One More thing

I forgot to tell you (I don't know why I say "you", nobody reads this) about the classic supertour. It was a 16k race. the course was pretty flat except for one hill so there was a lot of double pole. I woke up around 7:30 much more nervous than I was for the sprint the day before. it's funny though, in the lobby in my pijamas I can't eat before races and my stomach gets all funny, but once I put on my race suit I become a different person. it's a kind of reverse superman thing. Superman's outfit is indestrucible when it is touching his skin, but I am indestructible when my suit touches my skin. I grab my skis from the basement and walk over to the trailhead.

I ski over on my klister skis (Rick Halling/Sandy Brown picked out my new atomic skis for me last year but unfortunately they are too stiff) without wax so I skate. I show up early enough that bill wants me to help him test waxes. I set aside my race skis, and start testing other skis. I will be racing on an older pair of atomic skis that are much softer than my new ones. I get warmed up, shed some layers, and head over to my start.

out of the start I do a couple of quick diagonal strides and cruise into a fast-but-not-too-fast double pole. I haven't previously skied the course, so I go a little conservatively through the first lap. This is a good call on my part because I have a tendency to go all out in the first kilometer and burn out halfway through the race. as I approach the only real hill, I can see the person who started 30 seconds before me. I think to myself, "keep him in check. If you catch him on the second or third lap you will be having a good race because he went to Scando Cup last year." I never caught him though.

The second and third lap went about the same as the first. I got passed by a 3 or 4 of college guys, but it wasn't nearly as many as last year. the "Scando Cup"guy faded into the distance in front of me, and I never saw him again until the finish when he was already across the line and getting his warm ups back on. I passed a couple of people though, but they didn't ski technically as well as I do.

As the fourth lap came around, I finally decided it was time to go all out. sure I had been going hard before, but I guess I wasn't racing. I hurt plenty but, once again I felt like I was conserving something for the end. on the steep hill I came across my old teammate Ben Page. He was yelling from the sidelines. He really motivated me over the top. and I started really going from there. It was a long sprint, but almost all downhill back to the finish. I came across the line feeling like I raced hard but not given it my all. I hate that feeling, but realistically, I have better races more often when I start out slow and speed up along the way than when I go all out from the beginning. If I go all out, I either have the best race of my life, or I go under and feel like quitting ski racing. With more training volume, I think that I will be able go hard pretty much the whole race.