Did our fist loppet of the season Saturday at Salmon Arm’s Larch Hills Nordics. Both Katja and I did the 36 km Reino Keski-Salmi loppet which was 2 laps of an 18 km course. The trails were in excellent condition thanks to the recent snowfall…and by recent I mean the snow that fell Friday night…while we were driving to Salmon Arm. We left home around 5:45 and arrived in Salmon Arm at 11:45, with an about 45 min. stop in Hope for dinner. The snow started to fall shortly after we hit the Coquihalla Hwy, it took a break as we passed through Kamloops then started again for the final leg of the drive. The Golf handled the snowy roads very well making the drive a bit less stressful than it could have been. The hardest part was getting past slow moving vehicles without being able to see the lanes. The bumpy strips of pavement at the edges of the road were useful for helping guide our course. After a short night’s sleep we were back on the road by 7:15 heading to the ski area, a 15km drive. The race started at 9am…and it started right on time…so much so that we were almost caught off guard. Everyone was standing in the starting area chatting waiting for the start then BANG, a gun went off and we all realized the race had just started…time to ski!
Starting at the back I had time to find my groove while working my way past some of the skiers. My skis only had so-so grip climbing the hills, but they were short enough that I could grunt up them with crappy technique. After about 7 km there was an aid station and while most in my group slowed to grab a drink I kept going and ended up not seeing any of those skiers for the rest of the race. Shortly after the aid station was a fairly long but not steep hill and I was slowly gaining on another skier, Tracy from 100 Mile House after meeting her post-race. I didn’t quite catch her by the top of the climb and there followed a long winding descent where she sped away out of sight. I eventually caught her on a long slightly inclined section and at the same time I was passed by a late-60′s aged skier who I later learned was a former Olympian. He had a unique technique, he leaned way forward the whole time he skied, his upper body was nearly horizontal, almost as though he was riding a racing bicycle. Anyways, soon there was another descent on windy trails and both them took off on me. Shortly after the start/finish area I managed to once again catch up. As the trails flattened out I was able to double pole away from my companions…didn’t really do this on purpose, just noticed that after 1 of the double poling sections I found myself all alone. I ended up maintaining my lead until after the big climb…it wasn’t until after the long downhill section that Tracy caught me, commenting about my double poling as she easily diagonal strided past me up the hill. I stayed with her until once again the trails sloped downward shortly before the finish where she once again took off. I finished about 25 seconds behind her in 2:36:04. Overall I was happy with my race considering that my lower back was sore most of the race, had been sore during drive the night before. And I really felt flat the entire race, had no snap in my legs so could not do any bursts to quickly power over the shorter steeper hills. But I was really happy with my double poling which I felt I could do as much as I wanted without tiring, this should come in quite handy at the Cariboo Marathon in February.
On the drive home there was lots of snow on the Coquihalla from Merritt to Hope but again we had no issues other than getting past slower vehicles. We hit snow and hail again at Langley but we fortunately didn’t hit any traffic snarls. After a long 10 hour sleep we did a long walk along the river today, followed by a snoozed on the couch while watching football. Time for a quick dinner now then its off to our Sunday evening curling match.
