Geschmossel 2018

After a week of warmup and heavy rains that destroyed the snow in the Boston area it appeared that Bretton Woods had survived with sufficient cover to hold their race.  Lisa and I headed up on Sunday in time to get in a ski to check things out.  BW had already modified the planned course due to the icy conditions and lost cover.  Heading across the golf course in the cold and wind, which had returned, we skied on a sheet of boilerplate and heading up B&M there was ½ inch of new snow over, you got it, boilerplate and nice big ice patches.  It was pretty grim, but the coverage was at least pretty good.  I started down Abenaki Way and turned around due to the ice.  Hopefully BW would be able to pull off a grooming miracle for the second year in a row.

Monday dawned at 2F, but sunny and no wind.  It was going to be a beautiful day, although it was a bit weird that the top of Mt. Washington was naked rock and little snow.  Heading over from Highland Lodge nice and early I started working on the skis, using klister binder and blue klister covered with blue stick.  It was warming up nicely and tested the skis, happy to find that indeed, BW had groomed things up very nicely, covering up the ice, grinding up ice and setting a couple tracks, shallow in places, but totally skiable.  Well done!  It was going to be fast!

CSU arrived in force along with Northwest Vt, Ford Sayer and other New England clubs.  Toeing the starting line for CSU were John Sakolowski, Rob Bradlee, Kathy Maddock, Robert Faltus, Clinton Kreiger, Tom Smith, Lisa Doucett, Sarah Doucett, Jody Newton, Gray Holmes, Steve Moreau and Roger Wilson.  (Hope I didn’t miss anyone.)  The start went well with few entanglements and off we went!  I started a bit too far back and a gap was opening ahead of a couple people in my track, so I hopped out of the track to the outside and DP’d by several people before settling into the gap comfortably behind Robert and Clinton on his first foray into double poling the entire race.  Turns out that wasn’t a bad idea as it was very fast and there was very little striding but Clinton found how tiring it can be!  I strided a bit just to get the legs moving and stay a bit warmer, but it was mostly DP and kick DP all the way up.  I was moving pretty well, chasing some high school kids and was joined by Ian Blair from Bethel, trading places as we chased the kids. Near the top, in the one place where striding was the way to go it was like I’d forgotten how and flailed about a bit, then back to DP toward the downhills on Sebosis.  Up ahead John was having a good race in the top group with Kathy and Rob a bit further back while close behind were Robert and Clinton. The ride down Sebosis was interesting with some icy spots, a bump with dirt after which I spazzed and fell down on a flatter stretch. Stupid!  The fast ride down continued on Dark Forest to the last hill by the road where I’d almost caught up to the kids and 2 guys who’d passed me when I fell.  My skis were rocking!  The finish was a dead flat km to the finish and my skis were so fast I caught up to everybody, the last one a high schooler and I just knew he’d be able to shoot his foot at the line and I would have probably torn my hamstring if I’d tried, so got nipped at the line.  I’d had a blast in my first non-Weston race of the year.  CSU had a great day and a good showing with John in 10^th, Rob in 18^th, Kathy 21^st, Steve 26^th, Jamie 31^st, Robert 37^th, Clinton 39^th, Tom 52^nd, Gray 60^th, Sarah 62^nd in her first non-Weston race since high school, Roger 70^th, Jody 80^th and Lisa 85^th.  Lots of age group first places with Sarah, Kathy and John all first! 

A full lap of warm down with NWVT then commenced for many of us as our big pack slowly yakked our way around the course again.  An excellent day of racing!  Many thanks to Bretton Woods for pulling off a race in marginal conditions.

Full results can be found at:

http://brettonwoods.com/Winter_Sports/Nordic/~/media/CB1776C8428C4D29945B97272CB4B2BD.ashx