The Torch

After a good result last week on the Tuesday night ski race, I was humbled this week. We have been getting a lot of rain, warm temps, and not much snow at all. So this week the course was shortened and the skiing discipline was Classic. Very difficult waxing conditions with the temperatures well into the forties. Instead of trusting the wax I put on my skis, I opted to try and double pole the entire race. That just means that you don't use your legs and are not benefitting from the kick wax up hills. I thought that I would be better off double poling on skate skis than to suffer from bad wax. Well, maybe that was true, but it ended up being an incredibly painful experience. After 2k, I was leading the race, but I had put my life on the line to be there. My upper body was completely toast. In order to get up some of these hills just by double poling, I was using every ounce of power I had. Half way through the race, I was sure I would not finish. I was getting reeled in by everyone behind me.  My upper body was failing and I literally could not get up the hills anymore. It was the best of times and the worst of times. On one hand, it was great to feel that I had pushed myself to my physical limit. On the other hand , the more pertinent feeling was that it just hurt so badly. This ended up being a moral victory for me. The results show I got fourth, but it was pretty rewarding just to finish this race. I had to push through some very dark moments in the final 5 minutes or so of that race to cross the line.  My upper body/core are ruined right now.

 In classic skiing, there is a much bigger element of preparation, as far as waxing goes, compared to the skate races. The takeaway from this race is that I need to be better prepared so that I don't make last second changes like I did this week. This is no doubt a worthwhile lesson for rowing, as well.

This morning, we did some shorter power strokes before rowing 10k on the erg at below 2.0 mmol lactate, for me that is around 156 HR. I went the fastest I've ever gone this morning, 1.47.9. No matter the piece or situation, its always great to see improvement. After erging, I skied for 90 min before lunch. This afternoon, I again took advantage of beautiful conditions and skied around for 75 min. I am focusing mostly on skating right now because that is the race I will be doing at the American Birkibiener in late Feburary. Many would say that I have no business racing in a big race like the Birkie-- I really want to prove them wrong. So, that's why I'm skating a lot.