Great Sacandaga XC Ski Race

On Saturday I headed up to my local ski area, Notchview in hopes to ski a good 40km. A familiar group of local racers convinced me to ski with them and head up to the Great Sacandaga Mini Marathon, a 30km ski race on Sunday. I wasn't planning on racing yet this year since I have had so little time on snow. Just about four times skiing all year. However, being that I couldn't resist a skate race, I offered to drive a group of us and made it up to the race in Day, NY by about 9:30am on Sunday. It was at the Saratoga Biathlon Center, owned by a former Olympic Biathlete, Curt Schreiner. We had quite a contingent of Berkshire Trails Skiers from Western Mass, 8 of us in total.

I have been training for about a week and a half for my next marathon - yes, running not skiing. An hour and a half ski race didn't seem so bad, so I thought I'd see what I could do. I started out pretty fast, probably about the 6th skier for the first half of the first lap (one of four 7.5k laps). The race starts with a tricky fast descent, then a challenging uphill. On the first hill, I noticed the basket of my pole had broken after it pierced through the snow which meant I couldn't really use my left pole for much.

Mid-way into the first lap, I settled in with a group of Peru Nordic Skiers.

It was a lot of fun pretending to be a fast skier, and I skied technically pretty well! The Peru Nordic guys train together every day - they are fast. After the first lap, I realized there's no way I could keep it up for three more laps. I dropped off the back, and half way into the second lap, Martin, who I got to know from a couple races last year, passed me with the comment "Started out too fast, huh? Try to recover". I sure did. The next two laps I settled in with a small group for a while, then dropped off. Found another group of two skiers that took me into the final lap. That's when I really hit the wall. As I said in my DailyLog journal - I literally forgot that I was racing. At that point, I just wanted to finish. The technical downhills got harder, and I was so slow on the climbs, I felt like I was coming to a stop.

I was hoping for a time of around 1:30 - ended up 1:41. While I know I could do better, especially with more time on the snow, a pole that wasn't broken, and better pre-race fueling, I had a blast. Next year I'm going to smash my time (as long as the conditions are as good!). I'm feeling more prepared for the next ski race that I'm planning in 3 weeks, the Lake Placid Loppet.

Think Snow!!

(Thanks to Marque Moffett for the photos)