Powderkeg Race

It’s Thursday today and I’m starting to feel human again. Last weekend’s N. American champs in Utah took a toll! For some crazy reason almost everyone in our Canadian group of  7 couldn’t sleep despite physically cranking out some really tough races. Personally, I slept for an entire 1 hour the Friday night before Saturday’s solo race, tried to nap unsuccessfully Sat. afternoon after the race, then got a whopping :10 min of sleep Sat night in preparation for the Sunday team’s race. A couple of us were amazed we could go as hard as we did given how little sleep we got.

I was also a little mystivied as to why several of the racers I handily beat earlier in the season in Jackson WY were in front of me in the solo race. Reiner Thoni pointed out that the Jackson Hole was 600m lower in elevation which may have helped me a bit as these Utah races were quite high. Starting around 8k’ and going up from there. But even in Jackson the altitude really seemed to crush me. You really have to learn how to race in that stuff. If you’re not acclimatised I find it much more effective and pleasurable to start out slow and build from there. And that’s what I did in Utah at the Powderkeg. However, the only athletes I seemed to do well against were my fellow lower landers. Interestingly though, 2 of our skiers that really over achieved (Nick and Eric) live at sea level in Squamish. Eric is doing his PhD work in altitude training, so maybe he has some secret he’s not revealing!

A really fun part of the weekend though for me was the team race. I didn’t have a partner initially, so I sent out some feelers. What came back was a guy that needed a partner and indicated that we’d duked it out earlier in Jackson. The funny thing was in that earlier race we were going back and forth the entire race. And uncharacteristically for skimo, he was trash talking me the whole time! Actually it was more in jest...good thing, because we partnered up and pushed each other really working well together. In the solo race I could see that Josh was faster on the downs and I would usually go just a bit faster on the climbs. We ended up finishing within seconds of each other. Pretty incredibly well matched!!

In that teams race I made him go out conservatively as I knew I’d die otherwise. I did fade a bit on the 3rd of 7 climbs, slowing Josh down a bit. He really rocked the downhills making me push harder. Finally I got to contribute a bit extra as I pulled ahead on climbs 6 & 7.... encouraging him and then towing a bit on the last climb. This was my 3 ever teams race (both others occurring at world champs) and both previous times I was the towee, so finally it felt great to be a bit stronger and become the tow-er.

Our final result wasn’t stellar, but it truly was a solid effort (Josh was 1.5 hours faster than the previous year-he’s really improving plus his partner was slower). After racing I can’t wait to go again, improving and correcting mistakes. This time around though I’m glad I have 2 weeks of rest before the Dogtooth Dash. I need the rest!!