Hardest. Race. Ever.
· Apr 1, 11:16 PM
That pretty much sums up how I felt about the 50k in Fairbanks on Sunday. If you haven’t read the FasterSkier race report, you should, it was an exciting day up at the front of both the men’s and women’s races. Maybe the most exciting domestic races of the year. Stinson gives me far more credit than I deserve for being part of the chase group with Kuzzy. We were there, but more like around 15th as opposed to 10th, but hey, it’s good publicity! Anyways, on to the race.
I started off as conservatively as I could and just let the group go, didn’t even bother to stay with them for 5k. I was not working hard, my skis were decent, but I had a sinking feeling because I could feel my shoulders working from the word go. Pretty much since I got back to VT in late January my upper body has felt weak classic skiing, and Sunday was no different. So I was afraid that things might go south, but I was hopeful.
My skis were decent, not quite as good as CXC, so I ended up having to work the steep ups and downs to stay with Kuzzy and Brian Gregg, but was it ever easy to ski the skiable climbs with those guys. It was great to just be able to cruise along. Around 20k Kuzzy got away from Brian and me on the climb out of the Black Hole (this was the start of lap 4 of 7 and was the last time I tried to run that climb, the last three laps were all walking), and we didn’t see him again. Brian and I did ski together for another lap and a half though, each of us hurting the other where we could.
When we got caught by the group of Alaskan juniors around 30k was when things started to go really badly for me. Brian caught a ride, I got dropped and my body gave up. There was just nothing left. Shoulder blades, lats, triceps, pecs … pretty much every muscle in my upper body was cramping or spasming. There was just nothing left to use. Walking all the climbs over the last two laps (literally herringbone walking, not even a shuffle) wasn’t a lot of fun, and I thought about dropping out, but why do that the last race of the season?
At the finish I was as tired as I’ve ever been (if not more so) from physical exertion. I ended up a minute off what I figured was a realistic prediction based on the 30k (2:45 about 15 minutes out), but I didn’t think I’d come to pieces so spectacularly to arrive there. I figured I’d just ski a little slower the whole way through.
Ah well, I came to terms with the frustrations of this season after the 10k, so the long races up there were pretty much just skiing things out. For a year that started out with so much promise (and some success) the last three months have been pretty trying. It’s time for some rest and serious planning. Only one year left, not a lot of room for error any more.
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