Craftsbury Spring Fling

Here are 3 posts on the Craftsbury Spring Fling from Bill Holland, Scott Lundquist and Jenny Lane respectively.

My ex brother-in-law, an ex-ski racer as well, wrote inquiring about the latest results, so I'ge excerpted this portion of my response rather rehash the whole thing.

The basic lesson learned on Saturday was: don't sever your connection with your meal ticket, i.e. whatever train you happen to be on unless you really have to. Skiing with the St. Lawrence girls was not only easy, it was easy on the eyes.Then came the feed station at 15K , where, unfortunately, I applied the lesson I thought I learned last year: "Don't pass up a feed station, or you'll bonk 10K later!" a little too rigorously. I stopped, they didn't, and they ended up finishing five minutes ahead of me.

Perhaps there's a corollary lesson here: "Don't apply lessons learned from past races too rigidly!" Instead of slowing down for a feed at the soccer field where it's level, I could have snarfed down some Goo and chugged some sports drink on Murphy's Meadow a little farther on. I guess the learning process never ends with this sport, which is undoubtedly a big reason slow learners like me keep coming back for more--like a ski version of Groundhog Day . Anyway, here goes the letter:

"I did all the right things as far as tapering, waxing, etc. The conditions were rainy, so the track started getting mushy--but not too badly. Anyway, conditions were fairly slow and arduous. I paid out my energy pretty shrewdly--got in a conga line with the St. Lawrence Univ. girls for about 6K, which saved some effort, but I lost them at the mid-point feed station and was never able to reel them back in. As a result, I skied the last 15K alone, started to bonk with 2K to go, but managed to single-stick up the big final hill hard enough to hold off all the people I'd passed earlier. One of these years, I'd love to be able to race the whole distance rather than have to focus on cruising and conserving. Anyway, I didn't drop out--as I did last year--so there was progress."

Perhaps I'm behind Bill on the learning curve for racing, but my take-home lesson was more like his original one, feed when you should or pay the consequences.

Victor and Olga Golovkin were kind enough to allow me to rideshare up to Craftsbury with them for the 30K, which made the 24 hour trip there and back (thru much rain and snow) much more pleasant. I enjoyed the race and was happy with my skiing, etc., but on the second lap, I tried to stay ahead of someone who rejoined me at the other aid station at the top of the climb up Ruthie's (meaning 10K to go), didn't take in a Gu (nor any energy drink, which I didn't find at that station), and started seeing black dots 5K later when I started up the last hills to the finish. At 2K to go, I simply had to stop and suck one down (best Gu I've ever tasted, at least), and it, or the placebo effect, eventually got me to the finish, having lost 3-4 mins. -- meaning I still haven't managed to skate race a 30K faster than my only road race 30K (Stu's about a decade ago)!

Nevertheless, it was a far better experience than two winters ago, when I dropped out after 15K, exhausted and hating skiing through slop, puddles etc. and sweating like a dog in 40+ temps. In the middle of this one, when I lost contact and was tiring, I said to myself, "hey! you're still skiing at Craftsbury!" and given that it was my only time up there this season, that was enough to get the pistons moving again.

Friday night Ethan and I headed to the Kingdom with a few St. Lawrence skiers. A few inches of wet, sloppy snow made driving Saturday morning a challenge. It took us three tries to get out of the Townsend’s before the town snow plow came through and saved us. I discouraged Ethan from driving “the fun way” (as he calls it) to Craftsbury on back roads, and we went on paved roads instead. We all did the 30 Km freestyle race, and St. Lawrence represented well. I thought our chances were nil when Liz Stephens showed up, but she and Carina Hamel just did the 15 Km race. So Kristen, Kalie, and I took 1-3 on the women’s side, ahead of several UVM and Harvard skiers. The weather was warm, and it started raining on the second loop, making for a very wet, sloppy ski. The trails were in great condition though. Fortunately, I invested some money a few years ago on a wet grind for one of my pairs of skate skis, which is money well spent. My skis felt great most of the race, although they did slow some when the snow really got saturated. All of the age category winners got a loaf of homemade cinnamon raisin bread. I’ve been eating about 4 slices of toast per day ever since. The other treat was the BBQ afterwards, complete with real “sugar on snow” for dessert. The drive home took forever- well, about 6 hours. It rained until we crossed back into NY, and then it was sleet and snow. We got almost 2 feet of snow Saturday night into Sunday. It took Ethan and me over two hours to shovel out the driveway yesterday morning before we could go anywhere

Results:

30Km

24 Victor Golovkina 1:47:20
27 Scott Lundquist 1:53:43
30 Bill Holland 1:58:39
32 Bob Donahue 2:02:10

15 km

4 Olga Golovkina 51:22