[jroden]

<p>This is the third year I have done this race and it's the highlight of the winter for me.  I signed up for the longer race this year to keep me motivated to XC ski and it worked pretty well, I was able to get out a couple days a week on the skis and ran or rode the bike the other days, which was a good balance.  Most of my skis were just slow 2-3 hours and nearly all were classic technique, so I felt ready to at least complete this thing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Driving up was sweltering, nearly 60 degrees and sunny, ick.  On friday night, the temperature dropped to around 20 and the wind kicked up a lot.  The course was going to be a skating rink, no doubt.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Saturday--Race 1 - 51K classic-  I stayed up and rewaxed my kick zone in the parking ramp the night before, with the icy conditions I was concerned about losing my wax, so I ironoed on a special "binder" layer first, then applied green klister with a torch and blue klister then 5 layers of blue extra. Perhaps overkill, but at least I'd get up the hills.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Before the start the wind is howling and it starts to snow this dry slow sandy crap, yuck.  I start in the second wave which is fine as I'm no great shakes on the skis.  We get rolling and it's clear that the tracks are unskiable with the slow powder snow filling in. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Therefore, we spend the next 3 houts double poling and waddle skiing down the skate lane, which is also none too fast.  I do have good kick and by the later parts of the race the tracks were skied in enough that I could get rolling up the hills pretty well.  The downhills here are a blast, wide open and going for a couple miles at 35-40 mph, which is cool on skis.  End of 62nd out of how ever many hundred shoed up.  Had kid of slow skis, especially the second half of the race.  Legs and body are pretty whipped form 3.20 of maybe 80% upper body effort, not exactly something I train for much.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sunday -- 30K skate.  Super fast conditions today, all ice.  My balance stinks so I found myself kind of straining to keep over the skis at higher speeds.  I was having a poor race and ended up running 30 minutes per 10K, I think the leaders must have been 5 or more minutes faster than that, yeeks.  Ended up 100th place or something, not really a red letter day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We stayed in town through tuesday and went skating, saw the nature museum and skied DH at camp fortune, all considered a nice little vacation in Canada's capitol. </p>

 

[pcsronbo]

<p>I have no idea what most of that means, but a good excuse to take the family to Canada (they have a capital? wow!) and do some race skiing to boot... sounds like a darn good use of a weekend to me!</p>

 

[Yo Sake]

<p>Wow, that is A LOT of skiing in two days.  Great effort under sounds-like very tricky conditions and the competitive fields.  It is aswesome you keep challenging yourself with XC races. </p>
<p> </p>

 

[Alaska Mike]

<p>Damn man, that's just over 50 miles of skiing in weekend.  The entire wax thing is a mystery to me, its an art form to itself and seems to make a huge impact on performance.  For all your 'aw shucks' attitude I continue to be impressed with your versatility.  And you seem to have the balance thing between working hard at it, doing well and keeping it a family affair.  Congrats on a successful weekend.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mike</p>

 

[jroden]

<p>Tell me about it Mike, I was looking back yesterday and I had an 18 hour week which included a day off, that's a lot more volume that I usually do and maybe half of it was on skis.  I decided that since I enjoy the classic that I'm just going to do what I enjoy and not skate much, I really like how the classic makes me feel.  As I get older it seems like the skiing is a perfect activity since it's weight bearing but lower impact.  It's still more training stress than cycling I think, so this year I really made an effort to avoid doing a ton of skiing when the snow was good and injuring myself, which is my usual pattern, so I'm ending the season feeling pretty fit and with lots of 4 hour bike rides under my belt and a good chunk of skiing to supplement, plus tempo and long intervals on the rollers.  I feel like that's a good workmanlike base that will hopefully sustain me all the way through the cyclocross season and perhaps the masters worlds.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And it would not be spring if I did not say yet again "And I really mean it I will use those rollers skis more this summer"  And I mean it this time...</p>

 

[mrscoby78]

<p>Your legs must be on fire!  I couldn't do all the different things you do.  Impressive.</p>