Short Story
I'm not slow, at least in comparison to local competition, but I could be faster and really need to work on organizing my manure ahead of racetime.
Long Story
Saturday I suited up and waxed up for my third (count 'em!) and last race of the ski season, the Crazy Carleton Classic Relay, a fundraiser for the Carleton Nordic Ski Club. The third adjective didn't apply this year: the thin snow and thick ice made for bad classic-technique skiing, so the organizers switched the race to freestyle and shortened the course to about 2.5km by eliminating some especially hard uphills. (I mean "southern Minnesota hard" - about 10 meters long, but about 30% grade. Okay, 15%. Geez.)
This, and a ton of publicity, created a big turnout compared to last year. I was surprised to see, pulling into the parking lot behind the Carleton Rec Center, a couple Fast Guys, including a guy who finished 75th in the City of Lakes Loppet and 147th at the American Birkebeiner. Fast Guys (who can be either male or female) can always be identified by the thorough coordination of their racing gear, which usually also reflects their preferred brand of ski. My preferred ski brand is "the one that was cheapest last time I could afford to buy some skis," and I choose my racing outfit by putting on my trusty Craft tights and then hoping I have clean wool socks and a windshirt.
I was excited to see the veritable crowd around the registration table. All in all, there were seven full three-person teams and one dude without a team - me. Last year, my singleton status was no problem; I just joined two women who'd come to race together and away we went. But this year, I was still standing by myself when the course marshal yelled, "Two minutes to race time!" I figured, what the hell: why not just go and ski? So I started getting myself organized and headed to the line.
"Go!" he yelled, as I tightened my pole straps. I would swear in a court of law that 120 seconds had not elapsed, but opposing counsel would probably just demonstrate that a) I wasn't exactly timing him and b) a ski cap over hearing aids does not for good audition make. Anyhow, I scooted up, told him, "Nobody else is here for another team, so I'm just going to go!" and I poled away as hard as I could, having spotted the rest of the field a ten-second head start.
Since I could use the faster V2 skating stroke on pretty much every meter of the course, I caught up to racers 4-7 about a minute in, as they slowed to start up the only real hill on the course. The trail was nice and wide there, so I was able to move past all four in a few strides. Up ahead of me was another racer, and beyond him was the racer I thought was #1, just starting down the other side of the hill. (In fact, racer #1 was already further ahead, and I was looking at racer #2 - himself no slouch, having won the "Solo Freak" division of the 24 Hours of Telemark race.)
I thought that I could maybe catch them both. As I hit the top of the hill, I checked my heart-rate watch: I was exactly three minutes in and my heart rate was up over 165 - high but not too bad. I was feeling pretty good, if insufficiently warmed up and a bit sloppy with my skate motion. A quick glance back confirmed that nobody had stayed with me when I made my pass, so I pointed my skis down the hill and got ready to try to chase down #2.
Whereupon I nearly wiped out. The whole back side of the hill, which had been lashed with a frigid west wind for a day, was glazed with ice and little finger drifts of snow - pure treachery. I decided not to skate down the hill, choosing instead to just carefully tuck down to the bottom. I still closed in on #2, who was even less certain on his skis than I was. By the time he hit the short flat at the base of the downhill, I was right behind him. There, the trall narrowed but reverted to good well-packed snow, so I hung in behind him for a few meters and then, on a nice gentle uphill that I have skied probably 100 times this winter, used a few decent V2 strokes to push past. I hoped here to see #1 (i.e., #2) up ahead, but no luck - he was far off the front, and the trail was now getting too twisty-turny for me to see him again.
I relaxed on the winding flats that took us around the sparsely treed "Alumni Field." A sharp right turn pointed me more or less back toward the start - a kilometer or so away, on the other side of a quick downhill-uphill combination and then another winding flat section. I sped up a bit as I approached the downhill, then tried to really hammer as the slope began, building speed for the uphill to follow. The trails here were nicely packed snow, so it was easy to V2 the uphill and maintain decent velocity onto the flats at the top. Glancing across the open field between me and the start area, I could see someone tagging off already. I tried to stay smooth and relaxed, just riding the flats. I felt pretty good swooshing into the tag zone - where I stopped, having no teammate to tag. A few people looked over, clearly wondering, "What's up with Mr. Man with No Team?" I shrugged and headed over to grab a drink. I had finished in about 9:45 - not too bad for me.
I spent the next twenty minutes watching other racers come through for the exchange zone, tagging off and heading back out. As I polished off my can of Coke and chatted with other skiers, a guy came skiing the wrong way down the course and slid to a stop in front of the race marshal: "Sorry I'm late, man! I just got here. Can I still race?" The marshal said, "Well, all the teams have already tagged off. The race is mostly done." Oh no it idn't! I jumped over to the newcomer and said, "I just skied one leg - go out now and tag me for the third leg!" He didn't even blink, just turned around and zoomed off. Excellent! Full team! From the looks of my new teammate, he was fast, so I strapped myself into my poles and got ready for him. Most of the third-leg skiers started while I waited, but I thought there might still be a chance to catch one or two.
When I saw my teammate hit the straightaway to the exchange zone, I slid into place hoping my anchor leg would be more Thomas Alsgaard than Jörgen Brink. Unlike either of those great racers, I only proved totally incapable of estimating approach velocity. I hadn't even started to move when my teammate came tearing into the exchange zone, as this lovely photo shows. (See the whole slideshow on Skinnyski.com here.) As he blazed past me, he managed to tap my pole, which I figured was close enough to a "tag," so I headed out, V2'ing as strongly as I could.
Making my way around the first corner, just a few meters outside the zone, I saw that the snow which had been there half an hour before had now blown away, and the whole corner was now ice. "Interesting - better be careful!" I said to myself, just as both skis flew out from under me and I landed on my ass.
This is called "going pro," I believe.
Luckily, I had enough momentum that I bounced back up and was able to get back to actual skiing right away. I didn't see anyone else out on the trail as I headed up the climb, nor as I picked my way through the even-slipperier downhill. I met a few people out for walks along the trail through the woods, but you're not really "passing" someone if they're a) not in the race and/or b) going in the direction opposite to yours. As I approached the short downhill on the backside of the course, I decided to go as absolutely hard as I could, because why not? Last race of the year! Right about here, I actually started to feel smooth and controlled, which was a nice sensation. Some drool on my chin helped me feel totally pro. The HRM went north of 170 here - about as fast as I can make my heart go. Over the flats and around the bends, back to the exchange zone I went. I crossed the line at 9:41 - faster than my first lap.
In the final results, my "team" came in last, but if you do a little thought experiment and take away the twenty minutes between my finishing the first leg and my second-leg teammate showing up, our cumulative time would actually be good for third place. And I skied both the third-fastest scramble leg and the fourth-fastest anchor leg - no one else in the race skied two legs of the race!