The first 10 days
· Mar 5, 11:43 AM
I admit, aside from the pictures (which may be more interesting than my writing, and I’m okay with that), I’ve been pretty lazy about posting from over here. Granted, I have posted more pictures of Switzerland than I have for quite some time, so I’m going to give myself a pat on the back for actually using my camera. But enough apologizing and excuse making, time to write something a little more.
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Rumford
· Feb 5, 10:30 AM
Long sprints seem to be the norm on the domestic scene this year, and honestly, I’m not complaining too much. Yesterday was classic at Rumford and I qualified in just over 4 minutes. I did make it down to the 3:40s in the heats though.
There were only 29 guys racing yesterday and with a full field going through (“30” qualifiers), there wasn’t much of a premium on qualifying fast. Well, unless you wanted that nice $250 bonus for winning qualifying. I didn’t really think I’d win qualifying, but I also didn’t think I’d get caught. Being 16 or 17 seconds out in qualifying is bad enough, but to get caught while doing it, that’s just a little unnecessary. I had a lot of people remind me afterward that I did do a 50k on Saturday and I did kinda bonk, so maybe it wasn’t that surprising that I didn’t have a lot of life. And besides, qualifying isn’t really my thing. But still, 18th out of 29, ouch.
So, after the morning disaster I had a little food, relaxed (didn’t need to put my legs up and drain the lactate because I didn’t build any – oops) then get ready to do it again.
The afternoon went much better. I didn’t have a lot to work with in terms of energy, but just having people to follow (Chambo mostly, as we started in the same initial heat) really helped. I wasn’t ever going to make the race out there, but I followed along pretty well. Each heat felt the same or a little better than the one before it, and at the end of the day I made it through to the A final. I pulled down a 4th there, which was a bit disappointing. I really would have liked to be on the podium, but my sprint double pole failed me at the end. Ah well.
I’m a bit tired today, but hopefully this means I’m back on track for some better days this weekend. Carnival days again.
Craftsbury Marathon
· Feb 2, 06:52 PM
Well, Kris and Justin have already posted their version of events from Saturday, Eli doesn’t have a blog as far as I can tell, so I figure it’s time for me to throw my hat in the ring. Let’s start with the positives. The skiing was phenomenal – perfect tracks for 24.5 of the 25k loop (the top of the final hill got viciously windblown, something about which I was not happy on the second lap), waxing couldn’t have been easier, people turned out, my skis were great (and the many, many road crossings didn’t beat them up at all), and well, yeah, pretty much everything that wasn’t related to my performance was excellent. As for the race itself, well, I’ve had better.
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Wax of the Day: Skate Skis
· Jan 12, 09:50 PM
And no, I don’t mean skate skis in the sense that I meant last week. In Alaska LF6/ZR1 on my best skate skis gave excellent kick out of the track. Here, well, skate skis are the wax of the day because trying to classic ski is practically a waste of time. No one ever said waxing was going to be easy at Whistler Olympic Park was going to be easy, but the last couple of days have been downright ridiculous.
Nationals 10k skate (in brief)
· Jan 5, 10:47 PM
Historical perspective – a look back at my performances at past US Nationals:
2005 – Soldier Hollow, 10k Skate – 7th
2007 – Houghton, 15k Skate – 7th
2007 – Presque Isle, Pursuit – 7th
2008 – Houghton, 10k Skate – 7th
2009 – Anchorage, 10k Skate – 7th
I guess I’m nothing if not consistent. I think I should see what I can do about reserving the place next year. It will save me the effort of actually racing.
Today was cold. Well, not as cold as the weekend when they failed twice to hold the sprint. But they did shorten the race, went to an easier course (which avoided the big hills and the really cold holes) and sent us out at 15 second intervals. My race was a good effort (hard to be top 10 at Nationals on a bad day unless you’re Bird), but not quite stellar. I struggled with the cold out of the start, but got into it on the second lap. I’d be psyched to see lap times, but I don’t think they exist.
The schedule has been changed around. Instead of testing classic skis I’ll be racing – either a 10 or 15 classic. The jury is going to make a decision on the distance sometime tomorrow morning. I guess they’ll also probably have to make a call on whether or not to race, but we can’t be too concerned about that right now.
Whistler WC start spot on the line tomorrow. Time to go have one.
Sovereign Lakes - December Racing
· Dec 15, 09:16 PM
When I think about it this way, I’m going to have three meaningful race starts in all of December. They all came in a 7 day period on the same set of trails. That’s maybe not the best preparation for US Nationals, but there aren’t a lot of other options for high level competition in North America right now. I suppose I could go to Canmore for the Alberta Cups on Wednesday (a lot of the fast Canadians live there, so there might be some good racing), but I went home, just like every other American. Time to prepare for Nationals without any other racing getting in the way. But I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s talk about Silver Star and the races at Sovereign Lakes.
Canadia!
· Mar 18, 08:43 PM
I’m back. Well, sort of. I think this is my first trip north of the border since I was at Ste-Anne with Dartmouth late 2005, and there will be no visits to the shelf on this trip. Ah well, race season is back and it’s time to go. The drive up took a couple days (we took a little break on the drive up – check out the XC O blog for pics) but we’re here and going now. No pictures from the venue yet, but the sun did come out today, so maybe I’ll get the camera out soon.
Today we had the 10k classic. 3×3.3 on the Olympic Classic trail. A lot of good skiing out there, if good skiing is to be had. Today was not one of those days. I ended up on hairies and they were decent. They weren’t good, but they were fast and they were better than what a lot of people had. I could pretty much run up anything as long as I was out of the track, but I couldn’t really kick the tracks. It was just a tiny bit too bad, because the hills were just barely skiable, so running definitely wasn’t the fastest thing to do out there. But I have to think my skis were above average.
As far as the race went, it wasn’t bad. Wasn’t great, but I haven’t done anything in the last month really (5 weeks if you don’t count the Birkie), so I’ll take it. I started 15 seconds before Robin McKeever and 15 behind Roycroft. (15 second intervals and 3 laps made it feel like roller derby out there on lap one, then it thinned out a little – there might be more of the same tomorrow, I’m not sure sure, no start lists yet). I lost time to Roycroft on the first lap, and McKeever caught me at about 2.5k. I didn’t hang on for two long, but skied a good second lap and stayed close. I pulled Dan back a little and was feeling pretty good for the last lap.
Then McKeever caught Roycroft and they really put the hammer down on last lap and really buried me. I struggled with kick and suffered my way through. My legs were wobbly enough to make me want to get out of my tuck on the second to last downhill, so that was a good sign at least for the effort. I skied the bottom half of the last climb like a champ and the top half not so fast. But, all told it was a real good effort to get out of the way. Here’s hoping for tomorrow!
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