Temps cooled off nicely for Saturday's skate, leaving us with fast snow. Unfortunately, the thin coverage meant that the many winding downhill turns (really fun, by the way) quickly got skied off down to ice. This led to some excitement in both mass starts. Kevin and James both got into good position out of the start before running into trouble. Kevin got taken out when a skier in front of him crashed; he later fell again and actually hit his head on an exposed snowmaking pipe - tough way to start a race. For a while, he seemed to be skiing in a daze, but he pulled it together and went charging through the field. By the end of the race, he'd worked himself up to 30th - a remarkable performance. It's always frustrating to look at a race like this and wonder what might have been, but it's also important to accept the occasional moral victory and just be proud of the effort, even if the result wasn't what it could have been. James had some mishaps of his own, taking his equipment breakage misfortunes to an absurd level. Shortly after the start, the binding plate on one of his skis broke when another skier stepped on it, leaving him scootering into the stadium on one ski. Wilson happened to be on hand to give him a replacement, and he started working his way back up just like Kevin. Unfortunately, a few kilometers later he broke the binding on his other ski - what are the chances? At this point, he was pretty far out in the woods, and there wasn't much to do but drop out. Throughout all of the chaos, Riley was able to stay out of trouble - he skied smoothly throughout the race to finish 46th, one of his best results of the season. The women's start was a bit cleaner - no major trouble as far as I could tell - but things got hairy on some of the technical turns. I was near one turn around the 2k mark, and the carnage was impressive - wave after wave of skiers skidding on the ice trying frantically to avoid a big tree on the outside of the turn, with several sliding off the trail into the woods and often taking out others in the process. I was both proud and relieved that all of our skiers made it through on their feet. Kaitlynn started out in a decent position in the teens, but she looked tired from the start, and I was worried that she'd fade back into the middle of the pack. She pushed hard and found the energy to hold her position, finishing 12th for EISA - not her best result, but a great effort. Hannah had another fine race, skiing conservatively at the start and steadily picking off skiers to end up in 28th. Eva skied steadily as well to finish 34th. One thing that was fun to see was that Hannah M and Lucy were able to get into a battle with a group of St. Mike's skiers. Younger developing skiers often end up skiing alone in these long races, but these two were able to find some competitors out there and push each other to the finish - a great learning experience.
RESULTS
Here are some photos from the skate race, courtesy of Cathy Hoose:
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