My original plan this week was to really blow out some 200 meter repeats on Tuesday. But then my brother called and wondered if I wanted to run some 400s with him on Wednesday. I don’t get a lot of chances to be faster than Kris at anything these days, so I jumped at the chance.

Kris asked on the phone what my planned pace was. But apparently the connection was bad because when I said 67-69 he heard 57-59. So he was planning on a really tough day. (Neither of us has ever had enough leg speed to run more than one lap of the track at that pace.)

But I was fast enough to stay in front the whole time. On the first couple repeats I was just a hint faster than planned, hitting 68.9 seconds for each of the first three intervals, about half a second faster than my plan. Kris was right behind me. On the fourth 400 I went through 200 meters in 33 seconds and suddenly stopped hearing Kris’s footsteps behind me. He finished only a couple seconds behind my 67, but he was clearly feeling the hurt.
He complained some about the pace and not having the speed, and told me he was going to be done after six repeats, but he actually hung tough, finishing 2-3 seconds back on each of the next three 400s. On the last 400 I decided to push it a little and ran a comfortable 64. Kris talked about sprinting ahead and boxing me out but instead ran another 70. Which is plenty fast for a skier in April, but enough behind me that it is worth sharing his slowness with the world.

The title of this post is both literal and figurative. As I start my first full training year of being over age 35, I am at the point where each additional year of life makes me a little slower. It is no longer my choice to prioritize my family and job over my athletic goals that slows me down; 35, by most accounts, is when physical capacity starts, however slowly, to decline.

And so, facing this reality, and coming off of a season that lacked any excellent results (though I had plenty of solid races), I am already training hard for running season. I have a couple of level three sessions under my belt, and I made my third trip to the track yesterday, when I dealt with a fierce wind coming around the final curve each time around.

The workout was five sets of 200/200/400 with 200 meters recovery between efforts. The goal was to build comfort at high speed. My times were:

33, 33, 68
34, 33, 69
33, 33, 68
33, 33, 68
33, 32, 68

I felt solid and controlled. My plan this year is to do more speed in the spring so that during the summer I can really focus on level 4 work and racing. We’ll see how it goes. My first race is next week.

Last Saturday I raced the 50 km at Canadian Nationals. And I am just now recovered enough to blog about it! It was actually a better day than it might have been; after a week of absurdly warm temperatures it actually froze Friday night, so that the course was much faster than it had been all week.
I was given bib 22, and got off to a decent start, one of maybe 40 skiers in the lead pack as we neared the end of the first 5 km loop. The loop there ends with a big downhill, which I hadn’t previewed that day. Halfway down I realized that when the snow if fast, it is a tricky hill. And I was in the middle of a huge pack! I didn’t like the line I was taking, but there wasn’t much choice. And then two skiers went down right in front of me…but somehow I emerged unscathed. Over the next couple of kilometers I found myself at the front of the chase pack as a group of 20 or so skiers pulled away with Alex and Devon leading them.
During the third lap I was passed by much of the chase pack, and I lost more time during the feed that lap (since I was unsupported I had to carry all my fuel with me, which cost me some seconds here and there). And my back was cramping badly, so that I thought about dropping out, though I didn’t give it any serious thought.
Over the next couple of laps I realized that my back felt better when I was skiing on my own, rather than in a pack. I went through the halfway point in about 31st place, but feeling good, and while I didn’t speed up, I held pace, which was better than most skiers. I slowly passed skiers as they got tired.
Over the last two laps I caught a small group that had a couple chasers I had seen early in the race and a couple of skiers who had been dropped by the lead group. I went into the last lap in a group of seven. Not fancying my chances in a downhill and sprint finish, I went to the front and tried to break as many skiers as I could. Soon it was down to just three of us. At about a kilometer and a half to the finish, I started to make a move on the outside and planted my pole between my legs. I didn’t break it, but I crashed and lost about five seconds. This is what happens when you are exhausted from racing and start to lose coordination. Anyway, the two skiers I was with got away from me, and I was not able to ski the final downhill well enough to catch up.
I ended up 18th on the day, not what I was hoping for when I picked that race to end my season, but about as good a result as I had any reason to expect.
In the aftermath of that race I was so exhausted that I have picked up a cold. I hope to shake it soon and start training for running season in earnest.

That sums up my race today. The race started late in the day – men at 12:30, women at 2:00, presumably because the Canadian World Cup team was participating and they got in at around 10 p.m. last night. I was joking with a couple people before that start that it was depressing to know that I was about to get beaten by four minutes by a guy who just got off a plane from Europe. They responded that they only hoped to by so lucky
And I was only a bit over four minutes behind Devon Kershaw. Were it not for the huge amount of racing and then brutal travel he had just been though, I would be happy to be that close to the number two skier on the planet. But he was clearly not at his best, and I don’t think that the winner, Alex Harvey, was at his best either, even though he was a minute and a half ahead of Kershaw and so over six minutes ahead of me!
I did have great skis–thank you Will Sweetser for the finishing touches (and thanks to Salomon, Caldwell Sport, and Toko for the great skis, grind, and base wax). But skating in the slush has never been my forte. On most of the climbs I was able to stay light on my feet, and I even managed to glide well on some flats, but there were plenty of times when I bogged down and was working like crazy to barely move.
That leaves me with one race to go: 50 kilometer classic on Saturday. Hopefully I can have a good one. Because with the weather we are having, that will definitely be my last day on snow this year.

So my ski season is not yet over! All the ski areas in New Hampshire may be closed, but I am racing up in Canada. I raced the 10 km classic today and finished 18th.
It was extremely warm today–maybe around 50 degrees here. The snow was icy and fast in the shade, but in most places it was slow and slushy. I went out in the second seed, which made me the last starter to finish in the top-25. I remember seeing Ivan Babikov double-poling out through the stadium and wondering why he was still racing if he looked so bad. Then I noticed how bad everyone looked trying to double-pole in the slush. If Ivan looked that bad winning, I really don’t want to see any video of myself trying to ski out of the stadium!

Will Sweetser did my kick was and I had solid kick and good glide. Once I got through the absurdly soft stadium, I felt pretty good. I was climbing well and felt solid on the flats as well. As I came through at the lap, I was dropped by a skier who started the race just as I came through. I was then caught at 500 meters by another first lap skier who had made up 15 seconds on me. I fell in behind him and followed him for the next three kilometers. I was losing a little time to him in the double pole and getting it back on the steeper climbs. On the final uphill pitch before the last downhill, I got passed him and on the downhill I managed to pass another five skiers (partly the Toko Jetstream plus Toko structure tool, and partly good downhill tactics) and I double-poled strongly across the finish line.

Right now I am feeling pretty good about this race, and hoping that I can have another solid race tomorrow–though skating in the slush has never been my strong suit…

By which I hopefully do not mean my last race of the season but rather my most recent race…I did not race Ski to the Clouds last weekend as it was cancelled–it turns out if they had not moved it up a week they would have been able to hold it on the new snow. Oh well, c’est la vie.

Anyway, my last race on U.S. soil this year was the Cheri Walsh Memorial race, moved from Holderness to Craftsbury and changed from an interval start classic race to a mass start skate race.
I had a clean start, and took a couple of early pulls while mostly trying to stay close enough to the front to avoid both trouble and working to hard by leading. Then, at about 7.5 km I made a big move and opened up a significant gap on the field. And at 8.2 km I realized that I did not have the endurance to hold onto the gap and I got caught by a group of about six skiers. I was seriously nervous that they would drop me, but nobody was interested in pushing the pace.
With one kilometer to go I made a second attempt at breaking the field. Once again, I was able to open up a decisive gap, and once again I was unable to sustain the pace. I was caught by Bret Bedard and almost passed by David Sinclair as well. I ended up losing by a single second.
Which is good. A season just isn’t complete for me almost winning a mass start race at Craftsbury but finishing second instead (7 times now in 6 years…)
Incidentally, while I would like Craftsbury more if I could win a race there, they have done a great job of improving their trails…last year the trail near the finish was narrow and very difficult to pass on–this year that was plenty of room for Bret to blow by me and David had room to go by but just wasn’t fast enough…and of course they have done an amazing job with snowmaking to be able to host races for other venues this year!

After almost giving up hope, I have had two wonderful days of skiing close to home. Waterville Valley is completely open, so I finally got to ski down Cascade Brook and Jennings Peak trails. I had less than three hours to work with this morning, but the snow was so beautiful that I really wished I could have skied for twice as long!

Okay, I know that one bad winter is no more proof of global warming than last winter’s excellent snow is evidence against it. But it is still remarkable that the skiing at Holderness today was worse than it was four years ago on April 12! And Holderness has been lucky this winter compared to most of New England.
Oh well, they did a great job with the snow they got, and Waterville continues to do a wonderful job with their snow, so the ski season will go on…

I raced both days of the UVM carnival this weekend. I ended up 7th in the classic race and tied for 9th in the skate (would have been tied for 7th had I been an American college skier). Last year around this time I was 3rd and 4th against the same field. It may be that I am just slowing down and this is the new normal…
On the other hand, is having at least one U.S. woman in or knocking on the door of a top-10, with a couple more in the the top 30 the new normal? It sure looks like it!