A Canadian in Sweden

Harsa loppet

Having a perfect race is a rare event.

It didn't happen this weekend either. However, with my new skis, it did go substantially better than last weekend. This was a 42 km race rather than 40 km like last weekend, yet I decreased the difference between my time and the winner's time by over 10 minutes. This weekend, the winner's time was 2:02 and my time was 2:22. Results are here. The dude who won, Lars Ljung, is a young whippersnapper hotshot who is already routinely scoring FIS points. For those non-ski types reading this, that means he is a world class athlete.

I guess I should be happy with that. It should put me solidly in the 2nd seed of the Vasaloppet. However, I still feel like I could have knocked at least 5 minutes off my time. I definitely felt the fatigue from the last 40 km race I did - oh - 6 days ago. I just didn't have the power on the uphills I had last week. I also was not happy with my waxing. I still had slightly slower skis than the others around me - I know this because on downhills on the single-track portions of the trail, guys were always skiing up over my ski tails and pushing on my ass to avoid plowing through me - but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as during the Hoting loppet.

I just concede that I have no clue what I am doing when waxing classic skis for racing. I know the basics - enough to let me plow through training or the Canadian Ski Marathon, but the finesse of getting really fast skis that have good grip is beyond me. And unlike with skate skis, the effect is immediately noticible and evident. It doesn't take a genius to see who has fast skis in a classic race.

Anyhow, that is my last race before the Vasaloppet. I will do a week or two of base training again with lots of long slow distance. In three weeks I am in Brussels at NATO headquarters for a week, which should be fabulous for training. Or perhaps not. I am seriously considering bringing my rollerskis...

posted by Jeff @ 12:28 AM