Saturday was ok, even after I made the somewhat reckless decision to ski the 30K (my first) instead to the 15K a the Gold Run Loppet. The first 10K of the 30 was rough, I just could not ski. My technique was lousy, my legs felt tired, and I just felt very out of rhythm. After the first lap, after losing a ton of time to the leaders, I started feeling much better, my technique started to come together, and I found my timing, and really started having fun. I was able to hold steady and make up a couple places, and didn't really start feeling tired until about 28K, and luckily there was no one in sight in front of or behind. Even thought I was really tired, I found the strength for a very strong finishing kilometer, it actually really surprised me how good I felt at the end. ow I just need to figure out how to not lose 5 minutes in the first 10K. Good.
Sunday was a classic sprint at 11,000 feet and the Tennessee Pass nordic center. High. No air. Weee!! The course was long as well, at about 1.9 K, oh well. The prologue started with an 800m flat double pole section, and then some twisty down hills, which transitioned into a rolly twisty flat-ish section without tracks, and then about 150m of straight up nasty hill, finishing uphill and higher than you started. Brutal. I went out first, with all my teammates chasing me at 30 second intervals. When I finished I thought Jacob and Justin looked like the had both made up time on me, but I guess the steepness of the hill kind of compressed things because I ended up about 10 seconds up on the field. In the final, the 6 top times mass started at the bottom of the finishing straight, up through the finishing, 180 degrees around a road cone, and 75m downhill to a 90 degree soft and choppy corner right which dropped you onto where we started the prologue. My original plan for the final was to sit behind Justin, because I new he liked to start fast, and then wait for the climb at the end and then try to pull away at the end, but, as they say, battle plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. Out of the start I was the first around the cone, and then first around the nasty corner at the bottom, and had the lead into the double pole section. I figured "what the hell, why not see if I can take them now," so I started pushing reasonably hard. I could hear them behind me most of the way, and then could still hear them along the twisty untracked section, and at the bottom of the hill. At that point I was thinking "oh crap, I've been pushing pretty hard, and I haven't lost them." So I pretty much went fro broke on the last climb, and accelerated smoothly and cranked as hard as I could up into the finish, complete with finishing lunge. I turned around, suddenly realized that my ears must have been playing some tricks on me, because I had about 100m on the field, and ended up coming in about 18 seconds ahead. Apparently I had actually broken away early, heard my own pole strokes echoing, and scared myself into skiing faster, haha. But either way, I was really happy with it, because Jacob and Justin are very strong and getting stronger every week. Jacob ended up breaking away form the rest of the field and ended up second, while Justin ended up fading at the end and getting passed by a hard charging Nicholai and Joe from Air Force (who happened to go to High School together, who managed to hold of Nic's late charge by only a foot or two. After which Nic smiles tiredly at Joe and yell's "I hate you, the finish line should have been up here!" while pointing about 5 feet farther up the hill. Good times.
On the Women's side, Gwynn had the fastest time in the prologue, and managed to hold off the fast finishing Turner twins and Marie to take the win in the finals. I think the most impressive finish of the day on their side had to have been Liz in the prologue. She looked incredibly strong as she came up the long steep final hill. It probably helped her speed a little as Grigory, our russian post-doc ran alongside her yelling "ski faster, or we will send you to Russia!!!" I may have fallen over laughing at that point.
In the non racing scene, the rest of the weekend was a blast, including more amazing food from the Bogg's kitchen than we could possibly eat (even though we did), and lots of laughs. Highlights included Justin's repeated belly flops off the diving board at the rec center, biscuits and gravy (miraculously none of which, I think, ended up on the trails in the sprint), and getting two of the three vehicles stuck in alley behind Dick and Ev's house.
Until next time.
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