City of Lakes Loppet Race Report, or, That Really Hurt

Today’s City of Lakes Loppet took place in warm sunshine under robin’s-egg blue skies. The springlike weather was pretty much the best part of the event, because my race was pretty much a disaster. It was fun in a “the worst day skiing is better than the best day lying around” sort of way, but otherwise, it was a sufferfest. I didn’t so just spelunk in the “pain cave” that racers talk about; I was there so long I practically evolved into one of those eyeless transparent cavern-dwelling fish they show in National Geographic.

And I skied about as fast as one of those fish would. I simply couldn’t go, and for no other reason than the most straightforward one: I didn’t train enough or correctly. (I also missed my wax, but the Swedish national ski team’s wax servicemen couldn’t have saved me today, and I dressed too warmly, but I could have taken off a layer before the race started.)

In more detail: the first half of the City of Lakes Loppet course (which you can see in its entirety here) is very hilly, a relentless rollercoaster of lots of short, sharp “walls” covered (this year) by the deep granular snow that skiers call “sugar” but which is not sweet to ski through. After going up and down the 1,000 hills (plus or minus) between the start and the five kilometer mark, my legs were already screaming, and they never recovered.

On the flats, much later in the course, I was able to pole quite well – indicating that my doublepoling sessions to build upper-body and core strength weren’t for naught – but my legs would not cooperate, and instead alternated between achingly stiff and painfully wobbly. Not a good combination, unless you’re looking to watch people pass you in droves, and neither latch on nor pass anyone back.

The final result wasn’t pretty: a finishing time of 2:10:49, “good” for 450th of 840 racers (putting me in the bottom half), 44th of 83 in my age division (ditto), and 397th of 678 men (ditto ditto).

So I’m chalking this race up to “an important lesson, painfully learned.” Next year, I’ll hit this City of Lakes – and who knows: maybe more than one race in a season! – after many, many more uphill workouts, and a least a dozen sessions of at least 25 or 30km. If I do, CoLL 2010 will be a bigger personal success than 2009 was.

Minutiae of some slight interest:

• According to my heart-rate monitor, I completed my 130 minutes of skiing at an average heart rate of 161 beats per minute and hit a high of 174 (respectively, 88% and 96% of my maximum heart rate). In the first hour of racing, I only briefly saw my HR under 165. Also according to my HRM, I burned 1900 calories between the start to the finish – that’s roughly equivalent to one large thin-crust pepperoni pizza from Dominos. Snacktime!
• Last year’s men’s winner, Andrey Golovko, finished in 1:13:15. This year’s winner, Bjorn Batdorf, finished in 1:22:20, 9 minutes or about 12% slower than Golovko over a slightly shorter course. My time this year was about 20% slower than last year’s time (1:48:16). Apparently the course was slower for everyone, my terrible fitness aside.
• In the first 5km, I saw at least a dozen good crashes (none involving me), including at least two by the same guy, who kept trying to snowplow from a very deep tuck (the Italian-style sitdown, for those who know what I’m talking about).
• This race is ridiculously well run: the course is superbly groomed and marked, the website and other printed materials are highly useful, and, most importantly, the zillion volunteers are omnipresent and wonderfully energetic.
• I did get into the photo collection published online by Skinnyski.com, the Midwestern ski-racing website, though. In this shot of the third wave on the start line (i.e., before the suffering started), I’m on the left side, in bib 3100. Nice shades, huh?