Today was a very foggy and soggy day up at the "Laura" cross-country ski venue. The fog was so thick that you couldn't see too much in front of you. When I mentioned to someone that I never got a picture of the foggy conditions for my blog they said "Just take a picture of a white wall; it will look about the same." So that gives you an idea. The snow was very wet and rutted so you were either catching a rut or sinking through. In other words, far from my ideal race conditions.
Phil and I practised our course quite a few times. I was having trouble with the big downhill, which had given me no trouble earlier in the week. Finally, I managed to ski it to our satisfaction. Once the course was closed so the races could begin, there was nowhere left to ski to warm-up so we had to jog on the mushy snow along the snowmobile track where gas fumes were really bad.
Finally, we managed to do some sort of warm-up, triggering a bit of an asthma attack in the process what with the snowmobile fumes and the extremely high humidity, and it was time for the qualifying race.
I started the race relatively well and did the long uphill the way we had planned. The downhill was much more rutted from all the racers that had gone down it befoer me. So I caught a rut and bailed about where it started to come back up a slight hill through which you would normally carry a lot of speed. I got completely turned around in my fall and lost a bit of time getting up. I got up fairly quickly though and continued up the hill. By then I had of course lost all of my speed and therefore didn't make it into the semi-final.
Overall, it was not a great day for me today, but, as I've said before, the first race often doesn't go well for me. So here's hoping for better weather and better racing tomorrow. We're racing the 15 km tomorrow and the forecast is again for snow overnight (which did not materialize last night) and cooler temps of about -3 to -5. So I'm looking forward to seeing what it will be like up there tomorrow!
For now, good night from Sochi.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Quick update
And the sprint races are a go tomorrow! They must have managed to get power restored up there and the races begin at noon tomorrow with my category starting at 1 p.m. It's apparently still raining up at the top and it might not snow at all tonight, but I guess we will find out for sure tomorrow. Anyway, yay for racing tomorrow!
Good night from Rosa Khutor!
Good night from Rosa Khutor!
Sochi: Day 4 - rain and wind, wind and rain
Today brought an interesting turn of events...
I had my alarm set for 8:30 as my race was not till after 1 o'clock. After the alarm went off I was just lying there and dosing for a bit. Suddenly the door opens and in comes Colette, who is supposed to be up at the venue by now. She says, "Well, you might as well stay in bed. The races are cancelled." I sit up in shock, all possible reasons for this running through my mind. "A tower blew down and the gondola is not running," she continues. I say "Oh my God!" and jump out of bed.
We don't actually know if a tower really blew down but it's apparently extremely windy up at "Laura," the cross-country venue, and the gondola is not running for safety reasons. Apparently, there are also some trees down at the site and a lot of the tents have blown away. The official press release is on the IPC website. It is currently raining here and up at the site and they're calling for snow overnight - 50 cm of it! They are hoping to run the sprints tomorrow afternoon as planned. I really hope they can!
In the meantime, there isn't much for us to do here. We are supposed to stay at Rosa Khutor (our little hotel strip) and the poor guys staying up top have to stay in their cabins or the restaurant. At least, Colette and I were able to go for a good 50-minute jog outside before the rain began. A decision on tomorrow will be made by 8 o'clock tonight so all we can do now is rest up and wait.
This is the view from our balcony right now:
I will post another update when I know more.
Good afternoon from rainy Sochi.
I had my alarm set for 8:30 as my race was not till after 1 o'clock. After the alarm went off I was just lying there and dosing for a bit. Suddenly the door opens and in comes Colette, who is supposed to be up at the venue by now. She says, "Well, you might as well stay in bed. The races are cancelled." I sit up in shock, all possible reasons for this running through my mind. "A tower blew down and the gondola is not running," she continues. I say "Oh my God!" and jump out of bed.
We don't actually know if a tower really blew down but it's apparently extremely windy up at "Laura," the cross-country venue, and the gondola is not running for safety reasons. Apparently, there are also some trees down at the site and a lot of the tents have blown away. The official press release is on the IPC website. It is currently raining here and up at the site and they're calling for snow overnight - 50 cm of it! They are hoping to run the sprints tomorrow afternoon as planned. I really hope they can!
In the meantime, there isn't much for us to do here. We are supposed to stay at Rosa Khutor (our little hotel strip) and the poor guys staying up top have to stay in their cabins or the restaurant. At least, Colette and I were able to go for a good 50-minute jog outside before the rain began. A decision on tomorrow will be made by 8 o'clock tonight so all we can do now is rest up and wait.
This is the view from our balcony right now:
I will post another update when I know more.
Good afternoon from rainy Sochi.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Sochi: Day 3 - Skiing in the sub-tropics
On the agenda for today was race prep for tomorrow's 15 km classic race. It wasn't as sunny today but more muggy up at the ski site (there's a sentence you don't hear every day!). We don't think it dropped below zero overnight so the snow was very sugary and mushy. It flew everywhere as you went down the hills. So of course we had to use Klister (everyone's favourite glue-like grip wax), but at least it worked.
Tomorrow's race promises to be challenging but it will be that way for everyone. My guide Phil and I went around the course a few times testing wax and doing a few pick-ups and sprints in order to wake up our muscles. Mine felt a little sluggish from the long travel and the jetlag starting to kick in. We met Brian McKeever on one of the hills and I asked him for some advice for tomorrow's race. He gladly gave us a little lesson on how to take uphills conservatively on the first few laps in order to save some energy for the big push at the end, which was much appreciated.
This afternoon Phil and I went over our race plan in fine detail so we will be as ready for tomorrow as we can be. Our start time is at 1:22 p.m. and our category is pretty small unfortunately. But we will totally give it our best and stick to our race plan.
I just got back from a nice evening stroll with Joanne, the team massage therapist, and Colette, my roommate (and a para-nordic ski legend, might I add). It was 15 degrees out there! We cannot believe how nice it is, except for, well, it makes for some wonky ski conditions. On our return from our walk, we watched two guys trying to walk a really drunk guy back to his room (it is Friday night in Russia after all). It was hillarious. At one point, the guy keeled right over taking one of the support guys with him, who fell right on top of him. We really wished we had gotten it on video!
Anyway. here are a couple of pictures before I go to bed. Better make sure I'm well rested for my race tomorrow!
This was taken on the edge of the IPC stadium yesterday or, as Phil put it, "on the edge of paradise." Pretty amazing, eh?
Tomorrow's race promises to be challenging but it will be that way for everyone. My guide Phil and I went around the course a few times testing wax and doing a few pick-ups and sprints in order to wake up our muscles. Mine felt a little sluggish from the long travel and the jetlag starting to kick in. We met Brian McKeever on one of the hills and I asked him for some advice for tomorrow's race. He gladly gave us a little lesson on how to take uphills conservatively on the first few laps in order to save some energy for the big push at the end, which was much appreciated.
This afternoon Phil and I went over our race plan in fine detail so we will be as ready for tomorrow as we can be. Our start time is at 1:22 p.m. and our category is pretty small unfortunately. But we will totally give it our best and stick to our race plan.
I just got back from a nice evening stroll with Joanne, the team massage therapist, and Colette, my roommate (and a para-nordic ski legend, might I add). It was 15 degrees out there! We cannot believe how nice it is, except for, well, it makes for some wonky ski conditions. On our return from our walk, we watched two guys trying to walk a really drunk guy back to his room (it is Friday night in Russia after all). It was hillarious. At one point, the guy keeled right over taking one of the support guys with him, who fell right on top of him. We really wished we had gotten it on video!
Anyway. here are a couple of pictures before I go to bed. Better make sure I'm well rested for my race tomorrow!
This was taken on the edge of the IPC stadium yesterday or, as Phil put it, "on the edge of paradise." Pretty amazing, eh?
And this is one of the buildings on the little strip that we are staying on. I've still got the touch with photos, don't I? :)
Good night from Sochi.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Sochi: first impressions
So my last few posts were over a year ago again, but the last ski season wasn't really that exciting to write about anyway.
This year we've got excitement though! I'm currently in Sochi, Russia, getting ready for IPC World Cup races at the Paralympic Test Event.
We got to Sochi yesterday after a very tiring journey that lasted over 24 hours for me, 10 of which were spent at the Istanbul Airport - a very loud and busy place. After arriving here in the morning and catcing a few hours of sleep, we set out to explore our surroundings a bit. The hotel we're stying at is super modern and practically brand new I think. It's very nice. The area we are in is all just hotels on two sides of a pretty fast-flowing river.
This year we've got excitement though! I'm currently in Sochi, Russia, getting ready for IPC World Cup races at the Paralympic Test Event.
We got to Sochi yesterday after a very tiring journey that lasted over 24 hours for me, 10 of which were spent at the Istanbul Airport - a very loud and busy place. After arriving here in the morning and catcing a few hours of sleep, we set out to explore our surroundings a bit. The hotel we're stying at is super modern and practically brand new I think. It's very nice. The area we are in is all just hotels on two sides of a pretty fast-flowing river.
Today we went up the mountain to check out the ski courses and conditions, and I have to say both are much better than I had expected. The courses are pretty mamageable I think with no crazy downhills or really steep climbs and the conditions today, although soft and sugary, were still nowhere near as bad as the last race in Minneapolis last year (which I neglected to write about). It was pretty warm down here and up top, but it was nice to enjoy the sun!
I will have to write more about my impressions tomorrow as I had better go to bed.
Good night from Sochi.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Sprint races
As I mentioned in my previous post, today's races were sprints. the standing skiers' distance was 1 km. The way the sprints work is there is a qualifier in the morning: everyone races the course once individually with 30-second intervals. Then, depending on how many skiers are in the category, a certain number of skiers advances to quarter- or semi-finals. For example, the sitski men had 25 participants today, so the first 16 advanced to the quarter-finals. In my category, which tends to be quite small and is even more so here, we had only 7 participants so all 7 got to advance to semi-finals as long as we got World Cup points (within 130 per cent of the winner's time). I know this sounds a bit complicated but, hopefully, this gives you somewhat of an idea of how the sprints work.
I was last out in my category today and Laurent did his magic on the skis again, they were fast and had awesome grip, even though we had to use Klister (a really sticky liquid grip wax for icy conditions). The course itself was not too complicated, having only one big downhill with a corkscrew turn. I stumbled a bit on he second turn of the corkscrew but stayed up. So I got World Cup points and advanced to the semis.
My semi was at 1 p.m. and I had to warm up for it by running as there was absolutely nowhere to go skiing. I had one of the fastest and the slowest Russian girls in my semi and a German B1, who has become quite fast also. The B1 girl got a 29-second head start and the Russian B2 got a 4-second head start on me and the fast Russian. When it was finally my turn to start, I skied as fast as I could but I could not catch those girls. The weirdest thing happened during that race though. Just as we started the race, this crazy siren went off somewhere. It was super loud and it sounded like an air-raid siren from the old Russian war movies. it scared the heck out of me! I thought we were going to get bombed! It turns out it was a tornado warning siren. I guess it was some kind of test. But talk about ironic timing - it just had to be during the blind race!
Anyway, sprints are really not my thing, and I'm glad they're over. I got World Cup points, and that's good enough.
Tomorrow's race was supposed to be a 15 km but they had mercy on us and reduced it to 12 km for the women standing. They did this because the course is quite difficult: there's nowhere to catch your breath. It only goes up and down and really mostly just up. So it's a kind of course you really have to pace yourself on. In addition, when Brian and I skied it this afternoon, it was like skiing on brown sugar: the snow is sugary and really dirty! My start time tomorrow is 1:04, so it's going to be pretty horrible, and, if it's sunny, also hot. Good thing I just bought a new pair of skis for wet conditions. They're going to come in handy!
Well, that's it for today. One more race and we're home free!
Good night from Minneapolis.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
I was last out in my category today and Laurent did his magic on the skis again, they were fast and had awesome grip, even though we had to use Klister (a really sticky liquid grip wax for icy conditions). The course itself was not too complicated, having only one big downhill with a corkscrew turn. I stumbled a bit on he second turn of the corkscrew but stayed up. So I got World Cup points and advanced to the semis.
My semi was at 1 p.m. and I had to warm up for it by running as there was absolutely nowhere to go skiing. I had one of the fastest and the slowest Russian girls in my semi and a German B1, who has become quite fast also. The B1 girl got a 29-second head start and the Russian B2 got a 4-second head start on me and the fast Russian. When it was finally my turn to start, I skied as fast as I could but I could not catch those girls. The weirdest thing happened during that race though. Just as we started the race, this crazy siren went off somewhere. It was super loud and it sounded like an air-raid siren from the old Russian war movies. it scared the heck out of me! I thought we were going to get bombed! It turns out it was a tornado warning siren. I guess it was some kind of test. But talk about ironic timing - it just had to be during the blind race!
Anyway, sprints are really not my thing, and I'm glad they're over. I got World Cup points, and that's good enough.
Tomorrow's race was supposed to be a 15 km but they had mercy on us and reduced it to 12 km for the women standing. They did this because the course is quite difficult: there's nowhere to catch your breath. It only goes up and down and really mostly just up. So it's a kind of course you really have to pace yourself on. In addition, when Brian and I skied it this afternoon, it was like skiing on brown sugar: the snow is sugary and really dirty! My start time tomorrow is 1:04, so it's going to be pretty horrible, and, if it's sunny, also hot. Good thing I just bought a new pair of skis for wet conditions. They're going to come in handy!
Well, that's it for today. One more race and we're home free!
Good night from Minneapolis.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
First day in Minneapolis
Today it became quite apparent how much we've been spoiled over the last week in Cable. For one thing, the food here is not nearly as varied or as plentiful as it was in Telemark. Much more importantly though, there is no snow at all in the town, and the race course looks like they usually do in Europe. The snow is brown in places and there's barely enough to cover the golf course we are skiing on. When we got to the race site this morning, tomorrow's course wasn't even marked. And by the time we left they were still trying to figure out whether we were going to be racing clockwise or counter-clockwise! But Brian and I skied the race course quite a few times, dodging sitskiers, who were skiing the other way, and tripping over Klister all the while. Good thing tomorrow's races are sprints and we're skating on Thursday!
So I start at 10:21 tomorrow for my qualifying race. There are only 7 girls in my category and we're not sure how many will advance. It will be either all of us and we will have semi-finals or only the first 4 and we'll just have finals. I'm inclined to think it will be all of us and I will get to do at least two races. We will see tomorrow though.
All right, I will now go to bed and dream fast dreams before tomorrow's fast race.
Good night from unseasonably warm Minnesota.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
So I start at 10:21 tomorrow for my qualifying race. There are only 7 girls in my category and we're not sure how many will advance. It will be either all of us and we will have semi-finals or only the first 4 and we'll just have finals. I'm inclined to think it will be all of us and I will get to do at least two races. We will see tomorrow though.
All right, I will now go to bed and dream fast dreams before tomorrow's fast race.
Good night from unseasonably warm Minnesota.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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