Rangeley Loppet

Nine intrepid Bowdoin skiers tackled the Rangeley Lakes Loppet on Saturday: Shem, Tom, Nat, Colman, Grace, Erin, Woody, Spencer, and Ollie. We were fortunate to have a beautiful day for the race - an overcast sky quickly turned sunny as the race got underway. There was some solid competition on hand: lots of Dartmouth and Colby skiers, Eli Enman of Rossignol, and tons of master skiers. After a few kilometers, Eli broke away with a group of three college skiers: Eric Packer of Dartmouth and Wyatt Fereday and Matt Briggs of Colby. Colman, Spencer, and Ollie formed a chase pack with a few other Dartmouth skiers - this group stayed together well into the second lap. Ollie took a long pull to help the guys stay strong for the final push - eventually, Colman and Spencer broke away and battled to the finish to take 5th and 6th, respectively, with Ollie in 9th (here's his story).

On the women's side, Erin ended up 7th after an impressive finishing kick. She was in 8th when she passed me with about 5k to go. When I told her that she was only about 40 seconds behind a Dartmouth skier, she groaned something like "Oh God" and promptly tripped and fell. After pulling herself off the ground, she started hammering - by the finish, she'd blown by the Dartmouth girl and a couple of masters. Lots of heart in this girl. She told me that she probably skied the last 5k faster than she's ever skied a 5k before. Hmm - perhaps a little more speed work next year...

Everyone on the team ended up fighting some mini-battles, largely successfully: Tom and Shem each pulled away from Colby skiers in the final kilometers; Woody and Nat raced with separate clusters of master skiers (read Nat's account here); and Grace went back and forth with a Colby and a Dartmouth skier before dropping them both late in the race. Overall, this was one of the best days we've had this season (two years in a row we've thrived at 50k races in March - what does this say about my training plan?) and I'm really proud of the team. Everyone skied smart races, even though all but Colman and Nat were doing their first 50k ever - good pacing and tactics, and a sensible approach to fueling during the race. I think this was a really quality effort and a great learning experience for the skiers - this is the kind of day that leaves people feeling excited about the season and motivated for next year.

A big thanks to Cindy Dixon for hosting and feeding the team on Friday night - a 50k race is hard enough without waking up at 5am to drive across the state!