Finally a ski race I felt good about – Feb 11th

Jeff, John and I went for a road trip to the Okanagan last weekend to race in the Nickelplate Classic Cross-Country Ski Loppet. We took Friday off to get to the hill in time to check out the course. Temperatures were relatively mild and it was snowing lightly. I wanted to try my skis with the grip tape to see if the glide would be okay. Didn’t have time to do the whole course but managed to ski most of the 15km lap. Lots of flats, few gentle hills, no scary downhill, great tracks – pretty much perfect terrain for cross-country skiing.

So on race day the next morning I was much more relaxed knowing the course. We woke up to fog in Penticton but ended up above the clouds by the time we made it to the Nickelplate parking lot at ~1840m. Blue skies and temperatures above 0C - spring conditions really. I did a quick warm up and tested my skis again – glide and grip felt fine on the flats around the lodge. The course was 2 laps around the course. I figured I could swap skis after lap 1 if my grip tape ices up again in those mild condition – but when we were lined up on the start line with another 200 other skiers they announced that one would have to finish the race with the same skis one started with. Oh well – too late now. Off we went. I was in the back knowing that I would be one of the slower skiers out there. Start went reasonable well with 7 lanes turning into 3 after only 75m – means I didn’t crash and didn’t cause a crash. I even got to pass a couple of people right off the start. The first 4-5km was mostly flat which meant I could double pole or single leg kick a lot!! Using all those kayaking muscles – lats, core… So I was holding my own passed a couple of people only to be passed again on sections where we had to do diagonal stride up some small rises. I always had people in sight the whole race which made it a lot more fun. I managed to do most of the climbs in the tracks having good grip. And if I managed to put my weight on my heels when going downhill or on the flats I had good glide too. Really I had to focus on proper technique for most of the time to make the skis work but that also distracted me from getting tired and sore. I finished the 1st lap in good spirit trying to chase down this guy in front of me only to find out that he did the 15km only and was done after 1 lap. Being on my own all sudden for the 2nd time around the flats made me notice some tiredness in my legs and arms and I think I actually slowed down quite a bit. But when I started up on the Eaglenest climb I heard and saw another skier right behind me. She must have caught up to me on one of the downhill sections since I didn’t see her on the flats. So I gave it another push up the hill, used double poling whenever the grade was gentle enough to do so – focusing on using my core rather than just the lats and arms, swallowed my fear of crashing on the downhills and stayed in the track for maximum speed and managed to stay ahead of her. I even put on a real sprint at the end double poling to the finish line in “perfect” form and finished less than a minute ahead of her. I was not last!!! And my time was much better than I had hoped for, 2hrs40min rather than my estimated 3hrs. Well, according to my GPS the course was actually only 27+km long. But still I was happy – nevermind Jeff and John finished in under 2hrs (by less than 1 min appart) and the fastest female in my age class finished the course in 1hr43min – being an ex Olympian from the States and all. Having said that the girl behind me was second in her age class 30-39, while I would have been way out of the medals in the 50-59. I had fun though and that’s what counts!!

We spent the afternoon and evening with Keith, a good kayaking buddy who moved to Peachland after he retired. His wife Mary was on a trip to the Bahamas for 2 weeks so he was glad to have some company. And we had a place to stay for free.

Unfortunately I woke up with a bad headache the next morning. We drove back to the ski hill once more after a nice breakfast with Keith but while Jeff and John went for another ski – putting on their skate skis – I slept in the car for another hour. Apparently the guys found the hills and had to do a lot more climbing than they had hoped for.

Pre-Race day – arrivng at Nickelplate

Nice trails – flat!!!

Is this a joke or what?

View from the top of Cannonball – switchback down from here

Me at the lodge after the pre-race day ski

Sunshine on race day – an hour before the start

The lodge on race day

John before the race

Jeff and I before the race

At the start

Sprint to the finish….

Day 3 – Jeff and John found the hills