Norwegian Ski-O Championships

Long Part 1

Following my personal success at last weekends Swedish Ski-O Chasing Start champs, and following a good technical ski session in the week, I was looking forward to the Norwegian Champs (Long and Middle) at Skei.

The technical ski session focussed on developing my 'kick' when skating and uphill technique. Sadly I couldn't put it all into practice at the Ski-O races due to narrow tracks and steep hills!

The long race was first on the agenda, with 10km up and down the mountain. Sections are steep and covered in those brown squiggly lines called contours, which in Ski-O I hate! Others parts of the map were flat marshes with a technical path network, but to get to the interesting bits involved going up or down the mountain.

The long not be my strength in Ski-O I was really pleased to be 55% behind the winners time. The winner took 60 mins while I took 93mins. So it was a definite improvement over the long in Vemdalen where I suffered and died. Painfully! While this race was painful, the hills were at least manageable for the most part, and the snow fresh and soft making descending controlled (sort of) and not so scary! My only falls in the race were going uphill and catching ski tips in the harder snow, or going downhill and not landing small jumps properly due to getting a little too confident!

Long Part 2

I didn't make any mistakes and and was pleased to be consistently getting closer to the winner across the disciplines.

Sunday was the middle distance race, and a mere 4.5km compared to yesterday. I was expecting the courses to take us around the technical navigation sections, made all the more challenging by required map memory on the descents so I could focus on the skiing (and not falling). I also expected the course to take up briefly up to the top again, but hoped this wouldn't be the case.

I made a small mistake to 2 by taking a wrong junction and then not turning immediately when I realised. Instead I carried on and took a slightly longer route adding 30 seconds to my time for the leg. The technical sections went well. I survived the descents and succeeded on the climbs I had struggled with yesterday (thanks to a little grip wax under both ski's).

Annoyingly I messed up the route choice legs which cost me dearly. I wanted to take the best route choices on both occasions (to 8 and 10), but decided against it for various reasons.

Control 8: Saw the best RC going to the right of the line, but I knew from discussions on Saturday evening that the hill was steep and narrow at the bottom. Despite the wider track starting halfway up this climb, and the route being shorter and more direct, I opted for the left RC which took most of teh climb on the wide ski track before a gentler climb up to the control. It was too long and I lost a bit of time here despite getting up the hill quickly (for me). I also messed up my route out of the control.
Lesson learned: listen to advice of others but make own decision on RC.

Middle Race

Control 10: After having learned my lesson from control 8, I decided to go straighter to 10, back down the track I had avoided on the way to 8 because it was 'maybe too steep to go up'. It went closer to the line than the eastern route choice and I knew I could always run down carrying ski's if it did get too much. Unfortunately the route to get there was wiggly and slow going. Again I should have kept to my original RC heading NE out of 10 and then descending on the wide ski track before going straight into the control. My speed on the descent would have been much higher as the track was straighter and familiar.

Part of the problem at the moment with my Ski-O navigation is I'm not confident enough with my skiing to take certain (often the best) route choices. For example, I was put off my choice to 8 by the steepness of the hill knowing it would take me a loooong time to ascend. But likewise I was put off my choice to 10 because of a steep downhill (just north out of 9) and a fear of falling. I felt calmer attempting the descent I knew would be a challenge, rather than face something entirely unknown.

I think with more skiing confidence and practice on the descents I can start taking the RC's I want to take rather than fitting my RC to my skill level.

It could have been 2 higher results. Saturday possibly not so much time to save apart from the falls (inparticular a face plant that resulted in a ski-pole knot and snow up my nose and in my face). Sunday should definitely have been better. I certainly had the potential to get 2 or 3 places higher but circumstances (stupidity and RC's) dictated otherwise.