Time for one last personal race story/ adventure before the team gets back together later this week. The ridiculousness will ease down, and the Blue Whale will go into hibernation.
Last night, my friend Andre informed me of another race: The Craftsbury Classic! I've done a 10k skate race and haven't been able to ski much since then, so it was an obvious choice to go. The Blue Whale got loaded up agian, and we headed out. This is when everything went to hell.
I used Google maps to plan a route to Craftsbury. The original plan was to take I-89 north to exit 18, use Vermont Route 104 to get to Route 15, take a right onto North Wilcott road, then follow the signs to Craftsbury Outdoor Center. Google told me it would take 1 hour 40 minutes if the speed limit was followed. We got a late start, but I was determined to prove Google wrong. Immediately, I missed the turn after getting off the interstate and almost ended back up when we started. All the time made up taking the interstate was lost. We get onto 104 and then 15 , North Wolcott road. Things started getting sketchy again. I didn't remember any of the other directions. We ended pulling a map out of the glove compartment and discovered that we had missed a turn. While trying to pull a u-ey, the Blue Whale got beached. It only took about 5 minutes to dig and push her out, but that's still 5 minutes. Lesson #1, Whales can't handle snow.
More missed turns led to us getting to the race about 15 minutes before the start. Lesson #2, you can't prove Google wrong. This was enough time to get registered and throw on some extra blue kick wax. Both Andre and I got to the start line and had to line up at the back of the pack. That meant that a pluthera of citizen racers, high schoolers, and other youngings were in front of us. This led to an interesting start.
The first 3k of this course were FAST. Its pretty much a double pole course for that time. 8 lanes holding ~120 skiers quickly funneled down into two lanes. People were tripping over eachother's skis, passing by tracking their own paths in the woods, wacking eachother with poles... I amlost got tangled up in someone's skis when they crashed! Then we come to an open field that turned into a fairly steep and fast section with several switchbacks. The snow was fast, and we were still all packed together. We were weaving in and out from eachother, going 4 wide on several of the corners. I got pushed to the outside on the last one, focing me to bail so I wouldn't go off into the woods. The chaos started to settle out after that, and the racing began.
Overall, it wasn't a good race. It was fun, but not a good race. My skis were fast and my double pole was strong. However, my kick was nil and my uphills were disasterous. Lesson #3, find your kick zone and wax it. I was struggling to keep climbing with a few of the D1 college women racers. After the race we discoverd that green would have been the ideal wax. Oh well, I knew this wouldn't be good from the start. I learned a few things over vacation, and am ready for the team time trials Jan 10/11th!
I guess that's it for now.
Wait it's not. Andre and I saw a sign on the drive up. It said, "Watch Children". It wasn't a "Watch out, Children Playing" or whatever sign. It just said "Watch Children". We also saw a road call "Four Wheel Dr." Yea Vermont!
-Lamothe
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