Ski race 31:40 [3] 6.9 mi (4:35 / mi) +50m 4:29 / mi
Woohoo first ever win at World Champs! Had the right skis and poles and made good decisions, and I guess I skied fast, too.
Started out with the pack and with the winds no one was breaking away. Took the double-pole option along the river to get in to third, and held that through the lap, although John started to pull away. Came in to the exchange in third, right behind Rob, and maybe 15 seconds behind John.
There was no way I was switching to classic skis since it's Weston, it was wicked glazed, it's Weston, it was Weston conditions, it's Weston, and I don't put klister on skis in March for Weston no matter how fun blow torches are (answer: fun). I snapped off my skis, jumped out, jumped in, and went off double-poling.
I caught Rob right away, hearing the buzzing of his fish scales on the icy snow. That wasn't going to be a fast pair of skis. I put in some good strokes and made time up on John and caught all the way up to him coming back on the flats. Much of this catching up was tucking and gliding when he was poling: having something on the bottom of your skis was not good for the race today. I led the second loop and mostly took it easy because I knew that I could probably kill it in the end of the lap. We started lapping people through the infield, and I got a fortuitous block when I jumped from the right track to the left and then someone jumped in front of John (who was probably 10 seconds behind by this point). I heard an f bomb and didn't look back and pounded the last uphill. 175s with big baskets were totally the right move, just getting high on those suckers and putting energy in to the snow.
Finished with a good lead, then had a bit of a downer as far as Worlds go. If someone takes me in a race, I say "good job" or "nice race" to them. John's a nice guy, but good god it's a mid-March Weston race. His first comment: "did you switch skis?" Yes, I switched skis. Slower than some other folks. I was able to glide further off the hill because I didn't have to stop at a specific pair, and I didn't switch poles too (like, uh, someone who came second) because why would you want shorter poles for friggin' Weston on ice? You want double pole power.
Okay, so the second comment: "well, I'll let it slide, but you were skating some of those final hills." Where to begin? I had skate skis on, but part of the deal with that is that I double-poled all the hills. The only time I took a skate was to switch tracks at the top of the hill at the end of the infield and did that totally legally, and that was after trying to track the skier in front of me (and not succeeding) so I took one stride and jumped back in to the track. Good lord, I won because I skied faster, because I picked better skis, because I double poled up the hills which was as fast as kicking but didn't have drag on the flats, and because I skied faster. I don't come up with 1000 excuses every time I don't win a race at Weston (or anywhere else for that matter). This was irksome. I didn't expect to be showered with praise, but a little sportsmanship goes a long way.
I guess there's a reason that we make light of Tuesday Night Worlds: some people take it a bit too seriously. Well now I am going to shout it from a rooftop: I won Tuesday Night World Championships Of The World!
Then I drove up to Mount Kearsarge to not see the Northern Lights. Will log that tomorrow.