More racing this past weekend - here's a report from Erin about the Bretton Woods Marathon:
Spencer, Ollie, and I represented Bowdoin at the Bretton Woods Marathon on Saturday. Spencer raced the 50k classic, while Ollie and I raced the 25k. My day began at 4:30am; it was so dark out it was hard to believe I had even gone to sleep. Thankfully, Mr. Eusden was also racing and he drove Spencer and I to Bretton Woods. After a dreadful 5 minutes in the car before the heat kicked in, I rested for an hour or so until it got light enough to eat my breakfast. The early wake up was worth it after seeing the sun rise over the NH mountains. We arrived at the venue and I found out the race directors lost my bib and registration packet. ‘No big deal’ I thought, and they made me a temporary bib. We changed and headed out with Ollie to test klister combinations.
It was a beautiful day for classic skiing: sunny, cold, and FAST snow. Ollie made the wax call, universal klister with a hard wax cover. The 50k was starting first so Spencer scrambled to wax his skis. I covered them with some Super hard wax while he got ready to race. I remember thinking to myself, ‘Boy, he’s cutting it close. I hope he doesn’t miss his start’. He took off and I looked at my watch, 15 minutes to my race start. I threw on some universal and covered it with hard wax, stripped down my warm ups, looked at my watch, 5 minutes to go. I made my way over to the starting area and watched as a group of skiers took off. ‘Hm, is that the touring division?’ I wondered. Then, upon realizing there was no one around and no sign of Ollie, I asked the announcer what race had just started. He responded that it was the 25k classic timed race, oops (karma?). I took off, slightly embarrassed, as I received a pity cheer from a few spectators. I’m going to blame my misunderstanding of the start time on the fact that I didn’t receive the information packet with my bib (not my inability to function pre-race without upperclassmen and Nathan’s support).
Anyways, I skied the entire first kilometer between the tracks, winding in and out of the slower skiers. I finally reached a spot where I could settle down and I realized I had just hammered the first twenty minutes. Feeling good though, I ate a gu (considerably more difficult to do in a classic race than a skate race), drank some gatorade, and continued to pick off racers. Unlike the Rangeley 50k, I had no one to pace off, no clue where I was within the field of racers, and little idea how many k I’d already skied (at one point I passed Marty Hall and got called out for looking at my watch to try and determine how far into the race I was). The course felt relatively flat, lots of double poling, and lots of down-hills ending in 90 or 180 degree turns. At one point I started hoping desperately for an uphill because I was tired of scrambling around all the tight downhill corners (yes, I need to work on my downhill skiing). Plus, the wax was perfect, great kick and glide for climbing.
By about 20k I was completely alone, unfortunately my pace slowed considerably due to the lack of competition, but before I knew it I was approaching the finish line. They announced that I was the first female finisher and I was immediately whisked off for pictures. Ollie dominated the 25k race (he won by 12 minutes!), and we posed together for the race photographer. After, we went back out to watch the 50k finish up. Spencer had a spectacular day. His strength and balance definitely helped him tear up all the double polling and make gains on the tricky down-hills; he finished 5th overall. I decided to take advantage of the beautiful day (and perhaps my last chance to classic ski this season) and went out to ski the trails for another hour before cleaning my skis and heading to the award/lunch ceremony. Ollie, Spencer, Mr. Eusden, and I all made off with raffle prizes (anyone interested in a men’s swix jacket?) before heading home. Overall a very fun day of racing! Big thanks to Ollie’s wax support and the Eusden family for hosting me Friday night!
A few other race notes from the weekend: first, Marty finished 7th overall in the 25k. Is there an M9 in the country as fast as Marty these days? I would have a hard time believing that judging by the way he's been terrorizing master skiers all over the Northeast this winter. Second, Ollie came back and won the Mt. Washington Cup (15k skate) the day after the marathon. 2 races, 2 wins for Ollie - not bad for a weekend's work. Lastly, Maren and I raced the Sugarloaf Inferno, a race starting on the Sugarloaf downhill trails and ending up at the outdoor center. It was a beautiful day for racing - sunny with nice fast snow. Sadly, both of us missed a turn on the way down the mountain. Maren got back on track quickly and managed to take third or fourth for women (no results posted yet). I took a little more time to find my way back to the course, but I was still able to lock up second-to-last for men ages 30-59. Nonetheless, a wicked fun race and a gorgeous day for skiing. Still plenty of snow on the trails around Maine - looks like we'll have a few more good days before it's all over.
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