Saturday, December 20, 2008

Sprint Update

Today started out super cold (-18) with quite low humidity (running in 30-60% range). The snow was crunchy and dry and despite yesterday's predictions, flouros were very much not in play. We ran on Ski*Go LF Blue covered with S30 in the qualifying round. The groomers did an excellent job of dealing with the mountains of fresh snow and the course was in great condition.



The qualifying round went exceptionally well and Madeleine came past me (150m from the finish) in second place, 2.5 seconds behind Dasha. By the time she got to the finish line Madeleine had closed this gap to just one second. Although this didn't change the placing, time is points and Madeleine attacked well right to the finish.

Given the significant gap after the top three placings, the quarter and semi final rounds were uneventful and Madeleine sailed through without any problems. The skis were good and as the sun came out we switched to Ski*Go HF Blue covered with S30. Flouro covers were still not in play. The final was significantly more interesting with Madeleine reaching the final hill in the lead, just ahead of Dasha. As the two crested the top of the hill, Dasha began to make a move and was able to sprint just ahead for the win. It was a great race!


Tomorrow is a 15km skate race (mass start) which should be pretty interesting given the narrow trails. The weather forecast is -15 overnight with very little warming come race time (10:00). There is also 10cm of snow in the forecast... the last time we heard this rumour hundreds of flights were canceled, roads were closed, and the snowfall was more like 30-35cm. It should be interesting to see if we make it home tomorrow!

Briefly, in other news:

1. The Nish, who qualified fourth, was in the hunt for the win (sprinting against Alex Harvey), but suffered an unfortunate crash. Very tough break.

2. There was a comment made yesterday that I'm the biggest (ski) geek out there. This may or may not be true, so to find out we've place an informal poll on our main page - poll. You should probably vote :)

3. Did you watch the Norwegian Top-Gun video I mentioned yesterday? Get on it!

Start time is 10:00 tomorrow - start list will be on Zone4 later tonight.

Due to some issues with timing, official results are not yet available, however unofficial results have been posted - unofficial results

2 comments:

  1. Certainly top five, but that is why you work at Fast Trax, Lorris may be a bigger tech geek, but he doesn't have a blog, he certainly has more shoes than you do though.

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  2. I'd also like to point out that Graham gets a shout out in this race, but The Boss doesn't get a mention when he races two weeks back? You're so fired.

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