41. Engadin Skimarathon
· Mar 9, 07:29 AM
The scene around the Engadin start made every other race I’ve ever been to seem poorly attended. As we drove by the starting pen (it’s on a lake, so we could see it from the road above) an hour and a half before the start there were already 4-5 rows of skis lined up in the Elite A and Elite B waves. We had a parking pass, but weren’t quite sure in which lot it entitled us to park, so we ended up at least half a k from the staging area in a public lot. I’d been warned that it was a long walk from bag drop to the start, and I wasn’t too thrilled with the prospect of warming up, taking off all my warmups and then freezing for half an hour before the gun went off. So Marshall and I came up with a better plan. We would jog our skis down to the start, jog back, drop our clothes bags in the truck and then jog back down. Seemed like it would work pretty. With 35 minutes to go we took off down towards the start. We happened to run in to Kevin Hochtl and told him what we were doing. He said “that’s a great idea if you want to miss your start. Take your clothes off, put them in the bag, then go to the start.” So we did, except it was not as simple as it sounds.
The path to our truck for bag drop required weaving through a few thousand people. The fastest route turned out to be going under the tailgates of all the trucks on the way to ours, because that was the only place people weren’t standing. When we waded in to the mass of humanity at the start, I was honestly afraid that we weren’t going to make it, and we still had 35 minutes to go! We survived bag drop in 10 minutes, and made our way down to the start in another 10. I was into the Elite pen with 15 minutes left. I even had enough time to ski around a bit and try to warm up. It wasn’t much, but it was a lot more than everyone in Elite A was able to do. When I arrived at the start they were already lined up 3 rows deep, skis and poles on, shoulders touching. The start was comfortably 100-120 people wide, those guys didn’t look comfortable.
Once the gun went off the race was a little crazy. The first 10k are all on lakes (with one tiny little rise), it’s super wide and everyone thinks they can compete. We had a bit of a headwind, which kept the pace down and the congestion up. I’m pretty sure the front row of Elite A caught us straight away (they were only 20 meters back) and we formed one enormous pack. It was like a bike race, except it’s a lot harder to move in the pack on skis. Lots of people moving up on the outside and then filtering backwards through the middle. I broke a pole only 2 or 3 k in, but had enough left to ski with it until we got to the pole station around 5k. Exel ran a bait-and-switch, handing me a beautiful bright orange pole that looked just like their high-end race pole. Except it wasn’t. Heavy, not stiff and a poorly adjusted biathlon strap is what I got. But, that’s all the complaining I’ll do, because it was a lot better than having to ski 40k without a pole. Though I did finish with a sore right wrist from having to hold the grip most of the race, I don’t think the broken pole affected me too much when all is said and done.
There was small – but very steep – hill before St. Moritz, and then the only real climbing in the race (4-5k of rolling up) right after St. Moritz. I didn’t do a real good job positioning myself, and was somewhere around 50th when we hit the first climb. I moved up a few spots there as things started to thin out, and then on the main climb I passed a few more people and found myself yo-yoing as the last guy in the front group. I stayed close enough to be in contact when we hit the feed zone in Pontresina at halfway, which was a good thing, because the next 17k were flat downhill and there was no one in site behind me.
The pace slowed a bit from Pontresina to Samedan and then on to La Punt. Marshall and one other guy got back to the pack after chasing like mad for 5 or 6k. They paid for it later when the hills came with 5k to go, but getting back to the pack in a race like this is usually impossible. I’m quite impressed the made it. My skis weren’t quite up to par, so I was spending most of my time at the back, trying to conserve as much energy as possible. I had to chase back on once when I got spun around (for no good reason) by somebody stomping on my pole. I was up quickly though, and back in the pack after a pretty short chase.
With 5k to go we got to Zuoz and the flats stopped. We had two climbs to contend with. The first spread everyone out into pretty much single file (with maybe a fracture in the middle of the group) and the second one exploded people. I was near the back at this point (I was having to work too hard on the downhills to stay in contact), but tagged on to a Swiss skier (I think) and he towed me through 6 or 7 people over the last 3k. I ended up 26th, a minute out – it’s probably a shame they don’t score this one for FIS points.
All told it was a pretty good day. I (“we” as Ruff would say) missed the wax for sure. My skis weren’t bad, but they were not as good as the rest of the lead group. I waxed for the glazing snow of Saturday and it just got too cold overnight and it didn’t happen. Other than that though, my body felt pretty good. I don’t quite have the high-end race gears I want, but it’s March, so I don’t know if I’ll find them or not. But, it was definitely my best weekend since Dartmouth Carnival, maybe even since Nationals. Oh, it was also picture perfect. The only sunny day out of the last week (including today), that sure helped.
Commenting is closed for this article.