Monday, March 3, 2014

Maddy's Wax report from Notchview Bread'n'Jam Race

Race date: Saturday, March 1.
Start time: 10:00am (give or take the length of the preceding BKL race)

Format: 10k classic

Long-range weather forecasts were for a race-day temperature somewhere between 1 and 37 degrees, so right around New Year's I gave my skis a nice coat of FastWax LF blue. I proceeded to ski on them 10 to 12 times between January 1 and March 1, so that they were just reaching that nice base-whitening stage.
Forecasts the night before were for a race temp of about 23 degrees so just to be safe, I packed an extra blue, a multigrade, a Toko Red and a Toko Yellow. My wax-box packing had absolutely nothing (read: everything) to do with the fact that those are the four tubes of kick wax that I currently own. Temperature was 13 degrees one hour before  the race. Tracks were highly glazed in some places and highly abrasive everywhere. 

I made the bold choice not to put on a klister binder.  A lot of thought went into this decision. Thoughts like "I wish I owned a tube of klister," and "Someday maybe I'll buy a kick iron or a torch," and "Oh well. Whatever."

Athletes' (my) reports after the race were that the kick was bomber for approximately 1 kilometer, after which it was completely gone. Herringbone proved highly effective, as did double-poling.

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