Once again, City of Lakes Loppet organizers managed to salvage a great race from a course that did not offer much. Great early snow coverage from December was nearly destroyed by a late January thaw, rain and sudden freeze. Early in the week, they began to aggressively groom the north end of the trail through Wirth golf course sections and even down in South Wirth with the Piston Bully.
It's amazing what they managed to do. Coverage was excellent everywhere with only spotty patches of ice. Of course, the tight, technical turns in Quaking Bog were a bit dicy as wave after wave of skiers snowplowed the coverage we had over to the side. Even then, in most of those bad spots you were able to ski the snow berms on the sides pretty effectively, and the race officials were on hand to warn folks ahead of each bad curve and did a great job.
For me personally, it was a terrific race. I know this whole course very well as I train on it more than any other trail system in the metro area. I was attentive to the start of the race, working the initial hill very hard to get in front of my wave. This has always seemed counterintuitive to me as a runner to go into the red zone so early in a race, but in nordic races i've learned how important this is so as to avoid race jams on subsequent climbs that can really slow down your momentum. It's important to remember as you are climbing and your quads are burning, that you will recover!
I managed to attach myself to a couple of pretty good "trains" at key points in the race as well, trading off leads with people to get a good rhythm going. At one point, we were moving pretty well through the bog, with the narrow sections there and I remember thinking "This train had better pick up the pace as they are starting to slow a little and I don't have room to get around". At that point, I saw a skier from wave 6 (yes, he started 10 minutes behind me and had caught me at about 20K into the race!) coming from behind, and weaving seamlessly between skiers. He whistled at us from behind as he came around a curve, jumping partly off the trail to weave around and in between our train. In that moment I realized, we were all a bunch of recreational enthusiasts. This guy was a real skier. He was gone in a flash.
After Quaking Bog section, this race heads to the lakes for the last 15K or so. I typically loathe this section as I'm a bit of a "strength" skier, if I may borrow that phrase. Skiers I can usually hang with or pass on climbs tend to drop me on the flats. But today was different. I attached myself to the end of my group and tried to hang on as best I could once we reached Cedar Lake. As we moved through the canal and onto Isles, I realized I still had something in the tank and began to move to the front of that train and even drop it, transitioning up. Very unusual for me and pretty promising. After kicking around this sport for a number of years and making scant progress, I think I may be rounding a corner in terms of skills, technique and race tactics.
(picture is of me, coming down onto Cedar Lake from the north beach section)
