Report from Australia

Included below is a report sent in by my clubmate, Bob Hamel. He's a
Masters racer now living in the Marshall Islands. Pretty good result
for someone who has been on a tropical island for 16 months.

Rob Bradlee

Sunday, 29 August, 2004; Howman's Gap, Victoria, Australia

Hoppetize me!

I stayed on New Zealand's snow until the last possible day, Thursday;
and then made my way to Falls Creek, Australia for the Kangaroo Hoppet.

I travelled by van from Snow Farm to Queenstown and then by plane from
Queenstown to Christchurch to Sydney and finally to Albury. After
renting a car in Alsbury, I proceeded on the wrong side of the road to
Mount
Beauty where I rented the requisite tire chains. After a 30 km climbing

the switch backs up a river valley, I arrived at Howman's Gap
recreation camp where I'd be staying.

This is a mountainous region. There are extremely deep valleys lined
with gum trees and exotic looking ferns. Reservoirs, dams and
hydro-electric plants exploit the runoff from the mountains. Howman's
Gap was
built to house the construction crews working on the hydro system.
Today
it's called a "recreation camp." The accomodations consist of a few
buildings of bunk rooms, shared bathrooms, laundry room, drying room
and a
cafeteria style chow hall. The lodging is basic but comfortable. The
food is also basic with wholesome choices and portions large enough for

active guests. There is also a terrific detached waxing building with
about ten benches, ski racks, good overhead lighting and ventilation.
The
prices including meals are very reasonable. The staff is friendly and
helpful. Those qualities appear to be common down under except perhaps
in the Sydney airport. It's as if there's no reason to be unpleasant
when there's fun to be had. It's a seductive attitude. Comfortable
beds,
hot showers, good food and great wax building made it a great place to
stay for the Hoppet.

The winter in Falls Creek had been great with more than 2 meters of
snow on the ground and cold temperatures. The temperatures had risen to

above freezing the week before my arrival. Early reports from skiers
suggested that a tough slog was awaiting us the next day. Choosing to
beat
the rush I waxed before checking out the trails. After two hours of
ritual fussing over skis I had Cera-F on MB2 with the deepest rills I
could arrange. I took the shuttle bus to the race course at Falls Creek
4
km up the road from Howman's Gap. A short test ski suggested that
things
weren't as bad as reported earlier. Temperatures were reported to be 12

above zero C, and the top layer of snow was soft, but a season's worth
of grooming had created a very firm foundation. There was hope that
race day conditions wouldn't be too bad, and my skis were running well.

Things looked even better the next morning. Night time temperatures had

dropped below freezing and the race course had refrozen. It would
certainly degrade with the day's rising temperatures, but the predicted

ankle deep slop wouldn't materialize. My Rosi's turned out to be very
fast.

The Hoppet course is laid out like the Marino Muster with 7, 14 and 21
km loops. The Kangaroo Hoppet racers would do all three loops in that
order. The Australian Birkebeiner skiers would ski the first 2 loops
for
a 21 km course, and the Joey Hoppet skiers would do just the 7 km loop.

The start would be staged with the Birkebeiners starting 10 minutes
after the Hoppet racers and the Joey group 10 minutes after that. There

were about 1000 entrants total.

I'm still not feeling race ready so I decided to conserve energy in the

first half, making speed where I could do it efficiently, and to put
the hammer down in the second half if the motor could manage it. The
course would be getting slower as the day progressed, and it was
tempting
to get past as many k's as possible before the snow started melting.
Nevertheless I thought that saving energy for the last half would be
the
best strategy.

After the national anthem, theirs not ours, the start was signaled by
men in kilts firing a cannon. I had been granted a low bib number and
was hence toward the front of the starting pack. That turned out to be
a
great boon.

We poled over the starting line to the end of the no skate zone and
skated off. I picked up a number of lycra clad wind shields and tried
to
remember the plan even though race day excitement was drumming a nearly

irresistable call to arms. We shot on the first hill and down into the
following valley. A skier behind me stumbled and fell on the down hill.

In a near perfect Birkie reenactment the following pack piled up in a
colorful and nightmarish chain reaction crash. With my low bib number I

continued on with the front runners while curses and were probably
darkening the air behind and top quality racing gear was painfully
untangled.
Conditions were great for a quick circuit around the 7 km Joey loop. We

traversed the top of the dam blocking the reservoir's outlet and
continued clockwise along the shore for a few k's. We would be
repeating that
ground in the oposite direction in the race's final few km.

We turned left and away from the shore, and after about 10 km came to
"The Paralyzer." It's really just a single track 5 km long steady and
moderate incline. I was determined not to go under and settled into an
easy V1 behind a pace line. I concentrated on applying technique
lessons
learned from Trond and Peter the previous week. Two amazing phenomena
were observed on that climb. When I concentrated on coordinating upper
and lower body motions and thereby efficiently converting lower body
power to upper body momentum and potential energy and that to speed on
the
gliding ski it was hard not to run over the skiers in front even while
taking it easy (technique works). I actually had to dumb down my
skating to stay off the skis in front. It was also instructive to
observe
just how much energy skiers threw away while passing the pace line on
the
incline. Several rabbits flailed ahead, and I swear that I easily
passed every one of them at the end of the climb (strategy works).

We crossed a field, made a few shorter climbs, and then came to the
"Blade Runner." I haven't seen the movie by that title, but if it
involves
screaming twisting downhills among hardwood gum trees with panicked
flailing of arms and spectacular crashes, this was appropriately named.

Most of the skiers near me paid the price of timidity on those hills,
while I milked them for all the speed I could get. I had gained several

places before coming back down to the flats around thereservoir. A bit
of
V2'ing across the dam finished off my first 21 km. The second half
started after cruising near the start/finish and then proceeding
counterclockwise along the shore to the far side of the reservoir.

The final half encircled the reservoir and had its own assortment of
climbs and descents a bit more challenging than those of the first
half.
Maintaining my speed was becoming difficult as fatigue set in. I tried
to maintain good technique, work the downhills and work with other
skiers. They didn't mind having me in their draft, but had no interest
in
drafting me when I eased past them, race strategy again.

Coming down from the hills and back near the reservoir shore with about

7 km to go I set my attention on a few skiers ahead who might be
catchable with a final push. I turned up the power a notch and and
trotted
out my best V2 on the flat path around the remainder of the shore. I
was
gaining on them, but it looked like there weren't enough k's left to
catch up. At the dam crossing for the end of the lap it looked like
they
might be just within reach.

Tapping into my last energy reserve I passed one halfway across and
another near the end of the dam. That left one more. I eased into his
draft on the last 50 meters of the dam crossing. He turned around, saw
me
and the race was on. Coming off the dam, turning right and onto a short

climb I down shifted to a very high cadence V1 and pulled ahead. It was

my race then. Hammering up the final hill, I resisted the temptation to

look back at him. The final 100 meters turned out to be a fairly steep
and straight downhill. No one had passed me on downhills that day, and
they weren't going to in the final one. Dropping into a tight tuck I
crossed the finish line without skating another stride.

I had finished in front of everyone I knew except Allistair, the Brit
who had finished 3 minutes ahead of me in both races. It had taken only

2:12 to get around the 42 km course. I finished 61 out of 315 and
second in age group. The day had been filled with great skiing and
competition, but the technique and strategy lessons were the most
satisfying.
I had always considered skiing the Hoppet thinking that Australia was
very far away and incredible exotic. After the clock had started it
hadn't been very different from Craftsbury, Sugarloaf, Lake Placid or
any
of the other special places, except for the kangaroos that is.



=====
Rob Bradlee
Java, C++, Perl, XML, OOAD, Linux, and Unix Training