I felt pretty beat and not on top form coming into today’s 15k mass-start classic SuperTour race in Minneapolis, but ready to give it my best.
Temperature: 35 F
Humidity: 168%
Wind: 5 - 10mph
Conditions: water
People mostly skied on klister, with a few going on zeros. My zeros, as it turns out, are WAY way too stiff for me, so that was not an option. I had two swix reps, Josh Korn and Ben Dubay, helping me with my skis today and although I would have liked a ton more time to test and adjust my skis, the end result was reasonably good in terms of kick and pretty phenomenal in terms of glide.
I started in the chevron in 14th position (based on my USSA points). Straight off the start the course turned a left-hand corner and then a hairpin 180 left after that…and then another fast downhill 180 right after that…needless to say it was not as nice and clean a start as a Far West citizen race! After getting trampled on and boxed out as usual I managed to work my way up to about 7th or so by the 1 or 1.5k mark, when I discovered that my right pole no longer had a basket on it. I had very carefully, thoroughly glued on some different baskets right before the race so I have no idea why this happened. Someone must have skied over my basket as I was pulling the pole back up/forward, thus yanking the basket off, although I don’t remember feeling a big yank.
In any case I was now in a bad spot as we headed into a long gradual striding hill. I tried to ski my best with one and a half poles while trying to make my way over to the right hand side of the trail where I could see some coaches/spectators up ahead who I hoped to get a pole from. This was difficult however due to the fact that there was a line of 160 skiers in the right hand track with ZERO cm between each pair of skis. I was certainly not going to wait patiently while all 160 skiers went by before getting across to get a pole, so I finally had to just ski right over the tails of one guy’s skis and tips of another guy’s skis. I hoped the guy in back would give me an inch after I was half way across the track but instead he insisted on staying tight and getting us all tangled up. I barely managed to stay on my feet during 5 or 6 seconds of perilous sliding and flailing in all kinds of weird positions (he ended up going down) and managed to get a relacement pole from some guy who I found out later was one of the Michigan Tech coaches, I think.
This pole happened to be about a foot too tall and the basket was about the size of a large pea or several grains of rice glued together, rendering it pretty ineffective in the super soft mush, meaning I could not push on it very hard (which is a problem when you are trying to go fast especially double poling.) In order to get the pole I had probably lost about 20 places or more and now the leaders were quite far ahead and I was fighting my way through people I finished minutes ahead of in yesterday’s 10k.
Reluctant to lose another 20+ seconds with another pole exchange, I put up with the viking pole / puny basket for a lap and a half or so. One good thing was that my salomons were running way faster than anyone else’s skis on the downhills. Another good thing was that for some odd reason nobody seemed to be clued in to the fact that the snow was faster out of the track than in the track, so for the double pole sections and downhills I stayed out of the track almost the entire time, which also allowed me to take some better lines on all the little turns in the course. I wished my skis had better grip as I was still struggling to make them work well enough to stay out of a herringbone on some of the hills, but they weren’t too bad, and luckily some of the hills were steep enough that herringbone was the only option for everyone regardless of how much kick they had. One of these seemed only slightly less steep than the jump hill at Auburn Ski Club, and was pretty soft.
Finally with about a lap and a half to go I started to realize that I was actually doing kind of well. I could see the lead pack not too far ahead on some of the switchbacks, and guessed I was in about 8th or so. I started thinking about my pole and that I didn’t want to just wonder “what if” at the end of the race…knowing it was costing me time with every pole plant. I spotted a UAF coach with a handful of swix poles and managed to get one from him, changed them out, lost another 6 seconds or so, but quickly accelerated just as a skier passed me, and soon passed him back and started trying to see who else I could reel in. The new pole was a much better fit and had a slightly larger basket (still not as big as would have been ideal today, but a big improvement which I was very grateful for!)
In the beginning of the 3rd lap I was starting to struggle to keep the speed up (partly due to being tired of course, but I think also partly due to the fact that my skis had probably collected about a pound of dirt on each base by that point, and the snow had gone from a mix of ice, slush, and water, to pretty much pure slush and water). I did my best to ski the same way I would in an interval-start race, giving every 30 meters my best effort regardless of where I thought I was or who was ahead or behind me. Pretty soon I started to see Chris Cook (overall SuperTour leader) and a Canadian I recognized from last weekend (I think he was 5th or so last weekend, and about 1.5 minutes ahead of me in that race). They seemed definitely within striking distance so that kept me going and I tried to keep the pressure on and see if I could close it down without completely blowing myself up.
Now we were into the last 1.5 or 2k and there was only a rolling/flat double pole section, a downhill and 180 turn, and then a 300m-long uphill into the final flat 100m finish. I knew that Chris Cook is probably the best in the country when it comes to an uphill striding sprint (maybe 2nd to Newell, I’d like to see that matchup though on a 300m uphill at the end of a 15k…I think Cook might get him on a good day). So I realized that, with my not-so-great uphill striding and not-so-grippy skis, if I was going to have any chance at all, I needed to pound that double pole section before the downhill with everything I had. I closed down maybe 4 or 5 seconds on them and passed Chris on the inside of a turn heading into the steepest part of the downhill…took the 180 real wide and cut way in, and swung way wide out the other side to maintain speed…and started pounding the double pole again on the short flat/gradual uphill that led into the final uphill.
Here I felt most vulnerable as I tried to keep it going but felt pretty at my limit and didn’t feel like I was skiing all that well technically, though I really tried to do my best and did manage to keep some tempo going. Half way up the hill was another hairpin left turn, and now it was only about 250m to go or so. Scott Wilson, one of the CXC technical delegates / race directors, was yelling for me as was Ahvo Taipale, owner of the Finn Sisu store and probably the best classic ski-picker in the country by far. I thought Chris and the Canadian would have passed me by now..
By this point I was close enough to the finish line that I was able to dig deeper and kick it up 2 notches and sprint up the rest of the hill and get up on the double pole real hard to get up speed on the flat. With about 80m to go I sneaked a quick glance back and saw I had something like 4 or 5 seconds on them…I couldn’t believe it!
Crossed the line and crumpled up for awhile…not even sure exactly what place I’d gotten. 6th, as it turned out. I was pretty happy!! My first-ever top 10 (or top-11 for that matter) and I managed to do what I hoped for / dreamed of after yesterday’s 12th in the skate…skip a few places instead of improving by just one place every race! At this rate I should be 1 and a halfth by next Sunday’s SuperTour in Telemark, right?
It wasn’t until hours later at home that I heard I was only 45 seconds out of FIRST…definitely the closest I’ve ever been to winning a SuperTour. It would have been really interesting to see what I could have done if my pole basket hadn’t come off, as I think I lost about 30 - 40 seconds as a result of that, maybe even more, hard to say, and on top of that, it would have been MUCH easier and more efficient to ski with / draft behind / match the tempo and style of the leaders while skiing in the lead pack the whole way, rather than fighting it out basically alone the entire race while gradually closing on them.
Still, I’m super happy with today…after years of semi-stagnation it feels great to finally be solidly in “never been here before” territory in terms of the level of racing I’m at and the people I am skiing around. The momentum is really building now and I feel like I am finally starting to get up to speed, yet I feel like there is still more there…I didn’t feel my best today by any means and look forward to putting it ALL together (skis, better pole glue-ing, being a little more rested, etc.)
By finishing 6th I got the last money-spot, and got $100 (if I’d gone 45 seconds faster, it would have been $750) …my first ever SuperTour check! I took the family who has been feeding me and putting me up the past few days here in Minneapolis, out to dinner which felt great to be able to do. Kuan and Heidi Teoh used to be pro caterers and boy did I get some amazing meals!! They also saved me about $600 of rental car / hotel costs by letting me stay here and driving me to the races and back each day. The ski community is really amazing…all across the country. The Stefanides family in Wenatchee Washington and the Greggs in Winthrop Washington did the same for me in the last week and a half and thanks to all of these people and all the people that have helped me all year in Far West and in Vermont and Maine and all the people that have helped me in the past 20 years, I was finally able to get in there with some of the best skiers in the country today and have what was for me at least, somewhat of a breakthrough result. Now I know I can be in there for the podium if I can pull it all together. It’s a bit surreal and hard for me to believe but at the same time, based on the results of the past couple weekends, seems totally doable…
(Full results from today’s 15k mass-start classic SuperTour: http://www.online-entry.com/raceresults/101319-Sunday_Overall.pdf
