Westerns - Day 2

For most of us, today was an easy morning. The Junior Boys did not start until 2:30, and all the other categories came after. Except for Alex, who started at 9:30 am.

So, while Corey, Megan and Alex beat the sun to the ski venue, the rest of us blissfully slept.

Unlike the rest of us, who skied a 2.5 km prologue, Alex raced a 1.4 km sprint. Despite feeling sluggish in the qualifier, he was a respectable 23 seconds back from overall leader Andy Shields. In the quarterfinal, he came a close third to place 11th overall.

For the rest of us, the prologue was a learning experience. Not having raced that distance much, we didn't really know what to expect. What we discovered: one of the most difficult events out there.

Let me explain.

A typical sprint course, for juvenile-junior age, is somewhere around 1 - 1.2 km of maximum effort. The racer is in an anaerobic zone for most of the race, and is generally pretty exhausted after crossing the line. The prologue course requires a similar effort, but is a little more then twice as long, and so the anaerobic effort must be sustained for much longer then we're typically used to. Most of us found that we went out too hard and could not sustain the effort through the last kilometer, and so we blew up and staggered painfully across the line.

me, being passed. yeah, that one hurt my pride a bit.

ben

katie, bringing it home

Most of us preski'd the 5 km loop for the next day's race, and found to our dismay that there was a LOT of climbing. Not a single flat section to be found, just 5 km of up and down. Ben's initial look of glee subsided after climbing an 800m long uphill and finding that the trail kept going up. 

By the time we packed up and headed back to the hotel, it was around 4:30.

sardines...

We crashed for a bit, then ate a delicious dinner courtesy of Pauline, after which, we got ready for the next day's race. 

some unconventional ice procedures...

(note: i'm behind in the updates. this is for friday.)