Ready for Rogla
· Mar 8, 11:15 AM
We’re loading the vans for tomorrow’s 10 hour drive to Slovenia, and I’m bringing with me a healthy balance of acceptance, frustration, optimism and readiness after this weekends OPAs. FIS has results from at least Sunday’s race, and FasterSkier has an article, but I will go into a little more detail here than what you might get by reading those links – at least as far as my races are concerned.
The sprint relay on Friday night was my first hard workout since the Birkie, and since Friday was only my third day over here, I really didn’t know what to expect. Actually, since I’m becoming a bit of a veteran at this whole European race trip business, I knew not to expect to much. The combination of travel, jet-lag and lack of real training or intensity tend to make the first race pretty tough. I was actually fine with the late start times (7:30 semi-final, 10:15 final), because I was having a hard enough time getting my body clock right, that those were actually hours where I felt pretty awake. I guess I could say I was cautiously optimistic – I was certainly eager to get out and race.
The race itself was nothing to get excited about, at least performance wise. The course was actually really fun (off-camber icy corners are always fun in packs), but I didn’t have any snap out there. I expected to feel a little flat during my first lap, but I figured that would help open things up a bit, and that I could tear around for the second two. The first lap went as planned, but the second two were about the same. My body wasn’t quite up to it. Fortunately (for my ego at least) Marshall wasn’t on a great day either, so I didn’t have to feel too bad about dropping us out of contention. We battled it out with a couple of Frenchies until the last lap when Marshall buried them – which meant I spent my last lap trying to catch the group in front of us, not worrying about the guys behind – which was nice.
After Friday night I actually slept pretty well (racing will do that for you) and I was really looking forward to Sunday. 10km mass start skate. On a very flat, fast course. It had the makings of a crazy race with good points for anyone who could stay close on the final climb (50+ meters of vertical up an alpine run). I was pretty sluggish throughout the morning – being awake from 3ish-5ish probably had something to do with that – but I actually felt good once the race got going. It probably helped to have the best skis in the race (to be fair, I should say that as a group the Americans definitely had the best skis in the race – I don’t know if mine were the best individually – thanks coaches!), but my body was definitely feeling better. After a typical start (at the back after 500m) I started moving through the field. That worked well until a couple kms in, when we hit the first downhill. I got caught between another skier and the berm going into the first corner and ended up sliding on my face for a while. I was expecting broken skis, so I was pretty psyched to get up and find no damage to me aside from the fact that the pack was around the corner and over the next climb. Oops.
My race went from strategic to chase mode pretty quickly. I felt pretty good at times, and it was great fun to move up through the pack (as opposed to the Birkie where I mostly went backwards). Still, I never made contact with the pack itself, just with groups that had been shed by what was a pretty high pace. I held my own up the final climb and was able to bury myself pretty well over the top. All of that bodes pretty well for Slovenia. I just need to get my sleep schedule right and stand on my feet. The rest should fall into place. I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for quite a while.
Commenting is closed for this article.
Have fun, good luck!
— Em Mar 11, 06:48 PM #