Maps from the Sierra Ski-o champs

I've finally got around to scanning the remaining maps from the Sierras. These were the interesting ones, so its worth taking a look.
The first map from the Auburn Ski Club day - we were handed three maps on the start line, stapled together. Supposedly, the trick to this is to rip apart the maps (no more staples), put the second and third maps back to back in the map case, and the first map on top of that. Then put that whole bundle into your map holder. In theory, this is a good idea, but in practice, the map holder's snaps cannot snap through three pieces of paper and a thick plastic bag. I got two of the snaps closed in the minute I had to get all this done, and the third one sort of just flapped around, causing me to lose my map when I bit it on an ill-timed shortcut from 3-4 (I wanted to see how it was to cut through the woods. It was never a good idea, there, fifteen feet of Sierra cement will bury you quite quickly).

Anyway, this is what it looked like as I tried to get my maps into place - poles off, completely not ready to start, and never got a chance to look at the map before skiing. Given how slowly I went on that day, it didn't matter that I wasn't ready to blast off at the start, but still. Gotta at least try to look good at the start...

Check out the route from 3-4. That snowshoe trail was NOT there. Which left me a wide open hillside to attempt to carve some turns on skinny skis. At least that time I didn't break my binding, like I did at Tahoe-Donner. Also check out how many trail junctions there are! Thats what I mean by interesting, lots of decisions to make, all the while slogging along through deep snow at altitude. Oops, I mean, while zooming along racing fast.

I didn't get around to scanning the third map (rather, I scanned it, but the file corrupted itself), but thats ok, because it was super short, not sure why they felt it necessary to have three maps. At least on the World Cup when they do map exchanges, there is a place you ski through (the lap, basically) where you drop the old map and pick up the new one. None of this attempting to snap your mapholder through three pieces of paper and a plastic bag.

This is the course from Tahoe XC - the beautiful sunny day. Greg and Ken snowmobiled all the dashed trails, so that they were super hard and easy to pole on, and except for #11 (that pointless climb to the top of a mountain), the course was nice and flat, which is good for when you're already tired from a week of racing at altitude. Results are finally up from the week, as well as splits, and on this last day, I won 7 splits out of 16. I bet if my fluoros hadn't worn off I would have won the entire thing, although I guess if the other guys had used fluoros it would have been a fairer race.

And you can have even more photos!

While we're talking about ski-o, I should mention that the results are up from the first two days (which actually were just one course, offered over two days for people who couldn't make it the first day - don't ask) of competitions in the Ski-o festival going on this weekend in Vermont. We'll try to get some maps and splits posted next, but first things first, results!

In case you have nothing planned...

The U.S. Ski Orienteering Championships are being held this weekend, up in Vermont. Website. This event is going to be awesome, and you should come, especially if you happen to be a skier. There are five days of races, starting today, which I'm obviously skipping, the champs are over the weekend, and there are two more races on Monday and Tuesday.

Its gonna be sweet. Don't miss it.

Last couple days of the Sierra Ski-o

The Sierra Ski-o festival wrapped up with two days of more technical orienteering - Saturday was at Auburn Ski Club, which has lots of trail junctions over a pretty small area, and Sunday was at Tahoe XC, down by the lake, and Greg and Ken did the extra small-trail-grooming for that one, so it involved a little more thinking than the other days. It was snowing all day for Saturday's race, with maybe four inches of freshies on the tracks. This, combined with the fifth day at altitude, made for a very tough race for me. I felt like I was just slogging along, barely moving, and placed a little further down the results than usual, getting beaten by Randy, Scott, Donatas, Raffael, Greg, and Smokey, my friend from Colby who I roped into coming to a ski-o =).

I made Greg take a picture of me starting, because I knew I wouldn't take any pictures otherwise. You can see how deep the snow is even where everyone has skied over it. It was a long slog of a day. I decided to fly the club colors that day, representing for CSU! (which happens to be my orienteering club, as well as skiing).

The interesting part was a downhill cut, that, while possible to ski around on trails, was really set up to make people ski straight down the side of a mountain on skinny skis in deep Sierra cement. During the race, it wasn't all that much fun, but later on, I went to pick up controls and picked up the ones out there in the field, and things were a lot more fun when I felt like I had the leisure time to take some turns down the hill. Still not metal edges, but it was fun.

I felt pretty trashed that night, but I rallied, put jetstream on my skis, and got myself to the start line on Sunday. It was a beautiful day, at least forty degrees and bright and sunny, which meant that my wet snow based Peltonens were rocking fast. The fluoros wore off around control 13, which got me most of the way around the course, but it was shocking how much slower my skis got once they no longer had pure fluoros on them.

The course was super fun, with lots of decisions to be made on the fly, constantly thinking and constantly in contact with my map - no more of these long slogs up a hill with no thinking required. Now THIS is how ski-o should be! I had an almost-perfect run, making a 15 second error when I almost missed a junction because I was reading too far ahead from 8-9. The narrow trails were really well packed, and I definitely chose some routes to stay on narrow trails just because it was fun. In the end, I was second, about a minute and a half behind Donatas, and beating the rest of the boys (although to their credit, Greg and Ken were not racing Sunday, since they set the courses). This was a good enough result to put me into fifth place overall on the men's course, which was a nice little ego boost.

Pretty much everyone rushed out of there afterwards, trying to catch planes and avoid the ski mountain traffic, so I went out with Greg afterwards to collect the controls. The one at the top of the mountain sure hurt going up a second time, but the view was worth it, and I remembered my camera. Hopefully, the idea of grooming some narrow trails to add intricacy to the map catches on, it seemed that some of the other course setters from earlier in the week really liked the course today.

Some of the trails were narrow.

Some were wide.

Control pickup.

Maps are coming. I'm currently in the Reno airport, and while they do have free wireless, they don't seem to have free scanners...

Maps!

Sierra Ski-o: Day 3, Royal Gorge

The third day of ski-o rolled around, and today it was billed as a long course, 12km straight-line distance (16 shortest-skiable route) and 400m of climb - definitely going to be a long grind. I was feeling ready to tackle some intensity, so decided to see what would happen when I started cranking. Last time I was at Royal Gorge was for the Gold Rush marathon, I went out too hard and paid for it dearly, so today I did a warmup and skied into the race. The first control was up a hillside, with pretty trivial navigation, so I planned out most of the first half of the course as I was climbing. The control was where I expected, which is always a great feeling, and I had decided to bushwhack down to the second control. It looked like a short drop, and downhill bushwhacks are always fun. I found Scott Pleban's tracks (he'd been the first starter on Blue, I was second), and since they were going in the right direction, I followed them. It felt like a long time before I hit the trail, but I came out right where I'd expected. I started skiing up the trail, and then I saw Scott, who looked pissed.

Scott said there was no control, he'd been back and forth here five times, and the control just wasn't here. Its always dangerous to believe what people tell you in races, but Scott wouldn't lie, and hes a good ski orienteer, so I figured I'd ski to my left down to the trail junction, and then turn around, just to have the entire trail covered, even though from where I was, I was sure that the control was to my right, if it were there. I went down to the junction, no control, then turned around and came back up. I should mention that the contour lines at Royal Gorge are 40ft contours, so there might not be many of them, but when you do see one, cry. Anyway, on my way up, I found the control, in the wrong place, but there, and I passed a guy who'd been doing the course on classic skis, who chuckled at me and said "missed that one, eh". This just served to make me really mad. I'd just made a mistake because I hadn't trusted myself, and while a misplaced control is truly obnoxious, it was still in the direction I'd originally started, so if I'd just done what I started doing, I would have been there three minutes earlier. Arrgh!

It was mostly downhill to the valley, and then back up the other side to 3. The downhill part was great, but then I hit the trail that 7 is on, and it hadn't been groomed yet. I could see Scott's tracks ahead of me, it looked like he'd been skating, but every time I tried to skate, my tips would get caught under the crust, and I'd get totally spun backwards, cursing at the top of my lungs that Royal Gorge couldn't be bothered to groom all their trails on a day when there is a race. Its one thing if its soft fluffy powder, this was heavy crust, and I was starting to fear that this entire side of the valley wouldn't be groomed when I finally made it to the trail junction, and a groomed trail. I was annoyed, it felt like things were conspiring against me, but at least everyone else would have to deal with an ungroomed trail too, although it would get faster as more people skied it. I would just change my route choices to avoid that trail for the rest of the course.

Well, unlucky for me and Scott, but the groomer came through shortly thereafter. The winner's time was 5:15 on that leg, my time was 10:30. I was almost matching the winner for most other legs. That means I lost 4-5 minutes on that leg, on top of the 2-3 minutes I'd just lost on 2. I was not a happy camper at this point, especially as 3 was at the top of the T-bar, which wasn't running (I don't know if it would have been cheating to take the T-bar, but I sure would have tried), at the top of that open area. After breaking trail for a km, that climb nearly broke me, and I ended up coach-skating most of it. Things went more smoothly after that. The rest of the controls were in the right location, although overlaying a GPS track (not mine, mine died on the starting line), the trails are vastly different than what is marked on the map.

On my way to 7 I discovered that the stupid ungroomed trail had since been groomed, and although it was still pretty soft, it was waaaay better than before. 8 involved some cut-throughs, and I decided not to cut down to the western trail to get to 9 because I just didn't like the idea of bushwhacking on my race skis through that much terrain on an uncertain map. Turns out that was faster, by about 2 minutes (based off the splits of someone I beat, so maybe by even more), but it just hadn't seemed worth it to me. I guess I just don't like bushwhacking on skis.

I figured I was home free after 9, but it turns out you have eight contours (yes, that means 320 feet) to climb under the powerlines to 10. It was brutal, I knew Randy and Greg were close behind me, but I could see Scott, as a black figure way up ahead of me. That climb took 10:18 - that is one long climb! I was starting to feel pretty trashed, but the most important split of the race was coming up - the finish split! I got myself turned around facing the finish before I punched (I know, thats sort of lame and sort of cheating, but I really wanted that finish split), and then just gunned it. It was a gradual uphill for most of it, and I was trying to rock the V2, but eventually it got too steep and I got too tired, so I tried to rally with a fast V1. That was the longest 34 seconds of my life, I swear, but it was worth it, because I beat all the guys (including the Swiss guy and the Lithuanian guy) on that leg. I'm moving up, slowly, today I was 4th overall, but the top three were within 15 seconds of each other (Raffael, Donatas, and Greg), and I was ~12 minutes behind them. Without some of my early hardships I might have been closer, but that's racing.

Tomorrow we get a rest day, which is nice, because it'll have been my fourth day at altitude, which tends to be the worst one. I'll probably knock out a slow jog, wheezing all the way, and then try to catch up on some work... exciting. Maps are up for the other days, now.

Sierra Ski-o: day 2, Northstar

I was planning to keep today also relatively easy, L2 on the uphills, but my body felt a lot better than it did on Tuesday, so it was harder to ski easy. I managed to have another clean run, and thanks to the flatter ski area, which meant I could go faster at an easy pace, I did a lot better relative to some of the guys racing. Northstar XC area is an interesting one, you take a gondola halfway up the mountain to the XC center, which is really just a hut, and then its another 1.2km long climb up to where the start and finish of the ski-o were. Luckily, this was a flattish climb, so it wasn't too brutal, but it still required a little more thought with the logistics.

I rubbed some fluoros on my skis before the start - not that it really mattered, but I figured it would give me an advantage and I could use all the help I could get if I wasn't skiing hard. The snow was deep, and there were about 2-3 inches of freshies on top of the groomed trail. It made everything feel very soft and forgiving, although they weren't the fastest conditions I've ever skied. I started about 2 minutes behind Ken (guy on the US masters' team), 2 minutes in front of Randy (a guy on the senior team), and 4 minutes ahead of Greg (guy on the senior team, who I'm staying with here). It was a tight little pack, and I figured I'd be seeing Randy and Greg pretty soon.

The first couple controls were pretty straight forward, and with the one-minute interval of looking at your map before the start, I had most of my route for the entire course planned out before I started. Not a very technical area, mostly its all about trying to avoid climb. On my way up to 2, a long grind of a trail that at sea level I'd probably have been V2ing, I saw Ken coming down, and knew I'd be chasing him until I'd hunted him down - closing the gap using efficiency. I saw Randy going up as I headed down, so figured it wouldn't be long before I saw him, too. I bombed the downhill, skied well on the uphills, and got to 3 before anyone else had been there. Sweet, I'm in the lead! I expected to see Randy shortly, but unfortunately (for him) he broke a pole somewhere between 3-4, then made a 25 minute mistake, and used a pine branch as a ski pole for the rest of the course. Hardcore!

The course finished cleanly, Greg passed me going up to 8, making snide comments about how it didn't look like I was trying hard enough, and then I did my best to win the finish split (which I did). I figured, I wasn't going to win many other splits, but the finish split was short and flat, so I put everything I had into that 27-second sprint, and I crushed it by two seconds. Now that is how you race skis! Took me about ten minutes to stop breathing hard, though.

Doing control pickup, Ken was picking up the streamers he'd used to mark the way to the start, and figured he'd try and win the fashion award of the week.

It was another one of these days.

Most of the people who'd skied the blue course went out afterwards to pick up the controls. I went with Jonathan, and it took us 20 minutes to ski out to the caboose (where most of the controls were around), 20 minutes to make and drink hot chocolate, and 10 minutes to get the controls. We have our priorities straight. Did I mention that there is a caboose in a field that has a kettle and packets of hot chocolate? And then you sit there outside in the sun sipping hot cocoa. Its beyond heaven.











I don't think those photos need any explanation.

Northstar is very definitely a resort. Not the sort of place I could afford to stay...

Sierra Ski-o: day 1, Tahoe-Donner XC

Tuesday's race was at Tahoe-Donner XC, and was supposedly the hilliest course we'd see all week. I missed the two races at Bear Valley last weekend, since I was racing Craftsbury and coaching at Women's day, but I was psyched to have a different experience with Californian skiing than last time. We got to the race site around 9:30am, and the first start was at 10, so there was plenty of time. The snow wasn't slushy, but it was sunny and warm out. After testing some skis, the Q1.3 Peltonens with Start LF06 won out over the Q3 Peltonens with the Start LF04. (Start does their numbering backwards, if you're used to Swix). They were pretty quick, but I didn't feel like I should put on higher fluoros, since I wasn't going to be pushing all that hard during the race. Greg and his dad bullied me into racing the blue courses all week, so I left Sharon Crawford to destroy the red course on her own. Apparently, if you're female and skiing the longest-offered course, you are an Amazon. So, I expect everyone to refer to me as an Amazon from here on out. Thanks.

I didn't do a warmup, because I was hoping to keep things no more intense than L2. Being smart, its a new thing for me. With 380m of climb over 10km, it was going to be a hilly course, but I figured I'd use efficiency (in both technique and in navigating) to try to not be last. The first couple controls were pretty straightforwards, and then the fourth one I took a route that involved a lot more climbing than I would have liked - that I could have avoided! The fifth control was at the top of the mountain, and it was a long slog to get up there. Given where the sixth one was, I decided it would be fastest to try and cut straight down the side of the ungroomed mountain, rather than go all the way around on the trail. It was a significant distance and elevation-gain savings, so I went ahead with that plan.

The first couple hundred feet were ok, and then the slope pitched downwards, fast. Undeterred, I tried out a couple turns. Given the depth of the powder and the skinniness of my skis, those weren't too successful. I found that if I snowplowed while leaning way backwards, I could check my speed somewhat successfully, so I did that until I caught an edge and went down in a poof. Man, this stuff is deep. I managed to get up, and continued my downhill, slightly-controlled fall, and then tried out a couple snowplow turns. These didn't work too well, and I was picking up too much speed, so I sat back on my ski tails, hoping to ride out the rest of the steep bit. That was when I noticed that my right foot wasn't really attached to the ski. It looked like the binding was mostly off of the ski, but a wee bit of the back of the front part of the binding was still there. Well, shit. I pulled off that ski, and discovered that clearly the best way to get down the hill was to crouch over one ski, with my right hand holding the other ski, dragging my right knee behind me to control my speed. I could almost even control my direction!

I finally came out to a groomed trail, and I had to figure out what I wanted to do with myself. I was about 3/4 of the way up the mountain, and the next couple controls ranged around that area, including one with a fair bit of climb, but none of them came near the lodge, where I could supposedly switch to a non-broken-binding ski. I knocked as much snow out from under the binding as I could, and decided that if I just double poled, and kept the pressure off that binding, I'd at least make it down to control 6. That worked well, so I figured that since control 7 was a traverse of sorts, I'd keep going to that one. Double poling and snowplowing on one side only (I didn't trust step turning) also seemed to work, so I decided to continue on with the course. I could sort of coach-skate, as long as I didn't do it too powerfully, and luckily for me, I wasn't do much of anything powerfully.

I climbed back up most of the mountain to 8, and then went bombing down to 9. I was taking a shortcut on snowshoe trails when my ski took off down the hill without me. Ack! Luckily, it came to rest not too far away, under a pine tree, so I went to retrieve it. My binding was attached to my boot, but not to my ski. I picked it up, knocked off most of the snow, and saw to my surprise that it wasn't broken. I guess the snow on that initial descent had just pushed up underneath it and pushed it off the NIS plate. I slid the binding back onto the NIS plate, and while I couldn't put it on there securely without the binding key, it was on enough for me to finish up the course, with a somewhat respectable time. Honestly, I don't think I lost that much time fiddling with various binding issues, although it sure was annoying.

Post-race trash talking.

I ended up beating at least two people on blue, I haven't seen the entire results, but as far as I know, there were three who beat me. Not a very big field... So, since the weather was still gorgeous, I went for a relaxed ski up Euer valley. Its so pretty here when the sun shines!
It was this sort of day. The kind of day where you just fall over into the snow laughing because its so nice out and life is beautiful.

They claim its a low-snow winter. Really?

From NH to CA

Sunday was the NENSA women's xc ski day, one of my favorite days of the year - basically, 20 female instructors teach 200 women how to ski, and we all have a great time. I was teaching the intermediate skate group, morning and afternoon, and my afternoon group conferred with each other for a bit and then announced to me, "We like you!" Who knows what I did to deserve that, but it made me feel good. This is even after I made them do crunches in the snow (I've decided I really like that drill).

Skier fashion show - this is why skiers don't make it to high fashion.




I got back to Boston around 7pm, and began some packing chaos - I had a flight out to Reno for the Sierra Ski-o week at 11am on Monday. I managed to get all the skate skis I was bringing cleaned and waxed with an appropriate temperature of LF (so that I could just scrape them, test them, and race), and everything into a ski bag, with plenty of time to spare for getting to the airport. I had a brief moment of panic when the TSA lady told me that my waxing iron was considered a power tool, and thus couldn't take it on the plane.
TSA: This is considered a power tool. It heats up.
Me: Yes, if you plug it in.
TSA: Right.
Me: There aren't any outlets on the plane.
TSA: You can't fly with this.
It was like two idiots trying to convince each other of something. In the end, she won, because, well, she had the badge. But seriously. A powertool? I could understand if they said it was a blunt object and therefore a weapon, but what am I going to do, brand someone?

Luckily, they let me take it back out and put it in a cardboard box to check. Phew. And, I arrived safely with no delays and with all my baggage. Crazy!

Now I have five races over six days at altitude to deal with. My plan is to take the first day pretty conservatively, so that I don't have a repeat of West Yellowstone where I lost 6 pounds in a week. Taking things easy... not my forte.