Stuart, nice meeting you at the airport Radisson on Monday before our
flights home. I'll look for your name in the credits of Northern
Exposure next time I watch a re-run. I bumped into Jim Agre in the
expo tent just before the start when he recognized my Riverbrook
uniform. Nice race Jim!!

Quite the epic day. I knew a day or so before the race that I would
have some ski "issues". I am 10-11 lbs heavier this year than last
(can you say ice cream?) when I bought my newest 2 pair of classical
skis and have paid for it in every race this year with poor ski
fit/flex as a result. I decided I was going to use my stiffer skis
(which goes against the soft powder condition rule) due to my heavier
weight. Only problem is, those skis have an agressive LJ03 grind from
Zach Caldwell that probably were not the best choice. My heart sank a
little when we opened the door of our B&B in Mora to load up the car
race morning to see 4-5+ inches of new powder. But I made the
conscious decision to go with it and see what happens, so I paid the
price with somewhat slow skis. I think my softer skis would have been
much too soft though.

I was amazed how orderly the start and first 4-5 kms were (I had start
group 2). Nice change of pace from the carnage of Wave 1 in our Birkie.
I didn't feel very rested going into the race. At about 10k I started
having thoughts of just relaxing and enjoying the day instead of
beating myself to a pulp. At 30k my quads starting cramping for some
reason (that has never ever happended before) so I was forced to be
conservative regardless. They would cramp up again every 10k or so.
The last 40k were tough for me and I got pretty chilled the last 20k.
Ended up with a 7:01 - far from my goal of sub-6.

The organization, volunteer force, and sheer magnitude of this race is
absolutely amazing. It puts the American Birkie in a very different
frame of reference in my mind. I think I missed getting a medal by 15+
minutes or more but I don't mind. I have every intention of getting
one in 2007 - I already registered this morning!!!!!

Congrats to fellow U.S. skiers that made the trip.

JK


Stuart wrote:
One long day....!

I love this race. Such a great Nordic festival. But man, this was one
long tough slog. I'd be very curious what others did about waxing and
structure. I packed skis when it was looking warmer and had a pair of
new Fischer RCS Plus with a factory grind. Used Start HF cold -- blue I
guess -- with their cold fluoro.Underneath it I'd waxed warmer back in
the states...Anyway, not sure what happened but I had the slowest skis
I've ever had. Probably the structure and maybe some kind of strange
interaction between what I added and had on previously. Hell if I know.
At about ten k, I actually took them off and sort of stared at them in
disbelief, like I was looking for a flat tire or something. I kept
thinking it would change, double polling down hill. I think I passed
one person all day and I'm pretty sure they were in the process of
falling down. I should have stopped to see if they were okay but I was
so excited to be passing somebody, I kept going. By 50 k, it felt like
I was in the Russian retreat from Stallingrad. I kept trying to run
into trees on the downhills to have a legit reason to dnf but I was so
tired I couldn't even hit the trees.

I started in 6th start group and it took 45 minutes to go 3 km. Of
course I didn't understand that would be about my pace for the day.

Americans posted some really good times and let me tell you, anybody
who did well yesterday deserves all kinds of applause. To fight through
the crowd, that cold snow with very snakey tracks, man, that's some
kind of impressive to actually race it vs. the tour I put in. I was at
Vasa office today and they were talking about how strong David
Chamberlain looked. Around 11% of the starters didn't finish, which was
a modern record. And the winners were about 20% slower than
anticipated.

I should have known it was going to go like this when I saw the women's
world club 45 k, the day before. They anticipated finishing in under 2
hours and it ended up taking something like 2:20. I saw Beckie Scott
--- 11th, super congrats -- about 2 km out from the finish and she
looked to be skiing on pure guts, working like hell.

Interestingly, there were over 40 Americans and only 5 Canadians
entered...

Stuart Stevens