Tuesday night worlds

The last race that would count for the Tuesday night race series was this week, and I was sitting in third place after missing a whole bunch of races.  Not like there's anything on the line aside from my pride, but I wanted to win the thing, so even though I didn't have all cylinders firing I found myself on the start line, this time in a timely manner (two weeks ago I'd nearly missed the start, standing with my pants around my ankles as everyone skied off.  Fun to ski through nearly the entire field over 10k, and duke it out with two junior/BKL boys that I coach. For the record, I won the sprint).  As usual, it was cold and windy, but I had felt good warming up running, and with the cold sugar snow I was confident my skis would be fast enough to maybe ski with Rob.  I've beat him once, I could do it again...

Well, we started skiing, and I could pretty instantly tell that it wasn't going to be my night.  We had five laps to do, and by halfway through the first lap I was pooped.  I feel like if I'd had a good long grind to work my way up and find a rhythm I might have survived, but Weston doesn't have grinds, Weston has poppy accelerations and turns and short hills.  My lungs felt delicate after the Birkie abuse (and exposure to Jane's strep throat, Ari's cold, and Ali's throat infection... geez louise).  My legs had nothing to give; every corner I thought maybe I'd fall down just because my legs couldn't handle holding up my body anymore.

The guys I like to ski with went around, and more of them went around, and I just kept dropping back, and back, and back, until I was skiing with Marv and Mark and Robert, and they were moving steadily and I could draft them.  I kept looking behind me, worried about Viktoria, but she wasn't there tonight.  A bit of a recovery on the fourth lap, then I took a pull, then I drafted behind Marvin until the end and slingshotted around him for the sprint.  Sometimes I feel bad about using tactic like that, but not on nights like tonight.  I'm really impressed how well the other skiers did who had also skied the Birkie - I guess skiing 50k alone took more out of me than I thought, and I couldn't rally as well as them.  Bob and Terry didn't even look tired!  (Jamie didn't look to spritely).

Luckily, that cinches the overall win for me, and next week is the costume race and pizza party.  My costume is going to be pretty darn awesome, I can guarantee you that already.  Vladimir Putin comes to Fat Tuesday...