It was a fine day for the first, and last, day of my cross country ski racing career. The temps were warm, the sun was shining while we were standing around at the top of Stowe waiting to start, and the snow was soft and forgiving.
at the start
My expectations going into this 16K ‘downhill’ race were low, so frankly it was fairly easy to exceed them. I descended the mountain without any crashes in about 15 minutes and felt good as we went into the uphill/cross country portion. I was climbing well, compared to the people around me, but most had better skills and could pass me on the downhills.
There was no water on the course, which I think is a problem for a race that was advertising itself with the slogan targeted toward the non-professional skier, “What do you mean you haven’t done it?” By the time I was 5 miles in, I was dying of thirst. Luckily when I got to the rec path portion a co-worker was spectating and she gave me a bottle of water. The last four miles were mainly flat along the river/rec path. I decided to try to leave everything I had out there, no small feat for someone who has the tendency to always hold back in order to go on ‘infinitely’. I set my eye on folks in front of me and reeled them in. Those last few miles flew by as I kept up my pace.
finishing
In the end my time was 2:10, not sure what place that will put me - last year that would have been good for 10 ahead of DFL 17/20 in my age group and and 181/197 overall. I put a strong effort out, I kept my heart rate really high (for me) as long as I was working, and I was fairly destroyed afterwards. But then it was only two hours. Happy to say that it’s done, don’t think I need to do it again unless I get really into skiing at some point in the future.
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