Craftsbury

This past Saturday I competed in my fourth the Craftsbury Marathon (CM). The course, conditions, weather, and wax were awesome. This year, the CM organizers opted to base everything out of the Craftsbury Outdoor Center rather than a point to point race starting at Highland Lodge in Greensboro and ending at the Common, using the trails at the center for about half of the course. I had mixed feelings about the redesign. This model would be much easier logisitically, since a racer did not have to get bussed to the start with all of our gear (skis, wax, wax benches, clothing) only to return there afterwards to retrieve it all. Last year, this manifested in a particularly nasty way when I realized at the 10 Km mark that I had forgotten my keys at Highland and did not prepare a bag with my warm ups to be brought by volunteers to the finish. I ended up coming in from the race, shivering without dry clothes and had to search for a friend to bring me back to Highland to retrieve my gear, clothes, keys etc.

This year was different in many, many ways. Our club (Onion River Nordic) had a large contingent this year. I don't know exactly how many raced or toured on Saturday from our club but it was over twenty. Friday night, we had a pot-luck waxing party at Morse Farm. It proved to be a great spot for such an event; thanks to Dave and Burr for hosting. As a result of the wax party, everyone came prepped with glide (moly covered with CH6/LF6) and binder with a layer of V30 iron in to help cement the day's kick to the binder. When we showed up Saturday, we set up the ORS tent, wax table with forms, and got to work putting a few layers of VF30 followed by 4 to 6 layers of VF40. This was a little draggy, so we ended up covering with a little VF30. All set, no panicking, everyone knew what to do. Compared to the panicked klister applicay that happened last year, it was a dream.

For me, I ended up with my new Madshus which had LF6 and Moly mixed covered with old-school Swix F16. The stiffer skis did not seem to be a hindrance and were both fast and kicking all day. In fact, I had two fellow racers tell me during the race that I had really fast skis.

The race went really well. I lined up about 5 rows back, having entered the coral pretty late. The course went along a series of fields that gradually dropped to Little Hosmer Lake. Without a warm up prior to the start except to test glide and kick, this first couple K's were much better than the usually blast up Barr Hill from Highland Lodge.

The pack settled into groups pretty quickly. I ended up skiing with a group of about 6 for the first half of the race. At which point, the course headed back towards the Center after going on Little and Big Hosmer and past Wind Ridge resort. Here I past Nick Petterssen who had pulled over and was having trouble with a pole strap. Our group kept on doing its thing for the next 10 K until Nick came back in to join us. He had crashed hard on a long, fast downhill where I had seen him and lost the wedge from his grip. He and I quickly moved to the front of the group and skied a solid pace up to the Common. The group sort of spread out at this point. By the time we got through the lap lane and down to Hosmer, we had caught a couple of other skiers. At this point, I was feeling pretty good. 30 K in to the race and feeling pretty strong. Despite holding in the reins, knowing full well that Elinors Hill and the climb to the Common were still lurking, I began to pull away from the group of skiers that I had been with. I ended up skiing with the couple of fellows that we had caught coming down to Hosmer. One of which was Ron Newbury, an M6 from Freedom Maine. I remember Ron from when I skied for Bates; he was always this soft-spoken Master skier that hammered. If you didn't have a good day, Ron would get you. This was back when he was an M4 and I was a S1 and had a lot more time to train. Ron and I skied with another skier up through Ruthie's Run, before he pulled away.

The end of the race is always hard. There gets to be a tipping point when you shift from "I can catch that guy that is up ahead of me" to "I can slow up this much before the guy behind me catches me". Everyone is deep in the pain cave, skiis that were working all day suddenly seem like they are going backwards, and the hills become steeper, longer, and covered with beach sand. I managed to hold on to my place and finish 35th in the open class; some 44 minutes behind Kris Freeman. I am pretty pleased. Next year, watch out Bird and Freebase, I'm coming....