Coldsmoke ROAM Rando Race

[previous year.  Pictures to come when available]

Aside from one (fairly major) mistake, this was a great race for me.

Forty five people lined up at the start of the race, which includes both men and women in the Elite, Classic, and Splitboard categories.  There were twenty competitors in Elite Men.

I started out with the chase pack - Philipp (German national team, has been living at Rogers Pass the last three months) took a commanding lead before most people had made it under the start banner, and never looked back. It was the usual start, with 100-200 meters of running before everyone goes anaerobic and settles into their skinning rhythm. Philipp never stopped running, and quickly disappeared into the distance with Ben (skinning) in pursuit. The chase pack was then probably 7 or 8 of us, including two other guys in the same Dynafit suit as me ("Dynafit#1" and "Dynafit#2") and then Steve, who I traded places with throughout the first climb.

I managed to sneak past him on the last steep before the boot pack, so took my skis off in 5th. At this point I had written off Philipp (last seen running up the bootpack, 10 minutes into the race with a 5 minute lead), and Ben (more human, but still untouchable) as being in essentially a different race. This meant it was the two Dynafit dudes followed by myself, then Steve, Red Suit, and two or three other guys who I was worried about.

No change on the bootpack, although Steve beat me through transition and started the ski just in front of me.  The weather the last few weeks has been a daily melt/freeze cycle, even up at this elevation.  This meant that the descent was icy, chunky, rutted and generally heinous ("heinous" being the official term used at the pre-race meeting).  I actually loved it - I passed Steve and Dynafit#1 in the trees, and then got past Dynafit#2 on the groomer.  So, if you haven't been keeping track, this meant I was in third overall - and first by my count, since Philipp and Ben were in a different race.

I then immediately squandered my lead as I stayed in my tuck and blew right by checkpoint #2.  I realized my mistake pretty quickly, but at that speed you cost yourself a lot of up time for every second of down time.

So that was unfortunate.  Looking up at the real transition, it looked like I had cost myself five or so places.  I transitioned down near the chairlift terminal and started the recovery process.  I got past Red Suit halfway up climb number two, and closed down a bit of the gap to Steve and Guy-In-Black-And-Green (GIBAG) on that descent.    The final ascent was a back and forth with GIBAG, him blowing a skin and me (really) struggling with some of the steeper skin tracks. Looking back on this, wider skins and some better technique would have been a good idea.

I came into the final transition with a small lead, jumped into the descent, and immediately ate it.  My chaser must have learned from that and taken a more conservative approach, because I was able to get back into my binding and onto the final groomer without being passed.   With my earlier route miss still on my mind I ditched some speed near the bottom to make sure I made it to the finish chute, GIBAG got by me with about 100 meters to go, and took the win in our mini battle with four seconds.

Well played, GIBAG.

A side story was some guy in fatter skis and an even fatter moustache who got past GIBAG and I near the top of the last climb with a superior route choice.  No idea where he came from, and while he started the final descent right before me, he does not seem to appear in the results.  Lost in the vortex?  Hypoxic hallucination? (it was an epic moustache)

I guess I will never know.

At the end of the day I placed 7th with 1:59.  Nine minutes behind third, and thirty two minutes behind Philipp.  Results are here:

Race Results

Lessons learned:

- stay on course
- switch to fatter skins when the track is this icy
- I was fading near the end.  More two- and three-hour race pace efforts would be good prep.
- a better (non-freezing) solution for water would be great
- stop crashing
- stay on course!

The big win for the day belongs to Caroline, with first female in the short course - which was fast enough for second overall.   She may have to move up to the full course soon.