The City of Lakes Loppet freestyle race was a ton of fun. My thighs and shoulders are pretty sore right now, but that's just how they should feel. I finished the 33km race ahead of my two-hour goal, and skied at a pace of 3:17 per kilometer - much faster than I expected to ski. I finished in 321st place, just into the lower half of the 575 male finishers but above the average finishing time.
I was a bit surprised, on arriving (without any driving or shuttle-bus trouble) at Theodore Wirth park, the race venue, to see that the start line faced a rather substantial hill - which some oher racers assured me was the biggest one of the race. They turned out to be right, and after watching the first five waves go off, I concluded that it was not only climbable, but sprintable. Trouble is, my newbie racing skills came to the fore (or maybe I was dazzled by the incredible variety of heinous lyrca outfits), and I wound up in the second line of racers in my wave - not optimum for a good start. But when the tiny but very loud cannon fired, I managed to get off to the side and move up well, passing a few people before the top of the hill and giving myself some open track to ski.
From there, the first third of the race went smoothly. Those 10km or so were mostly on the Wirth golf course, which meant a few steep ups and downs but mostly lots of gentler slopes and many, many curves and corners - all of which were well marked with big, obvious signage. I was mostly skiing with a woman who had started in my wave, and we managed to pass quite a few more people, mostly backmarkers in wave 5. It was motivating to be catching people who had started five minutes ahead of me. My mind did wander once, helping me catch a ski tip and do a nice faceplant. That momentary dead stop aside, the trail was still wide enough that I could pass on the right or the left, and even use some doublepoling to zip past slower skaters. Thank god for those DP workouts I did this summer, fall, and winter.
Exiting the golf course section, the course went under Highway 55, across Wirth Lake, through the second aid station (where I dumped my Gatorade right down my bib), through the 15km checkpoint, and into the toughest section of race: a relentlessly hilly and even more cornerful 6km section through some woody parklands. The field kept "accordioning" - spreading out on the short, twisty downhills, then compressing on the sharp, straight uphills. Quite often I'd have to stop at the bottom of a hill and then slowly herringbone up the slope. It wasn't really conducive to developing a good rhythm, and since I didn't know the course, I didn't know when to down a drink and some energy gel. Somewhere in here, I lost my ski partner when she made a great move around a group of slow climbers, and never did find her again. But I passed when I could, and noted that I usually felt stronger and smoother than those I was passing looked.
Legs and shoulders now burning from the effort, I was relieved when we suddenly popped out of the woods, zipped through the third aid station (at km 22 or so, where I managed to snag and drink two cups of fluid), and crossed Interstate 394 - which was bizarre: semi trucks blasting past underneath us? Shortly after that, we hit the main lake crossings: Brownie, Cedar (in two long sections), and Lake of the Isles. After the tight quarters and constant vertical while we were in the woods, the long, flat straightaways were a pleasant change. I sucked down some water, ate a couple packets of energy gel, and concentrated on keeping my V2 stroke even and smooth.
The V2 was helpful in eating up a lot of icy track, and I noticed that I was passing a lot of fourth-wave racers (who had started ten minutes ahead of me) as well as a few third-wave racers. Again, satisfying. The leg around Lake of the Isles seemed to go on forever, and it actually did last the better part of 4,000 meters. About the time I noticed some dismayingly wide cracks in the lake ice, I started feeling fatigue in individual abdominal muscles - one of the weirder physical sensations I've experienced, as if little squares of muscle were melting under my skin. For the first time in the race, my legs and arms couldn't always do what I wanted them to do. But I knew I was within the last 7 or 8km - almost done. And somewhere in here, the Skinnyski.com photographer took my pitcher:
And then all of a sudden, I passed a sign for 1,000 meters to go, just as I came up on a group which had been pretty far ahead of me when I hit Isles. I managed to pick up the pace just enough to move through that group and hit the finish straightway east along the Uptown Mall - a long, steadily uphill. One of my race goals was to not get passed after reaching the Mall, and I did go fast enough to gain a couple more places and not lose any. I reached the finish line in 1:48:15 - just as the public-address announcers read my name - a nice touch (even if they mispronounced TASSava, of course). I had aimed to finish in two hours or less, so I
Unable to talk, I staggered around for a few minutes, drank what must have been a dozen cups of water and Gatorade analog, stowed my skis and poles, retrieved my bag of personal belongings, watched finishers ski in, and eventually made my way to the shuttle bus back home. On sitting down in my car, my legs started throbbing, and I discovered that I couldn't grip the steering wheel too well. So I called some friends to decline their invitation to stop by (sorry, Elise and Chad!), consumed all the food and drink I could find in my bag, and eventually headed out onto the road, roundly satisfied with my effort and with the fun.