On the road again...

I'm coaching at the Junior Olympics next week, originally as an "intern", but I've since been promoted to J2 coach, when someone couldn't come on the trip. I was all set to be an intern with an attitude, but now I get to sass the kids instead of the other coaches. CSU is sending seven, four of whom are J2s, so I'll get to coach my kids, always fun. Anyway, we're headed north today after their last class in school, along with Tony Ryerson from Harvard, who is still a junior too and qualified for JOs in New England. The van ride is gonna be AWESOME, eight hours but at least its almost all on highway, where the only thing you need to worry about is hitting a moose.

New England will probably clean up as a team, and I'm hoping the shining stars will be the CSU skiers. Go CSU!

Flaring off some fitness

I've managed to successfully avoid Tuesday night races all winter. They tend to be pretty soft, which isn't so good for my left shin/calf combo that might have compartment syndrome going on, so avoiding these races worked pretty well to keep the rest of my season going smoothly. Of course, missing out on the Tuesday night fights, which is where the real racing goes down every week, means I did not have the credentials to line up where I did, which was somewhere around the third row. I tried to tell myself it would be this soft and disgusting for everyone out there, and that I would actually have an advantage being light so I could float over the snow, but boy did it suck anyway.

Andy counted down to go time, and when we got moving, for some reason I was really taken aback by just how much snow (and goose poop) was flying into my face courtesy of the folks ahead of me. Ugh! I got gapped quickly, but then people slowed down on the flats, and I hopped into the tracks and double poled for a bit, until I realized I was getting gapped again, so I floundered around pretending I was skating when really what I was doing was drowning - should have had a snorkel!

By halfway through the first lap, I was trailing well behind the lead group and their followers, and Bob Burnham, Marc Jacobson, and Terry McNatt caught up to me. I hung in their draft to Mt. Weston, although there wasn't much to be said for drafting when we were all lurching around the mashed potatoes. Then Bob stumbled, and since I was in last, I skied up on him and then had to come to a stop and then he got going again and I was gapped. Damn. Luckily, this time I was chasing people who were my speed, as opposed to that front group, which is NOT my speed, so I caught back on by the corner thats in the dark. Bob and I had figured out that the tracks were waaaaay faster (and easier!) on the downhills, so we were zipping along merrily double poling where we could, but by the time we finished the second lap and started the third one, I was letting a few too many gaps open up - its so easy to lie to yourself and say "oh, I'll catch them on the next slight downhill, my skis are better" - this is never actually true. Once you start that talk, you're done.

My calves were blowing up pretty bad, so that the floundering around bit was getting increasingly painful. I was noticing that I was looking behind me far more often than I was looking ahead and trying to close the gap, and I knew that was it for this race. Bob and Terry reeled in one more skier, and I tried not to tip over, as we finally finished that hellfest. Even double poling wasn't efficient, because your poles would just sink and keep sinking into the muck. The goose poop was holding up better than the snow, for sure.

But, at least I did one race - that weekend stuff hardly counts, its way too easy compared to Tuesday night slushfests. Gotta do at least one of these a year, even if it leaves me dry heaving at the end with my legs on fire. Now I remember why I didn't do any of these yet!

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!