Man! Do I feel nervous! Gotta make sure I enjoy this! As the starting gun goes off my heart rate zooms. I know I've gotta give 'er only enough that I can sustain for at least 3 hours. Even still my Polar hr monitor says I'm working hard and it FEELS like it too.
Quickly into the race is a very long bootpack. On go the skis to the backpack and we trudge away. From bootpack to more skinning the pace continues at a high level and though we're in the back third of the field, several teams begin falling off. Even some USA and Canada teams.
When we finally get to the top of the 2nd big climb, you can see how much snow fell up here in the alpine. It's over 70cm's. On our tiny race boards it's quite a challenge to get down. As a team we do alright. Not losing any places as I fall several times and StanO almost wrenches his knee. We promise we'll go a bit more carefully on the big descent.
For the final big climb I start to cramp a bit so we decide to do some towing. It's amazing that even though there wasn't a lot of drag on the line, my hr drops 15-20 beats as Stan mules me up the hill.
Now came the disaster. My legs were so cooked they really couldn't negotiate the deep pow and steep hill. I must have fell a dozen times. The vert would be similar to more than Whistler top to bottom and then some. We probably lost 15 minutes and dropped a few places (including the other Canada team).
When we finally made It to the valley floor it was one of the toughest slogs ever. I had several cramps going in my legs. It was such a relief to finally be over. Not the greatest result, but a victory for sure in perseverance!!
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