Last Saturday was the day of my second race of the season, the 50K Payak loppet at the Whistler Olympic Park. I love cross-country skiing although it is not my prime race sport but it is great cross training. Given that I am aiming for Ironman and at a marathon in May, I wanted to get some solid race mileage in. My goal was to finish in under 3:30hrs which I was able to do. The course was quite challenging with more than 1600 meters of climbing. Conditions were somewhat difficult. It was very cold the night before but by the time the race started it snowed and the freshly groomed trails were slowly covered in fresh snow. Especially on the second lap I found my skis did not have the glide that I experienced on downhills during the first lap. I had waxed for cold conditions...
In the end I was very happy with my race strategy and performance. I was able to catch up with two other skiers ahead of me on the last 10K and pull away on the last few climbs on the Olympic Biathlon course. I even had some energy to finish strong in one-skate technique.
Analyzing my HR profile later, I was surprised to see that I virtually raced around my balance point which prevented my from getting lactic during the race and sore the next day.
After the 50K loppet, I know that I can do a marathon. With more specific training sessions to improve speed and add some mileage I should be able to run a decent Vancouver Marathon. But first things first... on Sunday I shall race my first duathlon ever (http://www.rec.ubc.ca/events/triathlon/). If the weather is dry, I will race my brand new Transition....
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