Race day is here! What a picture perfect day! It is -5 degrees with no wind and it’s going to go up plus 10 degrees. Hopefully we’ll be done before then.
I’ve decided to go with skin skis as I don’t want to risk not having enough grip on the way up and over the pass. The only draw back is that I will be slower on the downhill but I need to try to stay as injury free as possible. Ross will go with wax skis. Here’s his wax recipe for today- green klister base, a layer of Toko blue klister, a layer of Toko red klister and then a covering of Toko blue hard wax. Skins sure are easier to wax- just need glide wax!
We were at the start area with lots of time but didn’t realize that we could go and put our skis down in the pen and get a spot near the front. As a result we ended up at the very back of our wave. The plus side was that there were lots of people to pass but the downside was that it was really hard to pass them as the track was too narrow. All of sudden we were on our way-the race was on. It was a really tough start because it was on a downhill and people were running into each other. Suddenly I was down, sprawled across two or three tracks with people coming at me. I managed to get up quickly but them fell back again-so painful and not a great way to start off a race! From them on it was uphill for 20km. Ross passed 104 people on the climb and an additional 49 on the way down. If only he had started in the right spot he would have had a better result. He still managed to do 42 km in 3 hours and 4 minutes.
The scenery was just out of this world! I wanted to stop and take pictures but the skins were working well and I figured that I would ski in the 32 km skate tomorrow and just stop a long the way to take photos. Things were going great until the 12 km downhill section. The skins were not gliding at all. So many people were passing me. I had to push like crazy, thankfully I had my arm brace. In the end it took me 4 hours and 10 minutes. We also just realized after the race that it’s gun time not chip time. Too bad that we started at the back!
What a fabulous day of skiing! I think that the Dolomites are even more spectacular in the winter!
Here are some of the professional photos:
A Nordic Skiing World Loppet Tour 