The Birkie!

When I went to pick up my bib Friday, the guy handing it to me looks at the number and says "23 - you're a speedy one!" I'd been getting more and more jittery all day and that just did it, full-blown Birkie fever, I couldn't WAIT to race. Tapering does that to me, when I'm not blowing energy on workouts I become somewhat of a useless wreck - racing is definitely an addiction, I needed a hit, and that hit was a 50k with 10,000 of my closest new best friends. Lay off the coffee, kiddo...

Since Alpina wasn't at the demo this year, I was on my own for lodging, so I joined forces with the Colby boys (plus Colin) - Aaron Blazar, his girlfriend Lauren, Cary Fridrich, John Swain, and Nick Kline, with a guest appearance of Matt Briggs Saturday night. Cary and Colin were starting in wave 10, which meant they would start close to the time that the rest of us were finishing, so John, Nick, Blazar and I were in the early bus to the start, although I was a bit alarmed at how little time I had to warm up - I ended up doing jumping jacks in line for the porta potty because I wouldn't have time to warm up otherwise. For most marathons I don't worry much about the warmup, but my suicidal race strategy involved going out pretty hard, and the course starts climbing pretty soon, so going into this cold would have been bad. As it was, I could have used an extra ten minutes of jogging around, but I didn't get the fluttery heart feeling so its all good.

I got in the pen, ate a gel, and lined up behind someone who looked fast - I think it was Kristina Trygstaad. Off we went, and it was easier than I thought to slide into the top 10. Part A of the plan involved staying out of the wind as much as possible, which at times was tough as people jockeyed for position, but I'm pretty steady on my feet and it didn't really bother me. Just before the turn to the powerlines Tazlina Mannix took the lead moving a little faster, and as we started the climb I realized that my boots were too tight. Not like "I put the velcro strap on too tight" but "I can't feel my left foot or bend my left ankle" too tight. I tried to chalk it up to not enough of a warmup, and got ready to suffer until my body was warmed up, but those first hills sure didn't feel good. I was working hard, but to my relief it looked like everyone else was, too.

Eventually we stopped climbing, and through the rolling bits of the powerlines, I'd discovered that my skis were fast - maybe not the absolute fastest out there, but faster than maybe half the girls in the top 15. Nice. I'll take any advantage I can get. However, my left leg was in shear agony - it felt like compartment syndrome had felt, like my shin and calf were completely blowing up. I still couldn't bend that ankle, which kind of throws a wrench in your skate technique, requiring a much more upright stance, fine on the flats but definitely not fine on the hills. I popped from the lead pack around 6k, I knew I couldn't keep going at that pace, and I hoped an easier pace would help my leg. But the chase pack came and went, and I knew that if I didn't loosen my boot, this race was over, I'm no Petra Madjic, I can't go fast when part of me hurts that bad. I suffered through the climb at 7k, knowing that the longer I could stay dangling off the back of the chase pack, the more time I was putting on people behind me before I had to stop, but at 12k, that was it - off came the poles and gloves, and I took the 30-60 seconds to loosen my boot. It took a km or two, but once I had blood going to my foot again, life was way better.

Three girls had passed me during this operation, and as I started to chase, a Rossignol skier, Kim Rudd, caught up - she had started conservatively, but was skiing really smoothly, working the transitions, and she had good enough skis to hang with me on the downhills. We worked together without a word for ~6k, picking off two of the women who had passed me tying my boot before OO, and after that, realizing we were close to the same speed, we agreed to try and work together to catch that chase group. The course was flying by, we picked off another straggler or two, and it was fun to have someone to ski with who skis in a similar manner, working the transitions and using a lot of V2 on the gradual stuff, but we weren't catching that group - someone was at the front driving it hard.

Around 35k, I felt the first tremor of a spasm in my right tricep. That didn't take long. I switched to doing more V1 right, since that uses the left arm more, but my right leg was a little tired too. Just before Bitch hill, we picked up Paulette Niemi, whose skis couldn't keep up with the chase pack - she picked up the pace up Bitch hill, and I thought the race was over for me. But I worked the downhill hard, and made contact again. Kim and I were able to drop Paulette on some of the downhill rollers onto the lake, but I was pretty done at that point - my triceps were spasming badly, and if I did any V2 alternate, where your arms go straight because of the slower tempo, I'd get a full-on charlie horse, it wasn't fun. Kim asked if I could lead, and I panted out something to the effect of "I can try, but its all I can do to hold on right now", and so she kept pulling. A dick move, perhaps, but I was losing contact even in her draft.

A guy from wave 1 came through as we were halfway across the lake, not much faster than us, but fast enough that Kim got in his draft, and that was the end for me - I couldn't go any faster. Paulette caught up, and I managed to stay in her draft as we finally got off the lake. The corner onto Main st. was super slushy, sugar, but I was on the inside, and next to Paulette, which meant she was pushed towards the big statue thing with the oil tank and the burning torch, and had to change her line a bit to not run into either that or me - I realized I was pushing her that way and corrected, as we hit the harder snow, but she was as done as I was, and my "sprint" held her off - I could see Kim just ahead of me, maybe a second ahead, and I just couldn't move any faster. My body just would not respond. This was beyond tiredness, I've never felt this dead before - if I caught an edge and fell down, I'm not sure I would have gotten up. I was a mess, and couldn't close the gap to Kim, but at least I held off Paulette.

It was super fun to ski with people for that long, usually I end up in no-man's land somewhere, suffering alone with no idea where people were, but this race was different. I ended up 16th, which is a bummer because if I'd been able to beat Kim to the line I would have had that top 15, but at the same time, I'm happy with my place - aside from the boot incident, I skied well, I had good skis, and I had good legs too. Maybe someday I'll figure out how to race 50k without cramping, but until then, I'm happy with this one. Its a good note to end the season on. And most importantly, I crushed Cary, Colin, and Blazar, to the tune of 15 minutes. Swain and Kline are a little too close to still being legit racers for me to get, although I was only 6min off of Nick's time.

Full results, for the women.

The lake, near where you get back onto dry land - people are just chilling, having a picnic, as the racers go by - its a sweet scene.

Finishing straight down main st. Each side of the street is packed with people, for the full 400m or however long Main st. is - its intense. The announcer announces everyone, too, which is really cool.

Finish line!

There was a lot of getting on buses this weekend. Including when I got on a bus and I shouldn't have, and spent two hours waiting at Telemark for Cary and Colin to come get me, while they were actually back in the condo drinking margaritas. Thanks.

The view from our condo, this place is actually very pretty country.

John in the midst of an intense game of oreo-face-nose-mouth.

Colin and Mr. Blazar figuring out the best way to attach a fisheye lens to Colin's waterbottle-belt-cam.

The fever?

I don't know if I have Birkie fever, but I'm definitely getting excited. After my 23rd place finish last year, I qualified for the elite wave, so here's hoping I can pull a top-15... eek!

I leave tomorrow, and will test skis to get the fastest boards I can on Friday, then Saturday morning is the race start. Last real race of the season... time to double my prayers to the bonk-gods hoping they'll protect me from one.

Elite women.

Cheri Walsh Memorial, Holderness EC finals

A good race on Saturday generally makes Sunday difficult - what are you fighting for now? To add to the feeling of "but I don't wanna race!", Holderness had about a quarter as much snow as Gunstock, and there was some serious debris mixed into what was passing for snow here. I previewed the course with the CSU girls, and we discovered that there was one hill - right out of the start - that went up for an insultingly long time. After that, it basically just rolled around and twisted and turned for another 3.5km, with one minor hill near the end. It would be a race where good skiers, who can accelerate through transitions, would excel. I made sure that all the kids were well aware of the fact that they had to go really hard on the flat parts, because it was so icy and fast that it would be easy to get lulled into a feeling of complacency - my skis are already so fast, why would I work hard to make them go faster? Because everyone else has skis just this fast!

I started third, which was a definite boon - the course was still hard and icy, and had only been skied by 30 J2 boys, so the hill out of the start was in good shape. I'd been hammering into my juniors the importance of not going too hard and blowing up on this hill, but I went and ignored that advice, doing a low-energy jump skate up much of the hill. Near the top I realized that my quads were filled with lactic acid, and my hip flexors were wicked sore from slipping yesterday, to boot. I almost couldn't stand up to get a good tall V2, but I pushed through the pain and got onto the first downhill. Unfortunately, on a fast course with lots of transitions like Holderness, the downhills aren't all that restful, and I had probably a minute or two where I wasn't getting as much out of every corner as I could have.

I got it back together though, and started working that course for all it was worth. Definitely a hard effort, I was wheezing as I came up the little hill near the end of the lap, just gradual enough that I could V2 large parts of it, then drop into a fast V1 to bring the tempo back up, and then it was all just twisting downhills to the end. It was over in 11.5 minutes, so fast. I knew that was a top-ten effort, it was a hard day but I know how to ski a technical course, after all, it was just Weston with a hill. The boys went after the girls, and I got out on course to cheer them on, as the snow slowly deteriorated into mud, I'm very glad I wasn't racing near the end of the guys' race in the sun. I ended up in 2nd, almost 30 seconds behind Corey Stock, but its ok to get beaten by a J2 if you're her coach. I'll take some credit for her massive win.

They named the JO team after the race, and CSU is sending seven kids! I'll be going as a coach, and I can't wait to see them rock it up at Presque Isle.
J2 boys:
Eli Hoenig
Hamish McEwen
J2 girls:
Corey Stock
Cate Brams
J1/OJ boys:
Chris Stock
Jackson Rich
J1/OJ girls:
Hannah Smith

Go CSU!

Our tent explosion at Holderness. We're probably the most organized club out there these days, and all the parent volunteers know exactly what to do. Couldn't do it without them, really. The food table rocks, too.

Hannah and Corey rocking out after the race...


The hotel where Jess and I (and our respective boyfriends) stayed last night is worth a mention. The price was right, but it was painted this spectacular bright pink color, and they left the loopy bits up at the top but managed to paint all sloppily over the loopy bits, real good craftsmanship, right there. Jess is pointing out the fact that while there are two paintings on the wall over each bed, they both have the exact same painting in the frame... whoops.

High-class pre-race breakfast! Microwaved oatmeal, eaten with the end of my toothbrush, for lack of a spoon. This was supplemented with the most amazing cinnamon roll ever, which then sat in my stomach like a gut bomb for the next four hours. What do they say about not trying anything new on race mornings?

Silver Fox Trot, EC Finals

The last weekend of Eastern Cups (and JO qualifier races, if you're in that age category) is over and done, and it was a pretty successful one for CSU. Saturday was the classic race, and the waxing wasn't all that easy, just because the conditions were so variable throughout the course. The back side of the course was pure slush, but there was powder on the front side of the course. Fun! Luckily, whatever CSU was using worked great, so our juniors were killing it. Unluckily for me, I don't know my klister skis well enough yet, and so I didn't end up with a thick enough layer of klister in the zone. Totally my fault for not leaving enough time to test my skis, wax is part of the game after all.

The good news was that the course was basically flat, though. It started with some super gradual (kick double pole, if that - in my case, I just double poled) climbs out of the stadium, and then started a loop around the backside of the mountain. The back loop had one climb, maybe a minute long, and then it was super flat until you zoomed back down into the stadium. Definitely a good course for me, with a lot of double poling and kick double poling.

I started out 7th, so the course was still in great condition, and it wasn't uber warm yet. I could tell my skis were rockets, but I really would have liked some more kick - I could make it work, but the other option was rock-solid-bomber skis, and I knew what I was missing. Bummer. I kept it positive, though, and tried to really work the double pole sections. Coming down the long hill by the road I zoomed past my 30-second girl, and I caught my minute girl at the top of the one climb on the backside of the course. Crazy double poling around the backside - my skis were just slippery enough that I couldn't really kick double pole at speed, and there were some gradual uphills where that would have been nice, but I just kept telling myself I could double pole the whole course, which I did.

Coming through the lap, I could see some people in front of me, and I used them as rabbits, running them down and zooming past. Out of the tracks my wax was stickier, so I used that where I had to, really pushing the transitions and the flats. I knew I was having a good race, it felt like a top-ten effort, but you can't write off a race until its done, and I'll admit that my upper body was starting to get a little tired with all this double poling. I came down the last hill into the stadium, still passing people on their first lap, and left it out there doing what I could to sprint to the finish. It was good enough for 5th place, but its frustrating to know that with better kick I probably could have been top three. Oh well, waxing is part of the game, and you have to get it right - and part of that is knowing how much wax needs to get on your skis to make them work, even if you have the right wax, if its too thick or too thin for your skis, it doesn't matter how good it was on the test skis. So, I'm satisfied with the result.

It was a pretty awesomely sunny day. I spent way too much time outside cheering for the boys' race.

The waxmeister, giving all those juniors speedy skis.

Gunstock. On a beautiful day to be outside!

The mess you get when CSU explodes their stuff. We're more organized than you'd think...

U.S. Team Fundraiser Sprint

The last day of ski-o for me last week was the US team fundraiser sprint, at Kingdom Valley Trails in Chester, put on by Ken Walker. With Monday being a holiday, I could stay north and try to win the finish split, for which Ken was giving out the grand prize of a cowbell. His trails been hit pretty hard by the rain, so there wasn't much snow to speak of on the trails, even though he and Greg had spent six hours Sunday night shoveling. The course was pretty short, just under 3k, and mostly on a hillside, so I figured it would be fast, and that, combined with the map scale of 1:4000, would make for a pretty tough course, navigationally. (I'm sure that's a word.)

I started out and quickly realized that I was outskiing my brain. Luckily, I had planned to take this as an easy workout anyway, so I slowed down, and was able to read ahead a bit more. The first couple controls were on the flats, and the snow seemed pretty good, but once I got into the woods and started climbing, the snow was replaced with pine-needle-riddled ice. Damn. I picked my way through the rocks, pine cones, leaves, and dirt, and nailed the next couple controls on the uphill. I'll admit I was a little apprehensive of what would happen on the downhill, since I doubted I'd be able to stop quickly if I had to, but luckily the trail I took to get down had more snow on it, and I didn't add to the gouges on my dedicated ski-o skis.

After control 12, the course left the hillside and entered the pines, which meant even less snow, but more interesting route choice options. The second time I did the course (since it was a fundraiser, you could do as many runs as you wanted, you just added money to the jar each time, and the fastest time of the day got the grand prize - another cowbell), I took better routes to 13 and to 16, saving about 20 seconds on each of those. On a 40 second leg, that's significant! The first time I'd approached 13 from the bottom of the hill, and the second time I turned right after crossing the bridge and approached from the top of the hill on the big trail. 16 I'd gone around on the big trail the first time, but the second time I went straighter, on the narrow trail. I'll post the map real soon now.

20 was fun, that was a fast little narrow trail with a pretty big drop to my left, but I stayed upright, and the second time to 21 I went straighter on the narrow trail, and again saved ~20s doing that. My second run was 19:12, and the first was 20:20, so clearly the different routes were better. The finish split, unfortunately, was not fast enough to beat Scott and Greg, they were 16s and I was 17. Alas.

Here are splits from the long sprint. And here they are from the short sprint. A couple of the boxes had gotten out of synch, which is why there are some funky splits in there, but at least it was the same for everyone. The short sprint was fun, it used the same controls as the long one but out of order, and didn't go up the long hill, so the snow was a little better. The reason my finish split is so slow is that I thought I'd gone faster on previous runs, whoops.

Ed with Casey (the dog) in his sweet timing hut. Hut, porch, whatever.

Tuesday morning I got up early to help Ed set controls over at Grafton Ponds, but I couldn't stay for the race, had to go to work. It was a fun "week" of events, and I really enjoyed having Ed make everything run so smoothly. Can't wait until next year!

US Ski-o championships: Long Distance

I will admit, I was more worried about the Long race than the middle - the long would involve much more skiing and much less navigating than Saturday, and Ali is a really fast skier, even after her three-year hiatus from ski racing. She's been tearing it up running, after all, its not like she isn't fit, its just that England doesn't have snowy winters. So, I was a little nervous. I was less nervous about Erin because I know she hasn't been skiing as much, and there would be less navigating. There was a little bit of stress surrounding this event since the guy who was redoing the map doesn't like reading emails, so wasn't necessarily on the same page as everyone else, but luckily things went off relatively smoothly - the start was only delayed twice because the courses weren't set yet. We got there early, since Ed had to set up his O-truck, and I helped where I could and then headed out on warmup #1. Kent Shaw was out taking pictures in the blizzard, and took some of me warming up.


Then they delayed the race for the first time, so I took a break, and then it was back on, so warmup #2 got underway.



I started third, four minutes behind Ali. This gave me a definite advantage, since I'd be chasing, and thats just easier, mentally. I started pretty conservatively, because I knew it would be long - the advertised length was 11.3km, but it ended up being ~18km for actual skiing distance, which made for a long slog in falling snow. Pretty, but not fast. I was clean to 1 and 2, going around to the right for both of those, and 3 was also clean, although I was debating about the route to 4. I ended up going with the lefthand route, staying down by the marsh to avoid extra climb and then going up the snowmobile trail to get to the control. I saw Ali coming down as I headed up, so I knew I was closing, and the advantage of being the chaser kicked in. I took the groomed trail to the corner and cut across the marsh on the dotted trail, then went to my left to get to 5 - After crossing the road, I saw Ali again, and I knew that I had gotten even closer. Now I just had to keep skiing this hard and not make mistakes!

A relaxed start.


I decided to take my skis off and run up the road, to the right, to get to 6. I don't think this was very fast, although my splits don't regard it as a mistake, but I think the better route would have been to go around on the lake, in retrospect. Ali made a mistake on her way to 6, and I could tell I was the first one there, since there were no tracks in the fresh snow. YES! I took the route along the lake to get to 7, and crossed the road at the last possible point, again just looking to not gain any elevation, and trying to ski as hard as I could. I kept telling myself to remember to use my abs, since my arms were a little tired with all this V2, and that worked to make me go even faster. 8 was the map exchange, a little confusing since it wasn't marked as a finish circle, but I figured it out. I grabbed a cup of sports drink to go, and zoomed off to 9, but I found that my motivation was waning now that I had passed Ali (and put 4 minutes on her, since I started 4min back). 10-12 were a little slower, but I was able to rein in my increasing desire to lie down and rally for the last two controls, posting the fastest finish split of the day (and we all know that is what counts), even beating all the boys. My splits claim that I made no mistakes, which is really rare for an orienteering race, but it basically means I put together an almost-perfect race - super hard effort, and clean on the navigation front! Long distance champion!



Full results

More important than the US championships, however, was the Valentine's day couples' cup. I bullied Ed into racing, and he did admirably, second place on the green course, so we took home a box of chocolates as champions of the sweethearts.
He couldn't race the M21+ class because he'd seen the course already from hanging controls, which is why he just did an open green course.

Lori came up for the weekend, with Presto, and figured she'd give ski-o a try. She managed to not be last on Saturday, but Sunday was a bit long for someone who hasn't done much skiing...
I tried to get Presto to pull me, but he wasn't having any of it. I guess if I were 15 pounds, I wouldn't want to pull a human, either.

CSU won the club competition!

U.S. Ski-orienteering championships: Middle distance

This might get long. I have a lot to say. There are pictures below if you don't feel like reading...

Ski-o has creative names for their races, like "middle distance" and "long distance". At least it tells you what to expect, more or less. The middle distance race was held at Beaver Brook Farm, in Marshfield VT, and it was 5.8km (straight-line) for the women's elite class. This is a ski area run by Vivian and Mike Fritz, which happens to be mapped to A-meet standards and maintained for ski-o through creative logging, and it is sheer awesomeness. When Ed and I pulled into their driveway after Sunday's race, I just sighed, "ahhh, back to paradise". They have a massive barn, that sent Ed into spasms of envy, with so much room for so much crap and all these tools of every sort - I guess Mike does a fair bit of woodworking, but he is also the regional rep for some snowmobile grooming company, so he has all the up-to-date grooming stuff, although I'd be lying if I said I could remember anything he said about that. Vivian is an amazing cook, who managed the whole refreshments deal during the ski-o race, as well as dinner for all the volunteers who were staying there each night. She is one of the most organized people I have ever met, and that, combined with Mike's uncanny ability to turn two inches of ice into a skiable surface, made for a truly well-run event.

Ed was taking care of all the epunching for the weekend (and the events that bookended the weekend - Thursday at Morse Farm on a half-finished map - don't get me started on that rant, and I wasn't even there - and monday and tuesday in southern VT), so he drove up Wednesday night to help set things up. Basically, he had a mobile O-truck traveling around, with the printer (giant laser printer thing, couldn't a little inkjet do the trick?), all the tripods for the controls, all the epunch units, the boards to which the epunch units were secured, flags, boxes of rental mapholders, other boxes of random registration supplies, and pretty much anything else you can think of that would go into running a ski orienteering event in a really professional manner. I was impressed. Whenever Ed is in charge it makes for a really smoothly-run event, which is a nice change from some past orienteering experiences we've had...

Anyway, I showed up Friday night, and Saturday morning was sunny and gorgeous, and since I was one of the last starters, I had plenty of time to hang around and be social, because as it happens, I know EVERYONE who does ski-o. I guess its not a big group, but we had 72 starts, so it was more than we expected. The M21+ class, the elites, were pretty competitive as always, but most exciting was the fact that we had three serious competitors in the F21+ class - myself, Ali Crocker (skier extraodinaire who almost made the olympics in 2006), and Erin Nielson (nee Olafson, skied for UNH and is one of the best summer orienteers in the country). This was going to be fun! There were a bunch of other people, too, but the competition was going to come from Ali and Erin.

Due to the low snow conditions (remember all that rain we got in mid-January? Yeah, we haven't gotten any snow since then), the trails were pretty narrow, and really bumpy - the snow hugged every contour of the trail, which made for pretty old-school skiing. You had to be on your game to balance on that at any sort of speed on a gliding ski. The course notes talked about a couple spots where there wasn't any snow coverage, but for the most part, the trails were in good conditions, with some tree droppings but no rocks. I went out pretty much last, which meant all the downhills had been snowplowed down to glare ice, but thats good, because it makes them faster. Or something like that. Below is the red course map - 14 controls, and some really interesting route choices. We weren't given any time with the map before starting, so it was a little hard at first trying to read ahead while still moving fast and in the right direction, but by the time I got to 2, I had figured out my routes for the first half of the course and was concentrating on skiing fast. I navigated cleanly through #5, and then I decided that I wanted to take the high route to 6 - the one that goes to the skier's right. However, I thought I was moving faster than I actually was, and I turned left at the first junction, instead of the second one, sending me down to the marsh and losing about 2 minutes on that leg.


I took a slightly less than ideal route to 7, also, but then 8-10 were clean, and I felt like I got back into my groove, but not so fast. Looking at my route to 11, I thought I was on the lower trail by the lake, instead of up on the upper trail, so I planned to go around the south end of the lake - plus, that looked flatter, and this place had a lot of hills. However, I was actually on the upper trail. I realized this quickly enough, but at that point I'd already started down the trail, so I cut across the corner of that field by #8, and started skiing down the hill. There wasn't much snow, and I was bushwhacking on race skis, so this was bound to end badly. I managed to stay upright, but about halfway down the hill I realized how stupid I was being, and somehow managed to come to a successful stop without breaking anything. I whipped off my skis and bounded down the rest of the hill, which was much easier running than skiing, and then got my skis on quickly and zoomed around to the control, but that was another minute lost. The rest of the course was clean, although I took a shortcut from 13-14 across the field, which had a big open area on the far side of a hill that I didn't see until I hit it - luckily, my reflexes kicked in, and I was able to run across it quickly before falling on my face. Doesn't matter what the wax is, skis don't glide too well on grass!

I ended up beating Ali by 2:52, which is darn close in a ski-o race, but luckily she made some mistakes as well. Erin was another 3:20 behind Ali, with a couple mistakes on the last controls. It was a close race, and we were all excited to have some competition. You can see the splits on attackpoint - hover your mouse over the usernames and you'll see actual names. Those are splits for the entire red course, which also includes the M-18, M40+, and M55+ classes, although the top three girls were top five overall, only getting beat by the 18yo boys, rather than the old guys. Splits.



Yup, thats a three-story barn.

Ed's registration area.

The awards and social were on the third floor of the barn.

Remnants of the feast Vivian prepared for after the race (there were two more tables like this, but with even more different types of food. heaven!)

The men's podium - Greg Walker (CSU, 2nd place), Adrian Owens (GMOC, 1st), and Nikolay Nachev (COC, 3rd).

Presto came too, but didn't do so well on skis...