Tour of Anchorage

Well, yesterday was the tour of Anchorage. The weather was gorgeous, with crystal clear skies and bright sunshine all day long. In the morning it was warmer than its been recently (around 10-15 degrees at the start, instead of the -5 to -10 that have been typical for the past week+) and afternoon highs must have been right around freezing. Trail conditions were rough, owing to some really strong winds over the past week or so with no new snow in weeks. The groomers were able to get most of the windblown debris off of the trails, but at the cost of softening up the snowpack so that the 1500 skiers in the tour turned many sections of the trail to a slow, sugary consistency. The worst was one section of about a half mile of uphill trail along the coast which had accumulated a ton of windblown dust that was groomed into the aforementioned sugary snow. As I skied over it I thought to myself that it looked and felt like I was skiing over sand. These poor snow conditions slowed the race down considerably: the median time for the mens 40K race was 2:50, compared to 2:35 last year.

I would say my day took the trajectory of the weather, rather than the snow conditions. I kept a steady pace for the first 30K (with one quick break to check my blood sugar, have a snack and swig some coffee at the pit stop Beth set up for me where the route went past our house - thanks again, babe!) and had enough juice left to pick up my pace a notch for the last quarter of the race. This included the biggest hills of the day and I got to pass a lot of people on my way up them, which was some much-appreciated motivation and a nice reward for my effort. I was even able to muster a sprint across the finish line during which I passed exactly zero people who were in my race, but it still felt good.

All in all, I finished in 2:41. Considering that the race was about 15 minutes slow due to course conditions I was surprised and very happy about the time, which put me in 103rd place out of 265 racers. Thats in the top 40% and my goal was to be right at the 50th percentile. Finally, although I was (and am) quite tired, I wasn't sore or in pain with the exception of a blister on my right foot.

So to review: beautiful day, better than expected finish, happy skier.

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Postscript: Beth took some pictures, so if I'm not drooling or snotty in them I'll repost them or link to them here once she puts them online.