Soho WCS!

this is a slightly delayed recount of the wasatch citizens series race at soldier hollow on Saturday the 10th of december. We had pretty good skis, not the best but better than most. I think that the utes went with hairies, which may have been the best choice. They had the best glide and probably mediocre kick. We went with a layer of klister (which was good originally) and then covered it with some Swix red hardwax at the last second because the temps were dropping (it was ok). it was a 10k classic mass start. Bill had told me try hang in the middle pack for a while, before trying to move up. but it was obvious within the first kilometer that a lot of the people I was skiing with had slow skis, so I moved up. I ended up skiing right behind casey simons from the u of u for the majority of the first 5 k. It was obvious that I had faster skis than him on the downhills, so I thought to myself that I had a good chance of staying with him and possibly beating him through the finish. I did get a little discouraged when half of the Ute womens team passed us though. I thought that they might be only going 5k and were already sprinting through the finish, but I guess they just had faster skis than me cause I saw them again on the second lap. by this time Ian Anderson had caught up to me (he had the best race of his life). We (me, Ian, and twenty ft. ahead Casey Simons) were catching this guy who had gone really hard from the beginning. On the flat section (right before a huge downhill) I was planning on loosing Ian and the guy who had punched it from the beginning, but me and Ian seemed to be loosing that guy anyways so I still played it conservatively. I noticed that Casey Simons was fading into the distance, but I was thinking even if he looses us, Ian and I are still racing for third overall. So I let him go (big mistake). By skiing hard but not super hard with only 2 or 3k left I left the door open for others to catch me. with less than 1k left, I look over my shoulder and Barry Mackerawitz (spelling?) is right next to me. I was absolutely flabbergasted! I mean I left him within the first 2k of the race because of his slow skis. maybe the conditions had changed considerably since the start of the race. Obviously, he didn't have slow skis anymore because he was gliding by me with very little effort. I sprinted through the finish, trying my best to pass him back, and ended up 4th in the mens race (2 seconds out of 3rd).