2018 Randonee racing post

Unless I have a standout race, all ski races will be grouped in one post.  I use this writing heavily for my own training, so readers who do not care about lactate threshold pace or relative training volume might want to just skip the post altogether.

For fitness, the lead-in to ski season was weird.  I am not super fired up for ski racing this year, but still want to do what I can to race well and position myself well for big ski days.  I had a combination Achilles injury and sickness in October that put me way behind.  But the dueling maladies resolved quickly, and I had a consistent late fall twelve week block of training with very good bi-weekly strength work including a once a week Momentum class, and consistent, low volume intensity work.  The two big missing puzzle pieces have been total easy aerobic volume, which has been woefully light, and specific training.  To my surprise, fitness is on the soft side of average for ski racing, which is great.  It would be rad to get a nice block of intensity and plyo gym work leading into Shedhorn, but honestly, I'll be happy stay health and maintain fitness.  A hidden layer on top of all of this is my efforts to rehab my temperamental left knee, which has been injured but manageable for almost exactly a year.  I have been diligently back at daily rehab for about a month with moderate success.  Fingers crossed for a continuing upward trend leading into longer days and (hopefully) bike season.

Shedhorn

Spoiler: I had a bad race.  I had been kind of sort of sick the proceeding two weeks, but was hopeful a full week off would be sufficient to have a good race.  Right from the start, it was clear that my energy was just not there.  I did, however gut it out and had a good race relative to my fitness and health on that day.  As a double crushing disappointment, I also finished with relatively trashed legs and a few adductor twinges, which left me wondering how much better I would have done even with better health. 

The weather was quite challenging, but the course is awesome and the turnout was great.  I will be back.

If I am honest with myself, my body is tired.  In theory it should not be, but it just is.  I had put in what I though was a good training block leading into the race, and it paid no dividends.  I don't know exactly what it is going to look like, but I am going to commit go getting a good re-set with a stated goal of having a solid build up into running season.  I do have some big days and hopefully some fast ski days that I want to engage this spring, and will try to mix them in intelligently.

Whitefish Whiteout

I went into the race feeling good.  To my surprise, I did not have any kick on the first climb.  I was in about 30th at the end of the initial scramble.  Even with a little too much time above anaerobic threshold, I topped out in about 20th position, well behind some of my normal racing buddies.  Damn, people take this thing out hot! With the drag race over, it was time to start moving up.  The first run had terrible snow, which allowed me to move up, and the North bowl climb was long and technical enough to pass a few skiers outright and sweep up a little carnage.  East Rim was a new to me run, which I enjoyed, and the Chicken fingers climb was a great addition to the course, although the ensuing run was forgettable.  I switched to skinny skins for the NBC climb in anticipation of cat track skinning at the top of the run, and almost lost them right away technical skinning up to the booter, but they stayed stuck enough, and I made good enough time up the booter and excellent time on the flats, almost catching Alan.  Any hopes of passing Alan were slowly crushed, and he skied the next run quickly, and stomped up the last climb with authority.  Ah well.  With Jeffrey comfortably behind, I pushed the last climb at a very hard but sustainable pace, double skin ripped, and scooted down the easy groomer for an 8th place finish.

I was about 180 seconds slower up Benny Up than my fastest time, indicating my fitness is a touch off.  However, I was able to push very hard for the rest of the race, working up eighteen positions after the first climb, maintaining the gap behind the racers in front, and finish in the top 10.  It would be disingenuous to say that I wasn't a little disappointed, but in context, I didn't cramp, closed confidently, and executed well.

Thanks to everyone who made the race happen, and to our friends for watching Samuel so Leah could race.  It is kind of cool that Leah does not care about ski racing, but she would be a crusher with race gear. Also, nice work to all of the fast ladies, to Foote for the commanding win, to Andrew, Caleb, Joel and Jeff for throwing down a fast time, and to all of the racers on non-race gear for coming out and giving 'er.  This was a new course.  It is the best course I have skied at Whitefish.  I hope they keep it.

Bridger Bowl skin to win

I went into the race with my stomach a touch off, but otherwise well tapered and excited to race.  While Bridger Bowl does an excellent job hosting this race, they set the skin tracks absurdly steep, and this year was even worse than past years!  As a result, a lot of the second half of the race was a battle of attrition, but fortunately I prevailed with a trusty pair of wall to wall full length nylon skins.  I also used leashes for the entirety of the race to be consistent with the intent of the race directors.

The course.  Better than it looks.

The blow by blow was:  I had an average le mans start, and settled into a only slightly stupid fast pace in about 12th place. Using skinny skins, I was able to make up a few seconds on flatter terrain, and maintain on the steeper stuff.  I worked up to 6th by the bottom of the North Bowl road, and maintained that position to the top of Hidden.  Predictably, Mike Foote was way off the front, and he would grow his untouchable lead linearly for the remainder of the race. Hidden skied super fast, and my trademark semi-reckless skiing on the Apron was sufficient to get me up into 3rd place at the Motor room transition.  I would maintain 3rd for the remainder of the race.

I pushed the second climb as hard as possible, but Alan Adams and another racer out-climbed me and closed the gap.  On the third climb, I almost closed the 1-minute gap to Andrew, and everyone behind me fell off due to either fatigue or skin failure.  I think I could have taken some risk and gone deeper into beast mode on the last climb, but was not strong enough psychologically to squeeze everything I had out of my body.  I did, however, push hard and stick to a successful "smooth is fast" mantra, which was sufficient to close the gap to Andrew to about 20 seconds at the last transition.  There was no one behind me, so the last run was a battle for second place.  I can almost always close a 20-second gap on the downhill, but Andrew aced the downhill, and proceeded to out-skate me to the finish by about 40 seconds.  I crossed the line in 2.06 pretty knackered but very happy overall with how things went. Results here.

Thanks to Andrew for the wicked battle, and hats off for executing a solid an controlled race!  And always, thanks to Bridger Bowl for hosting the event, and for the pay out for 3rd place.  Thanks to Leah and all our friends for supporting me during the race, and to our little one for hanging out for daddy at the finish line.

Rando Radness

I really enjoyed the local race series spearheaded by Mike Foote and Montana Snowbowl.  It is, in my opinion, a perfect community race series format with a simple route that accommodates all abilities, good non-racer turnout, and just enough competition if you want to throw down and race.  As always, I contend backcountry skiers would be happier as a sub species if we could get faster and more efficient, and race series like these are perfect for learning new tricks and teaching others the craft.

Week 1:  I had a cold but raced at a 95% effort.  Fun to work some cobwebs out and pass John Fiore at the last transition with a double skin rip to finish second.

Week 2: To my immense dismay, my stomach was off, but I once again raced at a 95% effort.  I also got lost on the first climb, but rallied back to second place behind Mike.  Transitions starting to come back together.

Week 3: Taper week for the Bridger race.  I did laps 1, 2, and 4 at a 50k effort, and did lap 3 at race pace.  I also tested leashes and a pack for the Bridger race.  I did not fare well in the overall results, but had a lot of fun and was able to move up a little toward the end of the race.

Week 4:  Baby watch, no skiing.  Super fun evening.

Week 5: See Week 4.