One race left...

My desire to race is close to nil, which is pretty perfect timing, given that I have one race left (possibly two) and its the end of the season. I won't be heading out to Fairbanks for Spring Series, if any of you were wondering, mostly because I don't have that kind of dough floating around, even after my winnings in the race to the clouds.

This weekend is the Eastern Highschool Champs, where I'm coaching on Saturday; with any luck the waxing will be extra blue and everyone will be happy. My desire to wade through gallons of klister is also pretty low... but if it needs to be done it needs to be done. Sunday is the Sugarloaf Marathon, hosted by the Colby ski team as a fundraiser. If you're interested in doing another marathon, this should be a good one, come support my alma mater ski team!

Provided I survive another fifty kilometers of skating (have I mentioned my knee makes funny, painful, creaking noises when I skate and that my calf wants to blow up when I skate fast?), they are promising another Tuesday night race next Tuesday. The snowpack has mostly dwindled to a puddle of goose-poop-slime-slush, but who can really say no to skittering around a golf course on skis?

Here is the fun stuff, though: Saturday the 22nd, Gunstock is tempting us with a Formula One Spring Fling. Here is some more information. Basically, its a 500m skate qualifier, then a mass start pursuit-type sprint race. Your position in the mass start is based off your qualifier, and you do ten 500m laps, switching equipment every lap. I CAN'T WAIT! This basically takes the parts of a pursuit that I'm best at (transitions and sprinting and mass start shenanigans) and makes that the whole race.

For real??

When I take the bus, I tend to pick up a Metro (the local free paper) to do the crossword. I usually skim the headlines, but my expectations are never too high that there will be anything other than Massachusetts policy stuff. This, however, blew me away.

"Woman pried loose after two years on toilet". Front page news, right there.

"Wichita, Kan. Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years--so long that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the boyfriend finally called the police..."

wow.

The case for bike commuting

Recently, when I've wanted to go to Weston to coach or race or just ski, I've been stealing Ed's truck from him at work and driving there. Let me tell ya, driving in Boston at 5:30 pm, not so much fun. Normally, I take a bus, so I can chill out and read a book and ignore the fact that I'm mired in traffic. But the buses don't go to Weston. Unrelated, I rode my bike yesterday. I re-discovered a couple things I'd managed to forget.

1. Biking up hills is hard work. Even the little hills kind of suck.

2. Biking makes my butt hurt.

3. There are not only a lot of stupid people driving cars; there are a lot of stupid people riding bikes out there too.

I don't really feel like ranting, I just feel like complaining. Maybe someday I'll re-remember how to love riding bikes. Definitely not there yet... Tonight is the last Tuesday night race, before Weston dissolves into a puddle of goose poop. Woo! Spring skiing!

Ski to the Clouds

Pleasant weather in Jackson!

This past weekend, J2 skiers from all over New England were racing at Jackson. A wide range of abilities were demonstrated on those trails, and Massachusetts had kids over the whole spectrum. The morning was a 5km classic race and the afternoon was a classic sprint, and given the forecast of somewhere around 35 degrees and a wintry mix, I volunteered my waxing services to the Mass team, guessing we'd need all the hands (and wax testers) they could get. Luckily, the wintry mix was rain, and it didn't start doing its thing until the sprint was almost over, otherwise it would have been a much longer day of standing around waxing and screaming and cheering and running up and down hills. We had some good results in the classic race, one of the girls I coach ended up third, which is awesome! I had missed the skate race on friday, showing up right as the sun was setting. The wave is an awesome downhill on the Jackson 5k course, but the wave in the dark is even awesomer. A huge thanks to the Burnhams for letting me spend the night in their house up there!


Chris Burnham showing us how its done.

I skipped out on the relays on Sunday to race the Ski to the Clouds race up at Great Glen. This was a really cool race-- it started with 4km on the Great Glen trails, and then finished 6km up the Mt. Washington auto road, 2000 feet higher. Instead of the sunny 40 degrees I had waxed for, Mt. Washington valley was surrounded by a cloud, with blustery snow and ice all over everything. They had to shorten the race, finishing at 4km up the road instead of 6km, because the planned finish area was supposedly glare ice. Nobody complained!

I sneaked a peek at the start list, and saw that I only had Kathleen Maynard and Kelsey Allen to race against. I was guessing that I could climb with Kathleen, but I knew Kelsey would be faster up the hill, because she can't weigh more than 85 pounds. My race plan was to go as fast as I could on the flat part, and then ski controlled up the hill. Unfortunately, my calves had other plans. But we'll get to that.

They fired the cannon (no, Great Glen can't just use a gun--they use a CANNON to start their races. It's fantastic), and everyone takes off double poling. It was really windy, so I just kept double poling within a tight group of masters until we hit the woods, where things spread out a little bit. Before I knew it, the first 4km were over, and the auto road was looming. It is definitely steepest at the bottom, either that or you just get used to that grade higher up. They had recently groomed it, but it had set up fairly nicely on either side, as long as you avoided the middle. I was alternating 20 strides V1 left then V1 right, so as to not tire out one side more quickly than the other, but for a long while the road was tilted up to the right, making it faster to V1 right.

I started the climb feeling hopeful, thinking that if Kelsey passed me I might be able to ski with her, but very quickly my calves made themselves felt, cramping up worse than they had at Rangeley. I tried to relax, but every time I would drive my knee forwards, my calf would cramp up more, resisting the stretching motion from bending at the ankles. This gave me a very upright skating position, which I figured I could keep up, but it was slow. As the climbing continued, the cramp in my calves got worse, although it was definitely worse in the left one than the right. When Kelsey passed me, I skied with her for about 45 strides (remember, I was counting), and it didn't feel that hard cardiovascularly, but my calves were rebelling in a way that I knew would cause me to sit down soon, so I had to back off. As Kathleen went by, we had a conversation, I forget about what, but it was frustrating to know that if I could just cut my lower legs off I would be able to ski.

Frustration aside, it was a beautiful climb. I almost wish I'd skied with my camera. I felt like I was out for a hike, ascending through the mists to who knows where, the road looking out at these ravines going off to the sides, occasionally clinging to the side of a mountain and sometimes following a ridge. I had no sense of time or distance, I've never had to climb uphill continuously for 4km before so I didn't know how long it would take, and when I finally got to the finish I was convinced that I'd only gone 2-3k. I was about a minute behind Kathleen and something like 3-4 minutes off Kelsey, but I didn't stick around long to chat, because although it wasn't as windy there, I knew it would be frigid going down. I had managed to miss the clothing drop-off cut-off time, so I would have to descend in my race suit. Luckily Kathleen had an extra wind breaker, so I pulled up the hood, settled into my snowplow and started down the hill.

I thought it would be fun to ski down the auto road. I thought wrong. Maybe metal edges would have helped, but it was littered with death cookies that I either didn't notice or ignored on the way up, and the grade was steep enough that I had to stop four times to rest my legs. Mostly it was my calves cramping, probably residual crampy-ness from the climb, but coming down was much harder than I thought. By the time I hit the bottom I was so cold I was completely useless, and the whimpering noises were trying to come out of my mouth as I struggled into my warmups before skiing back to the lodge.

All in all, that was a great race. They are absolutely right to lable it as America's toughest 10k, because climbing for 4 (or 6) kilometers is no easy task, even when done at a controlled pace. Although I was frustrated at essentially finishing last for the women (the next women were 10 minutes back), I was glad that I raced. This also marks the first race where I have ever accepted prize money... does this make me a pro?


This is my HR graph from my garmin (have I mentioned I love this thing?). Note the drop in HR as the elevation climbs... even fat kids should get out of breath as they climb higher. yargh.


This has got to be one of the coolest Garmin maps ever. I think the original finish was supposed to be up at the treeline.

Goose poop

Weston smells like a pile of manure right now. I'm blaming the geese. My postage stamp of snow grows ever smaller... but at least it was too icy to groom into sugar, so we actually had some decent skiing last night.










I was so proud of my CSU kids. They've got crap for snow to train on, the birds are singing and the joggers are out there shirtless but they've got championships coming up and they're staying darn focused. At practice last night they were so mature; I just told them the workout and then we did it. I almost thought I was coaching a college team, not a gaggle of highschoolers; hopefully they'll all get up north and actually go skiing this weekend...

This weekend the J2 Championships are going on up at Jackson. I'm coaching, at least on the classic day, maybe I should change that to: I'm Jamie's wax-bitch for the day. Hopefully it will just be straight rain with no snow or other wintry-mix-crap thrown in. Sunday is the ski to the clouds race, at Great Glen and then finishing up the auto road. Hopefully they'll let us ski down it, too.

This weather gets me thinking about my bike. More specifically, about riding it. When this thought turns to painful reality, I'm not sure I'll like it, but daydreaming about riding bikes in southern France isn't half bad... Because I'm bored, and I bet you are too if you're reading this, check out some of the pictures from our trip there a couple summers ago.


I love this shot. It seems so sinister, in a way, as though the bikes have been put in jail. If only there was a lock in view, it would complete that imagery.


The general vista.


The ochre mines in Roussillon. turned my feet all orange.




The general look of the roads.

Tuesday night slush-fest

The ski season in this tropical metropolis is starting to wrap up; last night was the last scored Tuesday night sprint at Weston, and the sugar-slush at Weston is starting to deteriorate faster than they can groom it back into uneven piles. The heavy rain last night and this morning didn't help matters, I give Weston another week or two before it transforms back to a driving range.

Anna didn't deign to show up last night, so I figured I would take it out about tempo pace since I definitely felt the effects of the hard marathon last saturday. A whopping 36 people came out in the chilly downpour, ready to fight for the last chance to win points. We start out double poling, I'm maybe in the sixth row back, when suddenly the guy in front of me leaps to the side, and I see a guy lying on the ground trying to not get totally killed. I make it far enough to the side to just ski over his pole and his ski, avoiding the body, but gliding over the ski takes me down, and I instantly go into protect-my-equipment-at-all-costs mode, with my poles sticking straight up in the air even as I'm trying to finish my tuck and roll and get back on my feet where its safe. Luckily, I didn't get trampled, all my equipment was intact, Jon (the guy who I almost skied over) was fine, and his poles withstood the trauma of me skiing over them.

That was the exciting part. The rest was me just picking it up to tempo and skiing. I have a newfound respect for people who start in the back and work their way up through a pack, especially when there are highschool boys involved. I passed people for two laps, and then it got more spread out as I got up to where I normally ski. It seemed like everyone was spread out, despite the warm rain-laden breeze coming up off the fairways, there weren't too many packs.

The rain didn't stop all night, and after getting a whole extra set of clothes wet from running this morning, I've now run out of hooks, doors, and chairs to hang wet clothes on. It better stop raining soon...

Rangeley Marathon

After Craftsbury, I was really looking forward to Rangeley--a relatively flat, fast, skate 50km. I must have jinxed myself, because it was anything but fast. My time for the Craftsbury race was 3:18, on a difficult course with no kick wax. My time for Rangeley was 3:17, on a relatively flat course, skating...

Less snow fell than had been predicted, but it was still pretty soft. I was trying to pick out the girls in the pack, by 1km I realized I was in front of them all. This was a good start, because it was possible that I could end up in a pack of masters skiing faster than the next pack that had girls in it. Granted, that involved skiing fast enough to keep up, and I couldn't tell if I'd started too fast thanks to the adrenaline rush.

Within another half a kilometer, I could tell things weren't going well. I was floundering in the deep snow, unable to find a rhythm, over-exerting myself and generally just skiing stupid. Hannah Dreissigacker caught up to me around 3km, and while I wanted to ski with her my body had other plans. I was still skiing badly, expending far more energy than I wanted to, and despite knowing this I couldn't stop flailing about. My calf/shin combo that has been bothering me since returning from Europe started to cramp up really badly on the first climb, possibly due to the soft snow and possibly due to me having forgotten how to ski smoothly. By the time I hit the first feed station (6km) I was already thinking about dropping out and curling into a fetal position in front of the heaters in the tent.

Then Colin passed me, and suddenly I had someone to complain to about my calf being so cramped up, and it came out in this pathetic little whiny voice, and then I felt even more sorry for myself, why was I doing this, it sucked, it hurt, my muscles were rebelling against me, wah wah wah. Luckily he'd passed me near the top of a hill, and going down the hill I noticed he wasn't going very fast, so I skied back up to him and rode his draft for about 10km. Things started to look up as I began skiing within my comfort level, concentrating on skiing smoothly and stopping the flail. Of course that couldn't last, so going down one of the hills, I was looking at my waterbottle belt trying to get a gel off the strap, and I fell in a hole. I don't know how that hole got there, with that much snow on the trails, but I definitely tried to taste my skis, gotta say the raspberry cliff shots are far tastier than the fischer ski flavor. Colin, good friend that he is, was doubled over laughing at me.

After that I started to yo-yo, catching on when I realized it was windy and I didn't want to ski this alone, slowly falling back on the hills, and finally a pack caught up to me, Colin looked back and saw girls, got scared and took off, and I was skiing with a new pack. This one had Kathleen Maynard and Kelsey Allen, Kelsey was floating right up the hills being as small as she is, but we dropped her pretty hard on the downhill back to the stadium. The flats were the hardest part, it was all I could do to just churn along in V1. I came around the lap and Ed was there with another water bottle, I had finished most of the first and three gels that past lap, I was feeling good, although more tired muscularly than I thought I should have been.

I skied with Kathleen and an older guy until about 29km, when I noticed that my V2 wasn't moving anymore. I had to think about every motion that goes into V2 to make it a fast stride, but it didn't help, I was starting to yo-yo, and this lasted for about a km before I gave up and decided to just ski my own race. By 30km, things were not looking too good, I was moving backwards fast, and my shoulders and back were more tired than they've been since the tricep cramps in Switzerland. I was thoroughly puzzled, because I had eaten a lot of food over the first 30k, and a massive breakfast and a late dinner, I should have had plenty of glucose doing its thing but I definitely felt bonky. I came into the feed at 31km and I stopped by the picnic table and had a little feast, drowned it with a couple cups of drink mix stuff, and took off up a hill.

It sucked. The food hadn't kicked in yet, and I was just done. Kelsey passed me, a couple more masters passed me, then Linnea Rooke passed me. I started a chant in my head "just keep skiing". I stopped saying that at one point and I actually stopped skiing. If there had been a way to drop out at that point I would have dropped out. But by the bottom of the hill, another 5km into it, I started feeling a little better, there was a little pep back in my stride. My upper body still felt trashed, but I was able to get around it by using my legs more. I started one of the middle climbs that is long enough to see ahead, and I saw a big group and got motivated, a little tiny bit. I just concentrated on keeping the rhythm going, no power going through it but if I could turn it over I could get to the top. By the top I'd passed a bonked Colby kid, a bonked Dartmouth guy and a bonked Bates guy. I saw the 40k sign and I was motivated instead of discouraged. Heading into the last climb I saw Kathleen up ahead, and I kept turning it over, trusting that I'd catch up by the top, I did, and put some time on her, I hoped it was enough to get me through the flat last 3km, because I knew I couldn't sprint. One more master was eaten up in my pathetic charge and then Kathleen caught back up to me on the flats, and there was nothing I could do about it. Whatever fight I'd started with was long since beaten out of me.

I was so glad to be done with that race, it was about an hour longer than I had been planning on finishing, and I was wiped out. There was a little hill from the finish to the tent, Ed pushed me up, now that is service. We went for a "cooldown", until I realized I was too cold and he had to push me down the hill too. Definitely difficult conditions, but a helluva lot better than Craftsbury. Skiing on Sunday was a far better way to spend my time.

Linnea, bringing home the hardware in the 25k.


The proper way to enjoy a big snowdump (hint: the answer is not "ski 50km").