Wow, what a trip! Feels like a dream really. In Tuesday, out Monday. Short and sweet, and man what a race. I’ve got to say, I’m a big fan of the original course, and despite it being a “low snow year” the conditions were fantastic. It was great to be back with some of the team after a couple weeks apart, and immersed in the craziness that is Birkie week. To give some context, Hayward has a population of around 2500 people. The Birkie itself this year had roughly 3500 volunteers let alone the 13,500 racers and the innumerable others that come to watch. And now for the recap:
As is customary for the Birkie, it was a relatively early morning with a race start of 8:50am. We got to the venue an hour out, tested skis, warmed up, and were off. The action starts early with a bonus sprint at 2.7km into the race, and that’s where the eventual race winner made his break and went solo to the line. The rest of us chased for a while but given the high draft effect on the course and the limited number of chasers who actually wanted to chase, the chase in earnest died within another 10k. Coming up to the next bonus sprint at 20k into the race, David made a move up one of the biggest climbs, stringing the chase pack out and breaking it up, whittling it down to 3 including myself. Unfortunately, just as we had opened the gap, I broke a pole. Luckily I only had to ski with one pole for about 1 km, but it was enough to open a gap to the other two which I burned a couple matches in order to catch back up to them. I think the pole break was a bit of a race decider because it meant that on my way back up to that break I overtook one straggler and he was able to hang on to me as I drug us up to David's group, the virtual 2nd and 3rd on course. Had I crossed the gap by myself I think the 3 of us could've stayed away from the 2nd chase group who ended up catching us somewhere around 10km later because the group of 4 I was in didn’t have much cohesion. Needless to say, I was able to catch my breath a bit at the back of the group, and take on some much needed calories before the last fireworks would inevitably go off in the last 10km of the course. Which is precisely what happened. David took off again, strung the rest of us out, dropped us, and left the original chase pack of 10ish down to 5 including me, so I was still in the hunt for the podium. Until about 400m to go… Before the finishing straight, there is a bridge that goes over the road and makes for a short steep little climb. As I was visualizing the race, I had pictured jump skating my way up the bridge and drag racing the last 300m straight up main street to the finish. The stage was in fact set for this exact scenario, however one thing went missing. My legs. It was so strange, one moment I went from feeling like alright I can do this, to oh my gosh what happened, I cannot move. So, rather than jump skating and sprinting, I crawled my way to the finish, ultimately losing 25 seconds in the last 400m. Looking back, maybe I should have sat up and waited for the next chase group when I broke my pole, but I figured the pack we had was going all the way to the line and I didn’t want to miss a guaranteed shot at a top 5 and potential podium. It was a super fun race regardless, I executed well leading into the race and the race itself, and was just missing a tiny margin to have 400 more meters left in the tank. But, having 49.6km good is a heck of a lot better than the short 30km I had last year. Now, there’s only 1 set of races left for the season which take place in about a month's time in Lake Placid, NY. Given previous years race schedules, and variables, I’ve never had a great end to the season at Spring Series/ Super Tour Finals/ Spring Nationals. Given that everybody will be back stateside after World Cup, along with the rest of the nation, it seems likely that they will be the most competitive races of the season. Needless to say, I’m excited to put in a good training block until then, and end the season on a high.
God Bless,
Garrett
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