I hope this post finds everyone well at Nationals!
Yesterday I raced the Tour of Anchorage 25k skate race. At the Tour of Anchorage there are several racing options, ether a 50, 40, or 25k skate or a 25k skate. Seeing as one month ago I was sitting by my swimming pool in TX sipping a fruity adult beverage, I chose the 25k skate.
The race day conditions were unparalleled for a skate race. 25 degrees, slightly overcast but quickly burning off, packed snow, and not a hint of ice. After consulting with my wax technician (Thanks Joe!) via cell phone a few days before the race, I decided to mix LF6 and LF7 for my race wax. This turned out to be an excellent idea! The majority of the course was in the shade, and my skis were rockets! The few areas where sunshine was my only option were a bit slower, but nothing too horrible. We started out in waves of 50 people every 2 minutes, I was in the 5th wave, and the trails were SKINNY. At some points we were 4 across and double poling. After about 15k however, I had passed the majority people I was going to pass and was able to focus on skiing, rather than getting around the masses. Lucky for me, in my wave a younger girl (12-13 years old) kept passing me, then I would pass her, etc, and we started to work together at about 5k into the race, and we continued to work together throughout, she ended up overtaking me with about 4k to go, but let me tell you, she earned it! Yes, that is right, I had my butt handed to me by a 12 year old girl! I think she was getting a kick out of all the 13 year old boys we were passing though. I finished in 1 hour, 30 minutes, and 35 seconds, placing me 17th for the women’s field of 217, and 66 for the overall field of 500. Not the greatest day ever, but hey, it was a blast! Besides, all of the “big guns” were skiing in the 40k and 50k races! Maybe next year for me…
This was my first 25k ever, before yesterday my longest race had been a 15k! I guess I used to be intimidated by the longer races, but up here I am definitely going to have to get over that if I want to do any racing. I have started to notice that the skiers up here are all bout the long races, so I guess it is just another challenge. This will be my last ski race of the year, I am going to continue to train while there is snow, then switch to running/biking/roller skiing to train for 2 half marathons I have planned for the summer. I also have decided to take on snowboarding so that should be an adventure and hopefully help me not be as freaked out by fast downhills!
The night before the race a coworker had a pre-tour potluck at his house that I went to and it turned out to be another one of those “small world but even smaller since I am from WY” moments. My coworker is British and here in Anchorage many of the Europeans hang out together so at his house there was a Norwegian coworker of ours that I had met in passing at work but hadn’t really talked to him at all. We started chatting about World Cup skiers, etc, and I mentioned that I skied in college fro WY, and he looked at me and said “So did I!” He was a member of the UW team in the beginning to mid 80’s, before Christi’s time. We had a great time talking about the team, etc, and he and I are the same degree so we had even had the same professors while at UW. I thought it was pretty awesome I moved to AK and met a fellow UW teammate!
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