Prospect Race Weekend- part deux.

Suffice to say, I woke up very sore on Sunday morning. My entire back had suffered the effects of its only serious double poling since...last year. Typical lower back issues plus very sore rhomboids. But it was a skate race, so I knew I had a slightly better shot of turning in a decent finish. I've been told skating works the same leg muscle groups as cycling, and I was hoping that was indeed the case. Maybe I should consider myself a skate "specialist"?

I neglected to scrape my skis the night before, so that meant some last minute waxing before we left the house in the morning. I really have to start remembering that it's a lot more hectic having to deal with waxing on the day of the race. But procrastination always wins. Waking up at 6:15am was generally unpleasant, but overall the morning was pretty casual. The rest of the team left with a good amount of time to spare, while Molly and myself waited until the last reasonable minute. I wasn't in any rush to get to Prospect an hour early, and her race didn't start until 10am anyway.

This time I opted for straight Toko red LF glide, since I was anticipating slightly colder temperatures than those we saw on Saturday. I'm not really sure what the temperature ended up being, but I probably could have used the HFBD 8 again. Glide during the race seemed good given the conditions, so I suppose I made the correct, economical decision in the end.

The casual (or exhausted) nature of the morning continued, as I strolled out to warm-up...only to find that my two person wave was 1:30 from going off! I skied my 30m warmup to the line, stripped down, and soon found my boots hopelessly clumped with the wet, falling snow. In a last minute act of desperation, I pleaded for a later start...and it worked. I now had 10 minutes until I had to go. God bless the USCSA and their lack of formality.

While I was happy that I actually got to ski more than a few feet before my race, I realized starting at the back of the field would inevitably cause problems as well. It was snowing fairly heavily and the trail was soft to begin with, due to several inches of overnight accumulation. After the entire field had passed through, all the uphills were mashed potatoes. High-knee skating all the way! Not to mention that there would also be significantly more skiers to pass, given the late start.

I started out pretty well and immediately caught a handful of skiers on the flatter kilometers prior to Workout Hill. The snow was definitely pretty slow to further add difficulty to the race. Even though it was frustrating, I knew this would probably help my finish placing.

The first real issue came before the end of the first lap, as I began down the S-turn downhill that leads into the lodge area. Sufficient sliding had caused a berm to build up, which was nice...but it left a good amount of exposed ice in the middle of the turn. I took the left-hander well enough, but came down to the right hander to find a Clarkson skier had fallen right in the good line. Shit. I hit the ice, slid to the outside, over/through the powdery berm, and ate it pretty hard. I recall rolling over my pole, but managed to not break it in the process. Naturally I looked pretty professional going into the start/finish area, with a solid layer of snow covering my entire body. I definitely lost a fair amount of time there. Nothing like using good wax to save 5 seconds over 10k, when a hard fall on a fast downhill can cost you 20 seconds and a lot of speed.

I skied the second lap fairly well, save 3 incidents while trying to pass other skiers. The Prospect trails are just wide enough to convince the overtaken skier that they can continue to skate...but just narrow enough to make passing extremely precarious. I put my tip into the side of the trail each of these times, causing either minor spins, or complete washouts. I think I was 2/3 in washouts. These faults naturally compounded themselves, since the passed skier made it no easier the second time. [I'd like to note that when a really fast citizen racer passed me, I made the effort to double pole on the uphill. Empathy, people.]

In typical fashion, I fell on the icy turn again- this time solely because I'm still terrible at downhills. This trip was a bit less disastrous, though, so I think I could have only lost ~10s in the process. I dusted off, skied down to the field, and put in a pretty good finish kick- at least I could attempt to look competent, belying my downhill skiing ability. I finished strong enough, but I never really felt tapped...I still wish I could finish a race and be forced to collapse like so many World Cup skiers. I guess I could fake it and look ridiculous.

I ended up 4th- 10 seconds out of 3rd and 11 seconds out of 2nd. So yeah...falling cost me significant places. Not a big deal given that my finish placing doesn't matter, but somewhat annoying nonetheless. I think I was over a minute off Chad's pace, so I probably can't argue I lost that much time laying in the snow.

Sunday also featured the infamous 3-legged races and the distribution of highly inappropriate Valentine's Day fare. [Jordan and I think we could help you work on your double pole...] Molly and I skied to a win in our first heat, no doubt facilitated by our dispatch of the competition. The lesson?- DON'T GET IN OUR WAY. Sadly, we couldn't capitalize on our strongarm tactics a second time, and lost in the semi-finals to the eventual victors. But I feel it was a win nontheless, as we got out of standing around in the cold, and no equipment was broken in the process.

...so that was it, minus some detail. Oh yeah- I got an ice cream cone on the way back to Ithaca. What a weekend! I think I'll do one more weekend at Waterville Valley in a couple of weeks. Hopefully sans falling. But after that...it's time to ride.