Training Log Archive: Ari-o

Woke up with a head stuffy and green stuff, but went skiing with Ali and Collin anyway. Hyland has a big new hill and it's a doozy. On the hard and fast conditions we skied nice and easy and almost matched Birkie pace from the day before. Whee. And, wow, with good snow I do very much miss skiing in Minnesota.

Event: American Birkebeiner
 

Birkie! Barely made the start, sick and dehydrated, fought back to 187th. Not quite what I'd hoped, but good given the conditions. Excepted from my race report (http://birkieguide.com/race-reports/race-reports-2...):

Wake up was at 5. The past two years our 5:45 departure has had us in Hayward by 6:30 and at Telemark by about 7:15. This year we had a slight delay pushing the car out the driveway and a bit more following slow drivers on Highway 63, but made the last of the buses out of Hayward. It was 6:40, so I figured we’d be later, but wasn’t fretting too much. The road to Cable was icy, but we were making progress for a while until traffic ground to a halt. We waited. And waited. Ali and Alex, bursting and close to missing their starts, left the bus to pee on the side of the road. When we finally got past Como Field, their start time looked in jeopardy. I texted the Ben Popp imploring him to delay the start. Traffic was nightmarish.

(We later found out that the parking lot at Telemark Road had filled and all traffic had been shunted to Como Field. Instead of routing traffic around Cable Sunset road, all traffic had to enter from 63. Which meant that half of the time we should have been moving we were waiting for right-turning traffic. This needs to be fixed; I’ll cover that elsewhere.)

As we trundled to the start Ali and Alex threw their gear bags at the rest of us, and we had to practically beg the driver to let them off. They still missed their start—which sucks majorly—but were not alone (many others did as well; well analyze the data to try to get a guess as to how many), and were able to ski off only a couple of minutes late. I readied myself in the bus and was able to jump out the door and run towards the start, skis in one hand, bagged backpack in the other. I got to the second path to the start and urinated non-discretely, as I started my phone on Strava. Being on the bus for an hour and a half meant that I hadn’t had a chance to pee and then rehydrate, so I was starting the race dehydrated and not warmed up at all. As I stood there, I heard “four minutes to the start.” I threw my bag at a truck and tucked in to the start lanes, with my skis and poles on with 1:19 to spare.

Usually, I’ve had time to anticipate the Birkie, but not this year. Instead of soaking in the Elite Wave, I was in a full-on sprint to get started, and didn’t have time to exchange many hellos, or move up in the start, or really anything other than get my poles set and go. It was surreal; when we started skiing I didn’t really feel like we were starting a race. I’d just shown up and gone.

The race went about as could be expected. The start accordioned pretty quickly, and it seemed like the leaders were going slowly with the soft snow. My skis seemed fast but my get-up-and-go seemed to have got-up-and-went somewhere on the way to the airport in Boston. I held my own on the Power lines and grabbed two cups of feed at the first feed station and fell off one pack in to the woods and in with another. I stayed with them about through the next feed but then fell off, trailing up Firetower Hill and then skiing with a couple of other guys—at times I was actually alone. I slumped up Boedecker Hill and OO Hill and through the feed there. On the other side of OO I was able to grab a bonus feed and get down some Gatorade (or at least Not HEED), which gave me a bit more oomph, and I caught the little pack I’d been skiing with. We were together in to Mosquito Brook where I found some extra energy up the hills and began to make up a little time. The two feeds I was trying to get at each station helped quite a bit, but I was getting tired and hungry, borderline bonking.

I had some goo at Rosie’s Field; my drink bottle having long since frozen. The field was brutal and I was alone, with an angled headwind and blowing snow. I knew the lake would be brutal. I got a good water bottle feed in to the climb after 77, and had a decent climb up, getting passed by one skier but passing several. On to the lake, I was able to draft in behind two other Elite Wave skiers, which was optimal as we met a wall of wind howling straight up the trail. I attacked them and caught another group, which I proceeded to attack and beat down the Main Street finish.

My face was frozen. I attempted to count first wave and Elite finishers to gauge my place, and pretty quickly repaired to the heated tent. Dry clothes! Soup! Brat with kraut! I sufficiently warmed, found my finish time (3:02, wow, slow!) and that a first waver finishing in 2:59 was in 159th place—meaning I was probably not relegated. I finally got a receipt with a place: 187th. This was not bad, considering illness and a complete lack of warm-up. In health, I think 150th would have been attainable.

Short ski at OO for Birkie pre-ski. Very soft before the last groom, but it actually felt kind of fast on the new snow even on older skis. Pretty cold though, and getting colder. Running late for everything with conditons.

And so begins the real challenge: getting to the Birkie. Heavy snow out in the Midwest right now, delays at MSP. Might make it in tonight. Might not. Also, I might be getting a cold (or it could be weather changes) and didn't sleep well last night. Hooray? Hydration Hydration Hydration.

Shake down for the Birkie, 11k at Weston. Mostly just easy balance skiing. They were out grooming at 8 a.m. because why groom the night before and let it set up all night at 10º when you can groom when it's 25 in the morning? I tried to stay off the new grooming until it set up for a while, but the other guy out there was of the mind that "new grooming let me put big ruts in to it." Of course, it's chunky raining now so it doesn't matter anyway. The snow was real nice, though, and so much!

Warming up for Worlds. Such perfect snow. Soft, yes, but 6" and no melt or anything out here, just powder. If I wasn't tapering I'd ski all night. But with a foot in NH, it will be sticking around through the thaw. Yeah, March skiing!

Race tonight was great. I planned to go hard for part of the race and then fall off the pace if I wasn't both a) feeling great and b) about to win. Mantra this week is don't get hurt and don't get sick. Small crowd; went out with John and Andy. Stayed in second or third with John leading, around the first lap we dropped off the fourth guy and he disappeared. I felt pretty good coming back on the flats but not wonderful, and after 15 minutes of hard decided to dial back from a 5k pace to a 50k pace and let the guys go ahead. I was a good minute up on fourth and cruised around, cooling down during the race. Still took third by a wide margin, including dropping a knee down the last hill. Perfect skiing!

And a cool down. Also awesome today: the snow scared everyone in to leaving early, no traffic. Started snowing again lightly, so no complaints there. Snow, snow snow! BIRKIE FEVER.

Wow, it is so nice. Why do I have to taper?! My parents said it took them 2:20 to ski the East Pasture loop so I figured at least an hour, right? 50 minutes later I was done. It's nice to have 2 straight miles uphill at ~500 feet per mile, just a grinder, but gets the heart thumpin. Then shooting down the gradual side and the whoopiewoos. I looped through the biathlon range for fun, too. Looks like there might be some good O terrain up in those woods and old roads.

Waited for the 'rents, then up for a couple laps of the homologated course. Really, really nice out. Had to keep myself from skiing more; I could have done the course 10 times with the snow, sun, temps and grooming. Waiting for March after the Birkie. If the weather is good that first weekend, there's a biathlon clinic in Jackson, and if it's fast, I'll try to ski all their groomed trails in a day. Boom.