I won my first race this year today.

I ran 1778 miles last year.

So far, since the beginning of winter, I have skied 54 1/4 hours. 35 of those hours were classic technique, 29 1/4 skating. I spent 22 1/2 of those 54 hours pulling Iris the the Chariot.

On Friday my brother called me. I know as soon as I saw the caller ID that he wanted something. In this case, someone to chase after during his intervals. His plan was for him to ski a hard interval up Tripoli Road at Waterville Valley, ski back down, and race me (I would be fresh for this effort).

If you are reading this you are probably connected enough to the world to have heard that Marion Jones is going to prison for six months. It’s about time.

Here I am, still at my computer. It is 10:41, and I haven’t finished puting together a sample exam for my students, or doing a couple other tasks that need to be done by tomorrow morning. And it is going to rain tomorrow…which I suppose is less bad for me that it would be if I was racing full time and had to train in it. But then again I am foolish and stubborn enough to go out in the cold rain anyway.

Since I have a blog now I can give myself free publicity:

I am giving clinics at Waterville Valley Ski Area on the next two Saturdays. Both will be on snow and run from 1:00 to 2:30; this Saturday (the 12th) will be classic technique and the 19th will be skating.

On both days I will be talking about technique, demonstrating drills, discussing training, life as an elite skier (and life as a former elite skier and dad), taking general questions and maybe asking questions about this math problem I’ve been working on…

As I probably mentioned in my last post, a top 10 was my stretch of a goal for Nationals this year. But of course after achieving this in the skate race I was hoping to do even better in the classic, and certainly many people I spoke to expected the same of me.

I was not optimistic yesterday. This course didn’t treat me well last year, and skiing around I did not feel good. Also, the forecast called for significant snow, my least favorite condition. I told someone I would be lucky to break the top 70 on a course and day like this one.
I was a little more optimistic as I warmed up today. The snow was much faster than I anticipated, and my new skis were running very well. I did a couple of pick-ups on the course and felt fast, but worried about the amount of lactic acid I was building up.