January 17th, 2009
I came into the Whistler pursuit believing that I was fit enough to win. I was too hyped up and excited. I felt nothing for the first 15 kilometers. Then I put my skate skis on and my legs buckled. I had nothing.
I can sit here and make excuses for myself or I can just say that I went out too hard and blew up.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:17 am
I have no where your experience, VO2 max, or ability in anyway, but when I watch you race on Eurosport TV here in France, I often have the same thoughts. So I am going to give you my two cents: Ski like a Tour de France bike racer.
The Italians had incredible team work. Italy is a country rich in bike racing everyone knows bike racing tactics. They did the classic attack/counter attack moves and then blocked for Piller Cottrer once he had a gap. His team mates got out in front and went fast, but not too fast to catch him and not too slow for the rest of the pack to want to pass them. They judged it perfectly. They were leading the pack at 98% percieved effort while P.C. was going at 100%.
Another cycling tactic is to not be out front breaking the wind for the others. Being out front vs. behind a couple skiers makes a significant difference in watts expended. In cycling its a bigger difference, but even in skiing it’s not negligible. A race is all about when and how you expend your finite amount of Watts.
On Eurosport, I often watch you pushing the pace in the front row in the beggining half or even just after half of a race. As in cycling I would recommend, “sitting in” using as few watts as possible to stay with the leaders, ideally 3-4 back in skiing so you don’t get gapped, and then saving those extra watts for the end of the race. Lance Armstrong was great at this in the Tour de France. Only working on the last hill. And the Norwegians are getting very cycling savy and using alot of teamwork and cycling tactics. Peter Northug just won recently by being invisible until the end of the race. He was never out in front, but instead in other skiers slipstreams.
The British Eurosport commmentors were saying you are a better classic skier, I dont know. However, I was really excited to see you up there in the front until about half way and I would have been totally stoked to see you manage your power output more like a savy cyclist. If you stayed out of the wind and then “won” the classic leg of the pursuit, that would have been a huge success by itself. There are some great books on cycling tactics out there, one by a Boulder former pro, Thomas Prehn.
I wish you good luck and great success in 2009 and take these comments with a grain of salt–hind sight is 20/20.