Craftsbury Marathon Stories!

From Frank:
Figured I’ll fire what I’d hope to be the opening shot in some Craftsbury reports, so here you go. (Before that: bravo to all the racers, volunteers, organizers, parents, waxers, coaches, Weston folks that made the Weston EC on Sunday a super success, unbelievable results of our Juniors, you all made us proud !!!)

To get the stats out of the way: I used Swix LF6/HFBD6/ cold turbo cera as glide wax on my 2009 Fischers that I had ground this Fall with LI2, no additional structure. For kick I sanded (#180), ironed and corked a thin layer of Swix binder, ironed and corked a thick layer of Blue Extra, ironed and corked a thick layer of VR30; on race morning I crayoned/ corked 6 medium layers of VR40. (I had snuck into the race volunteer HQ where a friendly lady fired up her MAC and looked up Accuweather predicting 23F, and some fresh snow at the finish, so I stayed away from anything softer. John Brodhead saw me there, smiling, hollering “Frank, do want to volunteer with us?”). Chris Li at the Bikeway Source had flex-tested those skis at 0.6; I used the area between the 0.15/ 0.2 marks as my wax zone. The skis felt a little draggy when I first tried them, but during the race they turned out super fast, with reliable kick throughout. Maybe I needed that first downhill to wear down some of the wax layers. I had much more wax left in the end than after the Jackson race last weekend. I finished 17th overall (2nd in the 40s group) in 2:55:04 with an average heart rate of 157 and max of 171. Split on the first lap was around 1:24 (i.e., fairly even, adjusted for the 3min or so from the junction into the finish)

The start was beautiful; hardly remember when I wasn’t standing there shivering, not so this time: sunny, and NO WIND! The lead guys took it easy for the first 4k so the pack stayed together, then they pulled away and I settled in a train with Chris Nice, Tom Thurston and two college skiers. I stayed with them on the uphills and had a pretty easy time on the downhills and flats, taking the lead some of the time. All those Littleton double pole fests and fast skis paying off big. In the big switch back climb at the end of the 3rd petal of the clover leaf our two college guys pulled away, and we could see the train on top, maybe a minute ahead, with Topher Sabot, Marc Gilbertson and Phil Lawson. Then Tom took the lead in the rolling section in the 4th “petal” after the feed, and he, Chris and I skied the big uphill to the Common together. Chris pulled away since he did the 25k, and I pulled ahead of Tom on the downhill entering the 2nd lap. My skis were much faster so he could not stay with me heading down, came back on some of the rolling uphills but eventually dropped off. I was skiing alone now, focused on keeping the pressure on, felt great on the DP / kick DP sections and solid on the uphills. At the beginning of the hills in the 2nd petal I caught sight of Topher and caught up with him on the bottom of the long downhill at the beginning of the 3rd petal. I thought he had bonked, but he stuck with me up Ruthie’s run and I drafted him for a bit after the feed, then I pulled away during the downhills, he then gained on me up the switch back hill and we passed together through the last feed. Same pattern in the last section, I pulled ahead on the flats/ downhill but then could not stay with him on the last uphill. I kept the pace up kick-DPing when it flattened out on top, hoping to catch him, but he finished strong about 20s ahead. At this point there was quite a few racers finishing the 25k on the track and I was confused when just after the lap/ finish junction I thought I saw a green (50k) bib some 150m ahead with about 700m to go on the Common. I launched a full kick DP sprint, closing in, not really believing that I could catch up … the guy looked around in the curve before the finish line, me still some 30m behind; he sped up some but not enough … I closed in and passed him with about 10m to go. He turned out to be Phil Lawson, in my age group. Marc Gilbertson, also in my age group, had finished only 30sec before, pretty tight for the 40s gang. I think the times, on average, were about even, maybe a minute or so slower than 2009 when the course was very similar (except the lake section in the 1st leaf), but I was over 3 minutes faster; which I attribute to more DP training and faster skis. There was lots of other great CSU finishes, lead by Rob’s winning the 50s category; go ahead and tell your story!

Frank

Fram Rob:
Ok, here is my story:
At 35K Nat Lucy caught me and passed me. I'd been watching him slowly gain on me for the prior 10K and I wasn't surprised when he went by. We've been racing each other since 1978 and in most cases he beats me. I had skied away from him at Jericho in December, but at the Geschmossel and at the White Mountain 30K he had skied away from me. After he passed I thought, "Here we go again". I jumped in behind him and assessed my situation. I felt really good, my skis were fantastic, my technique was staying in good form, and I was enjoying the skiing like I was out on a gentle tour. At the one-hour mark I noticed that I felt great and reminded myself that I usually feel the same at three hours as I do at one hour. I watched Nat ski and his body language indicated that he was tired and that his skis didn't have quite the kick that I did. He is one of the best classic skiers you'll ever see, so it's pretty clear when he's not feeling 100%. After 3K of following him I went by him on one of those big climbs heading back to the Center. I could run where he herringboned and I could stride where he ran. I went by slowly and made sure not to thrash. At the top of the hill I put on a burst and opened a gap.

From there to the finish I kept pushing and opened the gap to 25 seconds by the end. My arms and chest were cramping on the double-pole for the last 10K, but I've been through that before so I just did more striding and used a high-tempo, low-effort double-pole to keep moving without locking up any important muscles.

At the end Nat hugged me and said, "That was honest". He was saying that we both gave it our best, there were no extraneous issues that decided the outcome, and that we had fought it out fair and square. Earning the respect of my fellow competitors, win or lose, that is a satisfying feeling.

For glide wax I had LF blue covered with HF Blue covered with roto-corked Blue Jetstream. In the morning before the race I roto-corked on Jetstream Red since it was warmer than expected. The beauty of HF Blue is that it has a really wide range and will run quite well in the 20s. For kick I was similar to Frank. I had sanded the zone, rubbed on Toko Base Green, heated it with a heat gun and corked it smooth. I put on several layers of Toko Viola and covered it with Toko Blue to speed it up. I was a little slow on the first downhill, but after that I had great kick and glide.

My big focus for the day was on the beauty of the course and the joy I felt skiing it. I think that concentrating on that let me relax and ski really well. And, of course all those long Littleton rolls helped a whole lot too!

Rob

From Bill Holland:
It was the most satisfying C'bury ever for yours truly. And here's why:
1) First and foremost, I opted for the 25K version. As I climbed the switchback uphill at the end of Loop #2 or later herring-boned on portions of Elinor's Hill, there was joy--right down at the cellular level--in knowing that I did not have a repeat to look forward to.. and dread!
2) The conditions were perfect: no wind, steady temps, plenty of snow, flawless grooming.
3) Finding I've at long last released the basic racing mind-set--evaluating one's performance relative to others' times--I set a single, fairly achievable goal that had nothing to do with time or place: to have the quietest skis and the longest glide of anyone I encountered, i.e. no slapping.
Fortunately, there were some solid tracks at Morse Farm, our local ski area, for the week before the race, so I worked a fair amount on technique both with and without poles. The result? In over 40 years, I don't think I've ever skied better technically.
4) I successfully experimented with a super-sticky brand-new wax: Start MFW (molybdenum fluoro wax) 14-27 degrees. It stayed on without binder and kicked superbly start to finish. Ruthie's Run has never seemed easier.
5) I enjoyed the company--primarily Donna Smyers, winner in the 50+ category at the Hawaii Ironman. We accordioned back and forth with Donna making time on the uphills and me overtaking her on the downhills until she got away for good on Elinor's Hill.

Overall, I have this to say: At this stage of the game, the subjective evaluation of my performance is the only metric that carries any weight for me. I feel like a kite whose string has been cut. External measures be damned!