Winter Wild at Whaleback

Stoff and I decided, earlier this week, to do the 3rd Winter Wild race. This is the 3rd of a series of 4 ‘uphill’ races that the director of XTerra STOAKED started this year. ‘Uphill’ meaning that the race starts at the bottom of a ski area (really early in the am before lifts open!) and you race UP, then back down. The rule is that whatever you go up with must come down with you. The mountain for this race is small so the course was 2 laps for a total of 5 miles.

Both of us were psyched to race, using it more as training at this point, but getting towards race day I was wondering whether we’d be able to actually wake up for it! It’s been a long week of early wakeups and late-to-beds. Friday afternoon I found out that our friends Chris and Jay were coming over that night as they were planning on doing the Presi Traverse today and would be getting a 2am start from our house. The thought of that made our deadline of getting up at 4am piece o’cake! Due to chatting, poker playing and next day prepping, we only got to bed around midnight, so I’m impressed with our commitment!

As for race tactics, Stoff decided (apparently foolishly) to run up and snowboard down. He had a good system set up for quick transitions, but I guess the board – and boots he put in the bindings – are heavier than initially thought and the weight killed his back up the uphills. I guess the down wasn’t much better due to the flatness at the top and bottom.
I, on the other hand, decided to skate ski. Looking at the results from the previous two races, skaters won both… and I wanted to win. Even if it WAS only training!
I decided to use my nice race skis. Was a bit nervous for fear of crashing and breaking them and potential for base destruction from lack of snow cover, ice and perhaps a lot of snowplowing or turning. In the end I used them for a few reasons: 1. my other skis still had a broken heelplate, 2. Mom (working at Gunstock) assured me that the conditions, if they were anything like Gunstock, would be fine and the skis wouldn’t get damaged, and 3. they had already been waxed with appropriate LF7 (fortunately the weather was in the same range as last weekend so I didn’t have to wax again,… or with some other wax that I didn’t have!) The wax was great on the granular for the bottom half, but up top the trail hadn’t been groomed for many days and the natural snow up there was so slow I felt like I could have kicked on it! (Maybe it was just that I was so exhausted by that point too!!)
The start was ok, but I wasn’t warmed up enough and sprinted off the line like it was a sprint (got the holeshot!) only to get passed like mad on the steepness that came up immediately. Teleskiers on skins and runners (with yaktraks etc) were much faster than me on the ups (along with two other male skaters) but I knew the runners had nothing on me on the downs and the teleskiers had transitions to deal with. Struggling along trying not to pole anyone or ski into somebody’s ankle, I single-sticked my way up, which was much farther UP than I thought! (And thinking the whole way that I had to do this all over again in a few minutes!)
Finally, I made it to the top and cruised past a few teleskiers. Stoff had passed me on the way up and was already long-gone down the hill. I wish I could have kept with him to see how fast he could switch from running shoes into the board. Anyway, this was the part I’d been waiting for… I FLEW down this hill! There were a few moments where I had to check my thoughts and make a conscious effort to stop thinking about how much damage I would do to myself if I bit it and flew into the trees! There were a few bobbles and a few times I had to check my speed and snowplow, but only for a second or two mostly when passing people but then it was straight down! I passed so many people, even the teleskiers and one of the other guy skaters, and Kristoffer, who was trying to keep up all the speed he could for the flats at the bottom.
I flew by the finish for the lap, then baaaaack up to do it all over again. This lap was better, not sure if I was actually warmed up by this point, or if I knew exactly what was ahead of me, or was simply looking forward to the downhill again!.. all three, no doubt. And as expected, the downhill was sweet!!! This time was better because I knew I could rip it, that there weren’t any sharp turns or ice or bumps. Nice.
Not sure how I ended up placing, maybe 5th or 6th? 30mins?? I didn’t time it and there aren’t results posted yet. I know I was first female and 2nd overall in the skating (Track) category sooo, not too shabby!
The best part of this whole thing was that we were done with the race around 7:30, packed up and in the car by 8:15 and home, 40 minute recovery run done, showered and fed before noon! Can’t beat that!