the final hills, lower legs in a lot of pain and not cooperating. I skied the S-turns well, but it was too little too late. Overall it was a fine points race, if I cared about those anymore, but the result was nothing to write home about.

I didn't race the Cheri Walsh; I love that course and I love classic skiing on that course, but with the predicted shitstorm of weather, I felt better working to get the right wax for our skiers. I'd say we nailed it, so that was effort well spent.

Pretty PRO way to watch your teammates race. This is from the Massachusetts State Qualifier race, where the snow was rapidly disappearing. We put nearly every CSU kid onto either the U16 championships team or the Eastern Highschool Team. 

 

So, the trick to winning the race, is that you have to get to the finish line before anybody else does it.

Coach mode.

This trail pass checker is asleep on the job. Also, ski race coaching days are hard.

When it's cold enough to double puff, you also need a puffy skirt. But boy is it nice to have an indoor waxing space!

Now we're into Championship season - U16 Champs, Junior Nationals, and Eastern HS Champs. First up, I'm the course setter for the Ski Orienteering World Masters Champs, at Craftsbury, so need to make sure that goes off smoothly. Woo!

Fort Kent Eastern Cups

The last time I was in Fort Kent, it was for the U16 Championships in 2015, and the Massachusetts Team was on a coach bus that couldn't quite handle the snowstorm that hit Sunday afternoon. It took us 16 hours with a brief (4-hour) stint in the Aroostook County Mall in Presque Isle, but we eventually made it back to Massaschusetts around 5:30am, just in time for me to head to work on Monday. Maddy, Kathy, Peter and I were the coaches on that bus, and I don't think we've ever fully recovered from the trauma, but the kids who were U16s at the time developed a bond that has carried them through highschool in a very tight-knit group.

In good weather, Fort Kent is only 6.5h of driving time (a mere 430 miles) north. It's on the northern border of Maine, across the St. John River from New Brunswick. I annotated a map of northern Maine for my readers:

I think most people sort of forget that Maine exists north of Katahdin. There's lots more of it, and it's beautiful! It's also remote, rugged, and quite often frigid, but the people are friendly and the potatoes are top notch.  

Us soft southerners may complain about the drive, but it does make sense to occasionally have a race up there, considering that for every other race, the northern Maine skiers have to make the drive down to the southern venues. There is also reliable snow in the early and late season, an important quality for race venues! 

I drove up with Rob and Kathy, and we got there in time to test some skis on Friday. I'd forgotten what it was like to be in truly cold weather. It just about broke me, in the little one-hour ski we did. With the sun going down and the wind picking up, zero degrees has never felt so terrible. I didn't actually break down and cry (because frozen tears really hurt), but it was close. Somehow, the cold really just knocked me back on my heels. Time to toughen up! My goal for Saturday's race was now two-fold: 1) qualify for the open sprint heats, and 2) don't let the cold get to me; stay positive and focused.

Saturday Skate Sprint

My early-season preparation has been better than some recent years, but definitely not particularly ski-specific. The main thing that's been missing are high-intensity efforts, so I knew I'd probably struggle with trying to find any extra gears and using them. It was a fun sprint course, though, playing out with some work in the beginning and some fun rollers in the end. If I could stay focused in the moment, maybe I'd produce some speed. 

I started out 15s behind Meg, one of my ex-CSU skiers who is now at Colby. I picked up good speed out of the stadium, and then there is this winding flat stuff leading up to the wax-cabin hill. I probably did a little too much V2-alternate there, not accelerating the whole time, lulled into complacency by the fact that I could tell I was gaining on Meg. Into the hill I was hop skating, but not at full sprint speed, and that was a mistake. I was winded at the top, but definitely hadn't emptied the tank as much as I knew I should have, which led to a bit of a sinking sensation. You screwed that up. Oh well, fight for those seconds in the fun part! Over the rollers, whooshing down the whoop-de-doo, and again I probably shouldn't have been tucking around the corner into the stadium, but that felt like the right thing at the time. 

I ended up qualifying in 16th, and still feeling pretty fresh, leaving what I felt was a good 5-7 seconds out there through sheer lack of oomph. With the lucky loser positions going through to the semifinals based on bib number, I had probably ruined my chances of luckily losing by not qualifying better. Can't change that! Now it's top two or bust. 

Photo credit Brian Burt. So many layers I couldn't actually velcro my boots shut under the boot covers...

I was in the third heat, with bib numbers 5, 6, 15, 25, and 26. Bib 5, Silje from UNH, has some crazy sprint points, and is built like a sprinter. As I expected, she started out fast, and I slotted in behind after a sort of slow start. Coming up through the gradual rollers, we were moving a lot faster than I had in my qualifier. Oh. It didn't feel like too much work yet, but I could definitely tell that I was starting to near that point of no return, and as we started to climb I backed off a smidge. The Canadian with bib #6 squeezed by, and as I was jump-skating behind her up the hill, I knew that this was it - this is the point where I have to make a move, pull up even with her, and punch it over the first camels hump. I had more gears available, I could physically do it, all it would take was a little mental toughness to tolerate the pain. But the race voice couldn't seem to override the voice in my head telling me this was fast enough, third place is fine, maybe you'll catch her later in the course. Do you really want to do another two heats after this? And I didn't make a move. 

We crested the first camels hump, Silje solidly in the lead and me on the tails of #6, but not close enough to really catch the draft and slingshot on the little dip. The next camels hump was the only other option to make a move, take the right-hand lane and try to carry more speed through the corner, and I didn't do it. I could hear the cheering for the SMS girl in 4th, and I'd shifted into defensive mode. Tucked around the corner again, and wasn't even close to fighting for 2nd. 

Mostly what was missing there was the confidence that I can totally put myself under and come back up for air while still racing, that confidence built on the back of hard intervals, race starts, and a burning desire for results. I wasn't surprised to end up 3rd; after all I had qualified eight seconds behind the Canadian gal, so on paper that was an unlikely scalp. I also wasn't all that upset by it; what upset me was the lack of will to make those moves. It's possible that it'll come back - the first races of the season are always a little tentative. By the end of last season I was totally capable of pushing myself into the pain cave, so I'd say there's hope before World Masters at the end of January. 

Results

My final placement was 15th, which earns me one NENSA point. I'll take it! Also of note: My qualifier time beat Rob's qualifier time. I only ever beat Rob when he waxes my skis... 

It was fun to watch all my skiers race the heats, once I was out. With Fort Kent being so far away, the fields were a little thinner than usual, which meant most of my skiers qualified for either the open or the junior heats. Three of my big boys got into the open heats, and I think everyone got to learn from racing with people in tight quarters. Good stuff. 

Sunday classic mass start

This was probably one of the easiest races I've ever had to wax for. The combination of frigid temperatures on perfect snow and an indoor waxing facility meant that picking a kick wax was a quick and easy process, and the fact that the temperatures weren't changing meant we had every ski waxed for all the classes before the U16 boys had started. So simple!

The 5k course was a fun one. The first kilometer was uphill, cresting at 45m above the stadium, before bouncing around the high point for another 2km and then it was pretty much downhill with a couple kickers for the final 2km. With a mass start 5k, I knew it would start pretty hot, and the main goal was for everyone to avoid getting tangled in any trouble, and hang on through that first hill. 

I was seeded (USSA fixed the coaching license non-seeding issues, yay!) 25th, and had a clean start, narrowly avoiding the inevitable crash on the first gentle downhill out of the start. After cresting the first little steep pitch, I left myself look around, and realized I was hanging out at the back of the lead pack, with a separation behind me. My first thought was "Ooh! Kathy is back there, so hold her off as long as possible!" My second thought was "Dang, that sucks for everyone who was in or behind that crash." Mass start 5k races are chaos, and there's no avoiding that. 

Photo credit Brian Burt. Still got that forward lean.

I slowly worked my way to the top of the first hill, not losing too much ground to the rear guard of the pack but we were all losing ground to the leaders. Classic skiing up hills is hard, yo. I could see one of my U18s ahead of me, and she had clearly started too hard, and was fading backwards a bit. 

I felt like I was recovering nicely on the gradual downhill after the first hill, but as we started climbing again towards 2k the you-started-too-hard feeling hit me. I was starting to pack slide myself, and right around the 2k mark Kathy stormed by. I didn't have the energy to keep contact, and was at the back of a loose pack heading into the downhills. Definitely struggled a bit to relax my feet as we negotiated the corners, and I was too tired to make up places down the hill. One more climb approaching the top of the alpine mountain again, and Laura came striding by, looking nice and composed. I tried to increase the pace, while maintaining actual technique and not just running, and hit the downhill with palpable relief.

Photo credit Brian Burt. 

From there, there are mostly flats with one gradual striding/kick-double pole hill. Up that gradual track I was starting to hit the second wind, and was closing down to Madeline. I had just about made contact as we hit the final kickers into the stadium, and closed the gap to Madeline and a UNH girl over the camels humps. A half-hearted double pole sprint, and I was done, in 23rd place. Improved my seed! 

Results

I was pretty pleased with the race. For an early-season classic race, that was one of my better ones. I could use better top-end fitness, and a lot more intensity work to give some oomph where it matters, but I felt like I was skiing well for the whole race, with pretty good strength. I ended up about 7% behind Leah, the day's winner, which is quite reasonable. 

More great results from my team in the classic race, which always leaves a warm fuzzy, especially when it's kids who've worked really hard all year and are surprising themselves. Super work by the wax team and the food table chefs, too. 

Now it's time to pack up my life for the annual two-week odyssey to Rochester and then Mont Sainte Anne. Wheeee ski season!

Final Eastern Cups

I registered for both races for the final weekend of EC racing. No good reason for it, especially considering it was two 5ks, which are pretty darn short. I guess I wanted to feel some hurt, and so that became my goal for the weekend - really dig in, and see how hard I could push. After some longer races where it's all a ski-pretty-and-wait game, this would be interesting.

Saturday was moved from Hanover to Craftsbury, which made for a longer drive on Friday. I got up in time for dinner, and had a nice evening at the Village Inn with some of CSUers. No time for a ski, but I tried to make up for that with a heavy foam rolling session, ready for a long day on my feet punctuated with a 15-20 minute burst of adrenaline-filled self-induced wheezing. 

Silver Fox Trot

After a morning of ski testing and course tours, it was time for my start, near the back of the field thanks to my continued non-updated USSA points. It was nice to use the full 5k loop, which skis really nicely. I love that course, with real stride-able hills, and some good elevation change. My goal, as stated above, was to really suffer, but also to remember to really ski, rather than just start shuffling or running. The course starts out with some flat stuff, then the sneaky little sprint hill climb, which starts out kind of steep, then levels off. Managed to keep striding, no running, focused on the weight transfer. I could see my 15s girl, a local C'bury kid, and I passed my 30s and 45s girls up that first hill. Starting in the back is good for my ego, if not my results.

Down the windy sleeper hill I actually caught my 15s girl, but she pulled even and got ahead up the steep part of the A climb. I got her back as it evened out, and then whipped past three more girls on the downhill - really good skis today. One more scalp at the bottom of the hill, pretty recovered at that point, then the second A climb. The tracks were wiped out near the top, so I did some herringboning, but really shouldn't have. Pretty wheezy by the top of the wall, but I got past two more skiers, and discovered that my double pole has actually returned to levels I haven't seen since 2012 or so. Around the tight little corner and then into the tracks with my head down, recovering as much as I could before the final B climb.

All my fans were on that hill, so I may have gone a little too hard, as I got to the top and had pretty much emptied the tank completely at that point. Stayed in a tuck too long down the other side into the rollers, and nearly came to a stop, but standing up was a questionable activity at that point, not to mention skiing. Final downhills to the little marsh and then back up past the cabins, managing to kick and glide even though all I wanted to do was shuffle. Or maybe lie down and take a snow nap.

Pretty good race-feeling, and I don't think I've pushed that hard yet this season. Feels good to suffer like that, especially while knowing you're doing it with good technique. My result was kind of crap, but, I can't complain too much, and I was happy with the race. Probably the best skis I've been on in 2-3 yrs - those Madshus Redlines are magic on hardwax.

Cheri Walsh Memorial
Sunday I could feel the fatigue of the hard effort and the coaching, with heavy quads. It had snowed a decent amount on both Friday and Saturday, so the course was soft and slow. Not my favorite conditions, but I had a good pair of skis for it. I limited myself to a single course-tour with the U16 boys that morning, and it was good to analyze all the turns and transitions. The Holderness trails are fantastic, filled with transitions, and in soft snow the narrow trail feels even tighter. Very reminiscent of Mendon Ponds, where I grew up learning to ski.

Suffering. I could use more right ankle flexibility, in my life, but particularly when skating up steep hills please.

I got in a decent warmup, maybe a little on the short side, but I'd seen some foam rollers inside and my quads were tight and heavy, so I went to take care of those first and that ate some time. Starting near the back, as is the new normal, would have been a problem at 15s intervals, but it was 30s intervals and I had a ghost in front of me, so a pretty clear course. My skis were good, but not amazing - I think it was all slow out there. Not my conditions, on an icy day I would have rocked that course a lot harder. But, this is still a good course for me, despite nearly 2k of winding climbs, some of them really steep. My main goal for the day was to beat my fellow coach Kathy, starting 1.5min ahead.

I tried to stay light and quick on the climbs, but was still wheezing at the 1k mark. Passed my 1-min girl, got a brief breather on the downhill, then into the second climb, where I did try to push some V2. Caught my 2min girl on that hill. Both of these were my skiers, so I tried not to be too aggressive. Then it was into the rollers, and it's so hard to generate speed on the winding flat stuff when you're already red-lined. All the hills on the course are short and sharp, requiring some hop skating and more strength than I have to give, but I was finessing my way through it. No snoozing on that course.

I got a split from Doro around 3.5k that I was 8s down on Kathy. The final 1.5k are mostly downhill with some transitions, and Kathy is one of the few people who'll ski a downhill better than me, so I knew it would be hard to pick up 8 seconds on her. That didn't stop me from trying! I was still wheezing the whole way down the hill, working each corner and crest and dip for everything it was worth, pushing through the wobbly legs and exhausted shoulders. It wasn't pretty, but I was hauling. Thank god for that final downhill into the stadium, to catch my breath before a sneaky 500m around some soccer fields that just didn't want to end. I concentrated on continuing to try and eke out the seconds and had a decent kick, but unfortunately Kathy made it around that course 1 second faster than me. D'oh!

That was good enough for 15th, my first NENSA point of the season (and first one in a couple seasons, I would imagine), and Kathy and I were the top CSU ladies on the day. A rare occurrence, and one that means my kids better start skiing faster. It felt so awesome to really redline it this weekend. Purposeful suffering can be so cleansing.

Came home and got to do a different kind of workout!

Quarry Road Eastern Cups

The second weekend of Eastern Cup racing was at Quarry Rd, in Waterville. My alma mater's home course! They only built the venue six years too late for me to ski there in college. Those are some really nice trails, and you can tell Tracey had a hand in the design, with serious climbs and technical downhills, and very little flat recovery. Not remotely close to what we train on during the week at the Leo J golf course.

CSU Army back at it. We've got wax team and we've got the food table team, and really that's all we need. 

Saturday was a skate sprint, and Sunday a mass start 10k classic. I decided to sign up for both races, figuring I'd sit out the classic race if things started to go haywire - priority is on making sure all the kids had their skis waxed, not on me getting another race start. I was very excited for the skate sprint, as that's one of my favorite formats, and I'm usually really good in them. I love doing races where I'm good at the format!

Well yeah, then the races happened. I'd been feeling pretty flat all week, and I didn't magically feel snappier on Saturday morning. I suspect the root of my problems lay in a warmup that wasn't hard enough, but I just felt terrible for the entire 3.5 minutes that I flailed through that course. I felt terrible on the uphills, I felt out of control on the downhills, and I couldn't generate any speed on the flats. All in all, a pretty miserable qualifier. I didn't even come close to advancing. And here I'd thought I'd be qualifying in the top 10. Hubris.

My U18 boys made it into the same heat. Really fun to watch them ski so well!

One of my first-year U16 girls leading the heat! Don't underestimate the small ones.

Sunday was a new day. The venue was still icy, but we had good skis, and it was warmer than Saturday. But I wasn't really feeling the whole racing thing. Maybe it was a black cloud left over from Saturday, but my legs felt like wooden pegs, with these long awkward slidey things on the bottom, totally disconnected from any useful function. Maddy and I skied a lot that morning, testing all the various klister combinations, searching for the perfect mixture of sticky and tenacious and fast, and Rob kept dreaming up new combos, that needed testing. And there's no point testing kick on flat bits, you need to hit the hills. After an hour and a half of skiing around, we jumped back into the trenches with the wax team, frantically applying cold klister to all the women's skis. Cold klister does not go on quickly or easily. At this point, I was fairly sure I shouldn't race. I was unmotivated, cold, and exhausted. And, if I started, I was bib 314 of 317 (yay for USSA not recognizing coaching licenses as a way to get seed points), which meant starting on the last row of a mass start. I figured I'd be a lot happier if I just watched the races today. I race because I like to beat people, and that wasn't looking very likely today.

Beautiful rock-hard tracks, that actually held up through the end of the men's race! Two of my U16 boys had break-out races, which is always exciting when you're a coach. 

And then the only pair of skis left to wax were mine. I had 12 minutes before the start.

You know what? Screw it. Step aside, ego, because the only way I'm going to get warm today, and get all this klister off my hands, is if I go out there and do a 10k tempo effort. I may not have the available oomph for a proper race, but mass starts are awesome, and I love skiing, even when it's slow. Let's go ski racing!

Five minutes to go, and I had two skis with wax on them, I was wearing a bib, and I was at the start, totally cold. The gun went off, and it was a good five seconds before I moved. Nothing like watching the leaders ski out of sight before you even take a stride!

The back of the mass start. I'm the jerk poling between the tracks desperately trying to move up before we hit the u-turn. Photo from FlyingPointRoad.  

Total traffic jam at the corner that comes 200m after the start, and then a couple girls on their butts at the next corner as we entered the woods. I negotiated all of that pretty well, and kept moving forwards as we rolled down to the bottom of the course. I was using this part of the course as a warmup as much as a chance to pass people at no added effort, and by the time we hit the first gradual hill, I was striding around bibs in the 270-280s. 40 people down, that's some improvement. I even recognized some of them! But the front of the race had already crested this hill. Well, no point dwelling on what I can't control, just ski up this hill smoothly.

In some ways, it's a lot easier starting in the back - going up the hill, everyone was in a line, so there really wasn't much room to pass. I was ok with this effort, as it wasn't too hard, but I knew I should keep moving up. I managed to not take out any skiers on the winding downhill, getting past a good number of snowplowers, and then we started up the major climb of the course. I could move pretty well while striding, but as soon as people were herringboning, the trail was blocked. Again, I didn't make much effort to get past, reasoning I'd waste too much energy to no avail, so I just sort of herringbone-walked in line with everyone else. 

Then we hit the gradual bit at the top, and I jumped up a few more groups, angling to make some space for myself on the technical downhills. The first two corners were totally step-able, since you don't have much speed at that point. The third corner is a little harder, off-camber and more than doubling back on itself, so I had found that morning that skidding a little speed off at the beginning and stepping through the end yielded the most speed. It shot you into a short uphill, so carrying speed was definitely beneficial. It was amazing how many girls I passed on those three corners. Like they were standing still. Free speed, ladies! 

After the short uphill the course shot us back onto the sprint course, three more downhill corners, again the first two were easy and the third you carried more speed, and then the uphill from the sprint before a long double poling bit through the stadium. I stayed in my tuck for a long time into the stadium, catching my breath and still passing people who had stood up to double pole. This was fun! I love passing people just because I'm more efficient! 

I rode this feeling of being awesome all the way to the bottom of the course starting my second lap, and then I started uphill and all that fatigue I'd felt in the morning came crashing through my little bubble of happiness. Oh right. Ski racing is hard. Sort of simultaneous to that realization, my pole strap broke. I guess it must have been pretty worn, and my beastly double poling around the stadium was just too much. The pole was still usable, but it had suddenly gotten a lot less efficient. I was at the front of a loose pack, now, with a bit of a gap which meant I could finally ski my own pace, but I knew that the last 3km would be bad without a working pole strap. 

Starting the long climb, I saw a junior spectating the race, carrying poles, and I swapped with him. Unfortunately, that pole was 5 inches too long. I figured it was better than nothing, and was worth the 15 seconds or so that I'd lost making the swap. But double poling was difficult and awkward now, even worse than with my broken strap. Luckily near the top of the climb I saw Tracey, my coach from Colby, and she gave me her pole, much closer to the proper height. I lost another 15 seconds or so with the second swap, but now I had two poles that both worked! Unfortunately, all that swapping of poles put me behind that little pack I'd been at the front of at the bottom of the hill. Bad positioning. Naturally, I tried to make up for some of that time on the downhill, and took that third corner a little too aggressively, passing someone on the inside in the ice. As I stepped out from the ice, my klister caught the berm of sugar snow, and I went tumbling. Luckily I'm a pro at falling down, and I rolled out of it and was up without losing much time, but that killed my momentum into the short little kicker midway down the hill.

I think I did my first real work of the course on the final climb before the stadium, but I was still at the back of the pack. I made a few more passes before the end, but it was far too little far too late, and before I knew it I was across the line and done with the race. Dang, I was just getting started! 

I'm really glad I ended up racing. Even if the effort wasn't what I would have liked, I had a blast playing NASCAR in the mass start, and it is a lot of fun to ski on skis that kick well and are still faster than everyone around you. The result was so bad I won't even link to it, but that wasn't the point of today. 

Some days, you stand at the end of a double rainbow (snow-bow) and yell "I'M A LEPRECHAUN!" Glad I can teach my skiers to treat those moments with the same joy I do.

Part of me wonders about my recent attitude about ski races. I've been very lackadaisical lately, and not that interested in pushing through any sort of struggle. This is new, mildly disturbing, and makes me wonder if I've used up my lifetime of give-a-damns about race starts. I guess time will tell, considering the next two weekends are two races I should care about. It could be as simple as shifted priorities when at the Eastern Cups, focused on my skiers above all else. One thing is damn sure - I need this skiing stuff in my life to keep my head balanced and happy, regardless of what speed I'm going.

White Mountain Classic this weekend at Jackson, and then the Craftsbury Marathon next weekend. I'm excited to look for a little effort in these races. Here goes!

Tuesday Night Worlds

The Tuesday night scene has started up, and we're two races in. I much preferred the conditions last week to this week; slightly slower snow meant more skiing, but it was still fast enough to get in some good drafting.  Tuesday night ski races are a special breed of race; hyper-aggressive masters on fluoroed skis letting off steam after a long day at work, it can be fun or terrifying, depending on how you look at it.  That said, there's no better way to get good at riding a high-speed ski in a pack than these races, and learning to glide comfortably on crummy "snow" while being jostled is actually a useful skill.  Last week the conditions were more snow-like, this week, after the rain, we had plenty of death cookies, and a solid base of ice under the foot of sugar slush on the hills.  Great conditions considering the amount of rain that we got, but definitely not your perfect corduroy.

Race #1
This was a good fun re-introduction to aggressive pack skiing. I felt like everyone was super hyped up, and I got pushed back in the start line-up behind my "usual" pack of guys, and quite a few new folks that I didn't know. Maybe mid-pack start. The NASCAR start, as usual, didn't really spread things out at all, and I kept double poling most of the way up the first hill, trying to keep out of trouble. The first hill was pretty soft, since the snow guns were pointed at it, but I can usually float on top of that stuff pretty well. I spent the most of the first lap in heavy traffic, doing a lot of passing, but I got to near the front of my pack by the end of lap one. At this point the chase pack had gapped us, and though I felt like I had the energy to go with them, I didn't have it after burning matches to get to where I was in my current pack. Moving around people is tough on skis. So I hung out for a little bit, maybe a minute of recovery, and then jumped a gap to get up with Bob and Drew, who were trying to ski away from us. I slipped by them on the middle hill, and as they say, it's do or die - staying put and breaking the wind for everyone else was not an option, so I put in an attack on the flats and got a gap. I should also mention that skiing at Weston has DEFINITELY improved my ability to do V2-alternate at high speeds. That's my attack stride now!

On lap 2 I slowly started to reel in Ari, who was skiing in no-man's land, and I got him by the end of the lap. Drafted for a wee bit, then looked back and saw that Bob was pulling the pack up to me, with Maddy sitting in second. Oops. I pushed the pace a bit, but by the short punchy climb it looked like they were actually closing, so I sat up and waited. Bob and Drew came around first, but Ari responded to that by going faster, so I jumped behind on the final climb, out-gliding Dres, which got me ahead and into Ari's draft. He's a skinny dude, but it still makes a difference heading into the final downhill, and we stayed away as I tried to slingshot around to win the sprint. Tough to say who won it, probably Ari, but that was some good fast racing.

Results - 8th overall is about where I'd expect to be, with the usual names showing up.  Certainly had to fight for it, though!

Race #2
Well, the rain didn't wipe out the snow, but it also didn't do it any favors, so things were pretty icy this week. Icy under a coating of sugar slush, just to throw you off.  My plan was to start a little further forward this week, so that I could use my energy to hang on to the lead pack, rather than jump gaps being opened by weaker skiers in the chase pack who found themselves in front. I lined up behind Rob, because I trust that he'll thread his way through the pack effortlessly, and I was right. Such a smooth start from up there.

The lead pack was not going very fast up the middle hill, and things were starting to bunch, but I figured if I stayed behind Rob I could just stay out of trouble and let things play out.  But, he was going too slowly; I got impatient and pulled to the side, watching the front of the race play itself out ahead of me. There was a guy in a black suit skiing way too aggressively, and he was bumping into Andy a few times. This is where I made two mistakes - First, I thought Andy was staying upright, because it looked like he'd saved it from the bump, but he fell. Then, I thought I had room to go around, but I didn't, and caught my left ski (right ski was in the air, so I didn't step on Andy) on something, probably his arm or his pole, and I went down with a jerk. Damn!

It felt like most of the pack got by me by the time I was up, but it probably wasn't that many. Andy came ripping by, pretty pissed to have gotten tripped, and I tried to hop in his draft, as we clawed our way back up through the pack. Essentially, falling down put me back where I'd started last week, only even further back, and I couldn't hang on to Andy's furious pace, so had to back off and jump the gaps under my own steam.  I was near the back of my usual pack by the end of lap 1, but, disappointingly, I could see Maddy with a solid 30-45s lead near the front of the pack, with a gap between her pack and mine.  I was still passing stragglers off the back of the second chase pack, but the efforts were getting harder, so when Terry came through, I just hopped in his draft, totally gassed.

Luckily, Terry was moving pretty fast, having hit the deck earlier as well, and anxious to make up ground.  By the end of the third lap, he'd pulled me up to Bob, and though Bob valiantly tried to defend his place, I fought back, no cutting me off, and stayed in Terry's draft down the hill.  Terry legitimately won the sprint, and I discovered I had put in an effort even harder than the week before.  The post-race hack, augmented by breathing heavily at the junction of two major interstates during rush hour, took a few days to fade.

Results - much further back, and quite a ways behind Maddy, which puts us 1-1 in the coach competition.