Sunday 27 January 2013

December Update

Apparently my last post was in early December, so well over a month ago. I was under the impression I had written something after the Swedish WRE's in Vemdalen, but clearly not!

Here is a brief update of the last month.

The Vemdalen races were a mixed bag of results. I had a very good night sprint/middle and felt strong, but the next day in the mass start middle my nerves got the better of me and I made a sizeable 90 second error early on. I wasn't the only one judging by the number of girls coming past me later on!
Part way round the course I was shoved by the leading group of elite men, which upset me. So I finished the race in tears and had a paddy. After calming down we returned to the start line for the sprint in the afternoon. With 3 races in less than 24hours it was intensive. I had another decent race in the sprint and was 51% behind the winners time, so close to that magical 50% that I'd recently started aiming for after not being last in Norway!

Then the next day came the long. It was epic. My arms were shattered after the previous days and I had no energy to get up the steep hills. Resorting back to penguin steps, the first loop was agonisingly slow.  As I went out on the second I saw the loop had two hill climbs, both going up to the top, and then back down to the bottom. As a battled with exhaustion, giving up was not an option. But after my 4th fatigued fall, I couldn't be bothered to stand back up as I lay face down in a soft patch of snow. My drive to reach the finish and escape the painful hell I found myself in, saw me get back up and keep skiing uphill. By the time I finished everyone else had gone home, and only Hans Jørgen remained to cheer me into the finish - right before I burst into tears. Again! Rather than tears of anger, this time it was tears of exhaustion and happiness to complete a long long tough course.

The next couple of weeks were spent in birthday celebrations for HJ, a weekend trip to London and Christmas with the Kvåle's in Norway. More skiing but fortunately no more races.

Post Christmas we headed up to Lygna on a section of map I made in the summer for a Ski-O race. Unfortunately the day before the race, the temperature warmed, and then cooled on the morning of the race. So the ski-o tracks became ice skating rinks, and I feared for my life. While not a hilly part of the area, the hills were steep enough that I couldn't control my ski's so ended up in the snow a lot. With the icy crust and soft snow underneath getting out of my 'Emily holes' was a challenge in itself! With a pulled hamstring and a sore arm, I limped into the finish. And cried. Again!!!

I find it so frustrating to try Ski-O because I am perfectly capable of navigating my way around a course without mistakes. The problem is the skiing. It's not like I've skiied all my life and have suddenly decided to start Ski-O. Instead I am learning the XC skating technique in my daily training, and then having to learn the Ski-O skiing technique, and then having to develop upper body and core strength so I can do the Ski-O technique! Add that to being unable to control the ski's on ice or hard packed snow, and lacking the technique to drive the ski's forward in soft snow, alongside being passed by EVERY competitor in the forest, my ski-O experiences tend to err on the bad side of racing rather than the positive and enjoyable. So, I finish most races in tears. One week there'll be perfect conditions for me and I'll have a good race and finish smiling because I feel that I've improved significantly over the last race, and the next week it will be hell and there'll be a tantrum because I've gone backwards and am now 200% of the winners time!

But, the good news is that I have collected World Ranking points from 4 races in December of the 6 WRE's I competed in. One was a mispunch and the other I finished so far behind, everyone went home!