Keski Reports?

Wondering how other RSN's Keski went. I see that John Forrest
Tomlinson skied swiftly.

I did the 52 km. classic. Conditions were super with the downhills in
great shape. Seems to me that the forested trails have been widened
over the last 10 years. I really enjoyed the race, though I didn't ski
fast at all. When skiers I commonly ski faster than in later waves
passed me at 15 km. I saw the writing on the wall. Glazed tracks
created kick problems for me around at 20 km. that I couldn't correct
the one time I tried to layer Toko over Vahti kick wax. I should have
listened to my intuition to use a green klister binder under the hard
wax. Would have saved me a lot of time. Missed kicks really took a lot
out of me- so much so that I was not able to enjoy the better kick
outside the tracks. Once snow flew and filled the tracks with a few
mm. of cover I had great grip and glide but the damage was done. I was
tuckered out and limped in at well over 5 hours. By far the slowest
marathon time for me ever. I always felt for those skiers out on the
course for a long time due to poor wax or just not being fit enough to
be a bit more zippy. What would it be like to be out so long?- I used
to wonder. Now I know. Finishing and adjusting the mindset in order to
enjoy the great weather and tracks was the goal, and I achieved them.
I was quite satisfied as the three prior weeks I suffered from
flu/bronchitis and then some acute trauma to a tendon in my ankle that
left me unable to walk just one week prior to the marathon. None of
that seemed to impact me directly on marathon day, but I was quite
aware of leg pain that emerged from walking city streets after beeing
off my feet for the prior three weeks.

The Keski is a nice event, and if you like to ice skate then making a
winter city vacation out of it is the ticket. My wife who had a great
time skiing the 25 km. classic event, and I really enjoy skating the
carnival like Rideau Canal during Winterlude Festival. A very nice
scene.

My friend who skied the 25 km classic the first day and the 50 skate
then next was an early arriver at the scene of the skied who suffered
a heart attack and later passed away. He found two skiers attending to
the stricken man and another skiiing furiously back down the hill they
just came up. We discussed this situation and concluded based on our
(limited) knowledge of CPR and incidents that lead to vascular
incidents among those fit enough to ski a marathon, that CPR and first
responder efforts have little chance to save the stricken. Usually
among the fit, a heart attack we understand, is a result of a
structural problem that went undetected, and not a situation that
could be affected positively by CPR or even paddles. If our
conclusions are incorrect, I'd like to gain a better understanding of
the matter. This has been a topic in our newsgroup in the past. Indeed
I started a thread within the year about deaths during marathons, as I
have seen my share of them. We know that the risk of perishing in an
event such as this is less than the risks of not exercising.
I'd say that based on conversations I have had with a fit friend who
lived through an aortic aneurism, the most important thing to do is to
stop exercising and seek immediate attention the second you feels
something wrong. Had my friend just continued on thinking he had a
stomach upset he'd not be here today.

Gary Jacobson
Rosendale, NY

It's about time I stopped lurking, and got sociable
again. Glad to hear that Gary was able to do the 50
(or really 52) classic, despite all his recent problems.

I was also pleased to hear the reports last week on the
CSM, which has now got me salivating to go back to that.
Maybe next year I'll try to do both, Parham!

And the main thing to report on the 50 classic for me was
again just how great those old Fischers of yours from about
1990 are still running. I've never had better skis in a long
race. Parham sold me those when he needed a stiffer ski to
account for the extra 10kg. or so that he'd be carrying as
a Gold Courier de Bois. I was acually contemplating a divorce,
or temporary separation, and tested a softer pair of Atomics
on Friday night, but thank goodness I stuck with the old
Fischers. That was also a topic of a recent thread. Looking
at the splits, I think only one person slower overall than me
was actually faster on the more downhill last 2/3 of the course,
and quite a few who beat me were slower. My high speed glide
seemed to be way better than everybody around me.

The 60-64 men's category had a terrific turnout, 39 plus at
least one other usual competitor who entered but couldn't
ski. Lots of `foreigners' (I guess `international skiers' is
more politically correct, if illogical). John Brodhead had
a fantastic time. I also got soundly beaten by another USer,
2 Norwegians and a Czech in category, as well as by a Canuck,
my friend Risto Santala in the 65-69's. But for me, on that day,
4h.02 made me perfectly happy. The old `flasks of gel hanging
around the neck' trick seemed to work very well, and, if anything,
after climbing Mont Bleu, I thought maybe I'd been too conservative,
and had too much left at the finish. And despite the icy track,
there was still lots of VF30 left on those skis for climbing it.
(I think the negative comments about the old VF's we hear here
are sometimes parrotting, and sometimes people who take the
instructions on labels, like temp ranges, too seriously!)

Hope to hear from others on the race. Was it pretty slow up
on top on Sunday, JFT? The skate times weren't that fast, but
skiing (and cheerleading) down below on Sunday, it didn't seem
too bad, despite the -18 deg. Apparently several RSNers who often
do the Keski didn't make it this year. hope you guys are all
right.

Best, Peter

Gary:

Sounds like my Keski was a lot like yours. I almost stopped half way to
re-wax but opted not too. I should have. I'm feeling a bit too good today,
which tells me I had more to leave out on the trail but didn't.

My only story: I was coming down one of the long hills and was approaching
the skier in front of me too quickly, so I stepped out of the tracks to go
by. I hit soft snow. I went down on my butt, but went down so hard that I
bounced back up again. (just don't start calling me 'lard ass'!)

-Scott.

"gary jacobson" wrote in message
om...
Wondering how other RSN's Keski went. I see that John Forrest
Tomlinson skied swiftly.

I did the 52 km. classic. Conditions were super with the downhills in
great shape. Seems to me that the forested trails have been widened
over the last 10 years. I really enjoyed the race, though I didn't ski
fast at all. When skiers I commonly ski faster than in later waves
passed me at 15 km. I saw the writing on the wall. Glazed tracks
created kick problems for me around at 20 km. that I couldn't correct
the one time I tried to layer Toko over Vahti kick wax. I should have
listened to my intuition to use a green klister binder under the hard
wax. Would have saved me a lot of time. Missed kicks really took a lot
out of me- so much so that I was not able to enjoy the better kick
outside the tracks. Once snow flew and filled the tracks with a few
mm. of cover I had great grip and glide but the damage was done. I was
tuckered out and limped in at well over 5 hours. By far the slowest
marathon time for me ever. I always felt for those skiers out on the
course for a long time due to poor wax or just not being fit enough to
be a bit more zippy. What would it be like to be out so long?- I used
to wonder. Now I know. Finishing and adjusting the mindset in order to
enjoy the great weather and tracks was the goal, and I achieved them.
I was quite satisfied as the three prior weeks I suffered from
flu/bronchitis and then some acute trauma to a tendon in my ankle that
left me unable to walk just one week prior to the marathon. None of
that seemed to impact me directly on marathon day, but I was quite
aware of leg pain that emerged from walking city streets after beeing
off my feet for the prior three weeks.

The Keski is a nice event, and if you like to ice skate then making a
winter city vacation out of it is the ticket. My wife who had a great
time skiing the 25 km. classic event, and I really enjoy skating the
carnival like Rideau Canal during Winterlude Festival. A very nice
scene.

My friend who skied the 25 km classic the first day and the 50 skate
then next was an early arriver at the scene of the skied who suffered
a heart attack and later passed away. He found two skiers attending to
the stricken man and another skiiing furiously back down the hill they
just came up. We discussed this situation and concluded based on our
(limited) knowledge of CPR and incidents that lead to vascular
incidents among those fit enough to ski a marathon, that CPR and first
responder efforts have little chance to save the stricken. Usually
among the fit, a heart attack we understand, is a result of a
structural problem that went undetected, and not a situation that
could be affected positively by CPR or even paddles. If our
conclusions are incorrect, I'd like to gain a better understanding of
the matter. This has been a topic in our newsgroup in the past. Indeed
I started a thread within the year about deaths during marathons, as I
have seen my share of them. We know that the risk of perishing in an
event such as this is less than the risks of not exercising.
I'd say that based on conversations I have had with a fit friend who
lived through an aortic aneurism, the most important thing to do is to
stop exercising and seek immediate attention the second you feels
something wrong. Had my friend just continued on thinking he had a
stomach upset he'd not be here today.

Gary Jacobson
Rosendale, NY

Excellent, Peter!

Look forward to seeing you at the CSM. Here's an offer- if you attempt to do
the both CSM and Keski next year, I'll be inspired by you and will attempt
to do the 'double' too. Nice to hear the old RCS' are getting faster every
year :-)

Parham.

On Mon, 21 Feb 2005, gary jacobson wrote:

Wondering how other RSN's Keski went. I see that John Forrest
Tomlinson skied swiftly.

Well I had something of an epic adventure. Thursday morning we packed
up for the 5-hour drive home from Garnet Hill where we'd spent 3 days
on a vacation with extended family. Spent an hour or so at home
unloading the car and seeing to things there, then drove 4 hours more
to Gatineau (alone). Got there at 8 PM to pick up packet and try to
divine some clues about how to wax.

The folks at the booth that was offering a waxing service as a club
fundraiser insisted that it was all powder now that a few cm's of new
snow had fallen. They admitted that the classic tracks had not
actually been cut yet, but were unwilling to entertain the thought that
once they were cut, old abrasive snow from the last freeze/thaw cycle
would be exposed. They insisted all that was needed was VR40 plus maybe
a layer of VR50 on top, or maybe I'm off by one and that was 30 and 40.
Didn't matter, I don't have any VR waxes.

I retired to the hotel, which insisted they had no reservation in my
name, but fortunately still had rooms available at the Keski rate.
After downing a mediocre pizza I headed for the underground garage
where they were allowing waxing. I went with Start Green for glide,
which was great for most of the race. It did seem to be slowing down
once the temp rose significantly, but I couldn't think of anything
else that a) I had, and b) would cover the expected temp range as
well. I thought about mixing some Rex Blue into it but decided not to
be too creative since that seems to backfire as often as help. :-)

For kick I used Swix orange binder (the old one) and then a few layers
of Extra Blue for starters. Somewhere along the way all the other
waxers finished up and I was left alone until Duncan Douglas walked by
and stopped to chat. He wished me luck and when I asked if he was
racing tomorrow said "none of that classic racing for me". Well I
guess he knows what he's doing, he took 4th place in the 50k skate on
Sunday!

Managed to catch 4 or 5 hours of sleep and then off to test skis and
fiddle with wax. Got a nice parking spot just a few feet from a side
loop with set tracks leading up the only small hill anywhere near the
start. I tried several different waxes and was never quite happy with
the results until I tried Rode Multigrade Violet. That seemed to give
good kick and not drag on the glide so I *thought* I was happy and
went off to the start.

Having no recent results to draw on I entered with no seeding and was
assigned to wave D. I thought this might be a problem but decided not
to let it bother me and lined up on the front row. It turned out to
not be a problem at all. We quickly strung out and by the time we
started passing C wavers they were strung out well enough that passing
was rarely a problem. Sometimes there were backups on herring-bone
hills but nothing like the old mass-start all-in-one-wave days of the
Gatineau 55.

Things went quite well for the first 10 or 15 km I suppose before I
realized I was gradually losing my kick. (Oh, no...) As time wore on
the wax wore off and eventually I had pretty much no diagonal stride
kick at all except on the shallowest of hills. On the flats I could
still produce a KDP kick, but it was a long way to go with no diagonal
stride. I thought several times about stopping to rewax but reasoned
that if it came off once it would just do it again.

I did catch a brief glimpse of Gary Jacobson at a point where the
course doubled back on itself after the loop past the Huron shelter.
I'd looked up your number on the start list and just as I hit the
point where there were oncoming skiers I thought to pick my head up
and look at bib numbers when there you were, and there you went before
I even got my mouth open to holler.

By the time I got back to the 2nd Huron feed station I knew I hadn't
been eating enough and I knew what was coming next from having bonked
on the Parkway decent years ago in the G55, so I stopped for a good
5-10 minutes and stuffed my face before starting the decent. That
turned out to be both good and bad. Good because I didn't bonk this
time but bad because I cooled off too much and once I started the decent
I realized my mittens were soaking wet and my hands were starting to
freeze. I have *never* gotten cold hands in these mittens (Sinisalo)
before. I actually stopped to look in my pack to dig out my extra
gloves (I remembered having thought about it) but they weren't there.
Ok, going to have to figure out how to warm my hands while screaming
down the parkway in wet mittens. Eventually I figured out to take
thumbs and fingers out of their compartments, make fists, and stick
them behind my legs on the decents. It actually worked. By the time
I reached the next feed station at the bottom of the hills not only
were my hands warm, my mittens were actually dry!

The only remaining excitement of the day was the 5k race. As we passed
by Mont Bleu on the way to the loop to the south of the start/finish,
the teenagers leading the 5k race came blasting out of the woods onto
the parkway, along with a half dozen or so coaches all screaming at them.
That got the blood going and I tried to match pace with them but by now
it was warmer and my Start Green couldn't quite match their glide.

The flip side to the high-powered teenagers was the return from the
southern loop, sliding down the hill in the last couple km's before the
finish and merging with a trail FULL of slower folks bringing up the
rear of the 5 km race! That was exciting bobbing and weaving through
all the kids, parents, and grandparents skiing 3 and 4 abreast in full
snowplow formation.

Definitely a fun day despite the wax disaster which I figure cost me
somewhere between 30 and 60 mins. Over lunch I chatted with a couple
folks from Vermont, one of whom is a Toko rep. He told me that the
skis he waxed for his companion did not lose their wax, and he used the
Toko Green base binder. That I find interesting. I wonder if others
have found it to be superior to the old Swix orange binder in abrasive
snow conditions. The sad part is I actually have that in my wax box
but have never actually tried it.

I'm very curious to hear what worked for others who didn't lose their
kick. I thought briefly about doing a klister binder but was concerned
that would destroy the glide. I talked to a friend afterwards who had
done that and she said that's exactly what happened to her. Great kick
all day but really poor glide.

-Mitch

On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 wrote:

I was also pleased to hear the reports last week on the
CSM, which has now got me salivating to go back to that.
Maybe next year I'll try to do both, Parham!

Sharon Crawford did both this year. And finished 1st in her age
group at Keskinada.

-Mitch

On 21 Feb 2005 09:59:59 -0800, (gary
jacobson) wrote:
Conditions were
super with the downhills in
great shape. Seems to me that the forested
trails have been widened
over the last 10 years.

I think that's true about the trails in the woods being wider. And the
grooming and snow were superb.

I did the 50K skate race. My wife is recovering from ankle surgery so
she didn't make the trip. Instead I travelled with two of my CW-X
teammates who are quite elite -- getting 11th in the 50 skate and 2nd
in the 28 skate -- and this was an interesting experience for me,
seeing how hard they go in the races and seriously they take the race
prep. I am serious too, but not as consistently. A brief report is at
http://www.thinkracing.org/index.php?p=121.

I had a good experience overall. I wanted to beat 3 hours, and just
missed that. I may have been a little too conservative on the Penguin
Hill and in the rolling hilly sections later, but overall I felt I
skied firmly and with decent techinque (for me) throughout. I didn't
fall, apart from an uphill stumble with one other guy on a narrow
section of trail, so that was good for me too. And I've finally got
feeding on the go under good control. I also didn't crack on the Mt.
Bleu hill at the end, though in retrospect maybe I was too
conservative there as I finished with a little energy left. Though I
must admit my legs were dead the in the evening after the race, and my
vision was somewhat blurry. I had Lasik surgery a few months ago and
my vision gets worse when I am very tired.

The weather was really nice. It was cold (I think about 5F to 9 or
10F) but sunny with little wind, so nothing like the ordeal two years
ago. The snow didn't seen super slow or particularly fast. I used two
layers of Fastwax White over some layers of Fastwax Teal/Green over
Map Black and that was OK, not great. Or at least it seemed I had
average skis compared to other people in my wave. The last few years
with super cold weather it seemed I had much better than skis than
most people around me, but that might be because I started in later
waves where people aren't quite as serious with waxing. It's worth
mentioning that the Torbjorn Sports website recommended HP05, a pure
flouro for medium humidity and coldish temperatures, as the top coat
and none of my group put it on. We thought it was too cold for a pure
flouro. Which was probably a mistake -- my teammate who got 11th was
in a long duel with an Italian skier who had some Swix pure flouro on
over Swix LF4 and who had noticebly better skis than most people at
the front of the race. My buddy was on old cold weather Germinas with
the right Zach Caldwell grind that run well and were quite good, so we
think it was the wax that kept them from being super.

The race organization was good, as usual. It was nice having the race
building closer to the start, though it seemed there were not quite an
many bathrooms in the Mt Blue School as at the CEGEP. Or at least I
haven't found them. Lot of nice people around, from all over the
world, and kids doing the little races too. Very cool.

We skied at Trapp Family Lodge on Monday. I'd never been there before
and learned it was really nice.

It was very sad to hear about Bob Soblieski passing away. I don't
think I know him myself, but friends do, and I feel for his wife and
friends.

We discussed this situation
and concluded based on our
(limited) knowledge of CPR and
incidents that lead to vascular
incidents among those fit enough
to ski a marathon, that CPR and first
responder efforts have little chance
to save the stricken. Usually
among the fit, a heart attack we understand, is a result of a
structural problem that went undetected,
and not a situation that
could be affected positively by CPR or even paddles.

This event made me think I need to get more thorough medical checkups
more regularly.

JFT


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On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 19:23:05 +0000 (UTC),
() wrote:


Hope to hear from others on the race. Was it pretty slow up
on top on Sunday, JFT? The skate times weren't that fast, but
skiing (and cheerleading) down below on Sunday, it didn't seem
too bad, despite the -18 deg.

It wasn't particulary slow or particularly fast. I guess that for that
temp with a dusting of new snow, we should be thankful. The fastest
bit was on the parkways at the end. The tracks were actually not very
fast -- it seemed faster out of them on most downhills, but there was
so much chatter outside them that being in was more restful. I think
the snow

I cannot overemphasize how good the grooming was.

JFT

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Skied the 52km Classic and marginally bettered my time over last year - just
over 4-1/2h's, but position in my age group (50-54) dropped a few spots.
Guess the course was faster this year.

Glide was LF7 mixed with LF4. Glide was NOT fast - as usual on my 10 year
old Atomic ATC's (Should I excpect more after repeatedly chewing up the
bases, repairing and re-sanding?). Grip was VR45 (long) and VR50 (short)
over VG35 Base Binder and Polar. Base binder worked well. Re-waxed with
VR50 once after Huron on the way up. Grip was good.

Hobbled by a groin injury sustained completing CSM Gold the prior weekend.
On Tuesday before Keski, could barely walk and figured only a 10% chance of
starting Keski. Remarkably, injury healed faster than expected. Wore
cycling shorts all week as a compressoin fitting. Wore two pairs of cycling
shorts during the Keski which really helped. Experienced no sharp pain...
unlike CSM.

My limit during the race was general muscle soreness from CSM. With the
injury, held back a bit for fear of tearing the muscle again. It wasn't the
limiting factor I thought it would be.

Finished fresh thinking I could ski another 20km... so obviously didn't push
my aerobic capacity nearly enough. Too conservative! Mont Bleu was a
struggle, but didn't feel like I was 'going under' as I reached the
crest... as in some other years. Left too much out on the course... but
alway though I was going pretty hard.

The weather conditions couldn't have been better all weekend. Partly sunny
on Saturday and sunny on Sunday. Temps -18C to start on both days rising
to -6C roughly on both days.

The event was very well organized again. Tracks/course was in very good
condition. Slightly modified, wave starting arrangement worked well.
Food/liquid stations were well spaced/placed, and volunteers were great.
Preferred the tracks to the old finish line, but really shouldn't complain.
Registration was quick. Using the timing chips (for 2nd year) is flawless.

Using the Mont Bleu Ecole Secondaire worked better than the CEGEP. (Could
never really figure out the hallways at the CEGEP anyways!)

Spectator arrangements were lousy this year. Too many uneeded barriers so
spectators couldn't get close to the skiers waiting to set off from the
start. Couldn't get up close to the finishing tracks. Overeager and overly
aggressive volunteers even impeded natural routes across an open and snow
coverd athletic field to the starting area. Someone ought to review the
layout with common sense in mind.

If you've read my earlier post, you know I'm disappointed at Keski for
replacing finishing commemorative pins (keepsakes) with stickers
(disposables). I had quite a collection going. (Did buy a commemorative
pin at the Keski product booth, but design was not the traditional Keski
logo.) Please write to Keski ) if you feel as I do.

See you in 2006!

KenJ1952

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 05:32:06 -0500, "kenj1955"
wrote:

Wore
cycling shorts all week as a
compressoin fitting. Wore two pairs of cycling
shorts during the Keski which really helped. Experienced no sharp pain...
unlike CSM.


Congratulations on finishing after doing the CSM and having your
injury. Take what I am about to say with a grain of salt, because I
am sponsored by this company, but I have to mention CW-X tights and
shorts. The provide compession support in a way that is quite tight
around your joints but allows freedom of motion for propulsion. I
can't explain it succintly but take a look at the website
http://cw-x.com/ss/introduction

These are the tights I race in -- they are great
http://cw-x.com/ss/products/mens/m_pro_tights

They also sell a short for support just around the hips which I don't
use as much, but could really help people in situations like yours.

JFT


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