Lake Placid Loppet JFT

John,

Nice photos of the Loppet on Team Today. Can you tell us about the
race? Here in "flyover land" We don't hear much about the big Eastern
US marathons.

John O'Connell
Saint Paul

On Feb 13, 8:17*am, wrote:

Can you tell us about the race?

Hey, it's Bob at the keys - the race was spectacular! We went from
rain and lakes of water to 13" of snow almost overnite during the
week. Bob, Rick, Pete, and the rest of the ORDA grooming crew did a
phenomenal job of rolling, packing and tilling to get the course
ready.

That said, when I skied on Friday the snow was still soft, deep and
held lots of air in it. Pole plants and skate pushes sometimes caused
the snow to break away, which made for some interesting situations.

I did the 25K classic and it was a V40 / blue day all the way -
"kickin' like a mule and gliding like the wind" as one guy said. The
race heads to the Porter Mtn section of the course right away, where
the conditions are usually very different than everywhere else. This
year, the kick wax selection held for the whole course. Usually some
of the turns would get skied off, but they stayed fast and true.

I think about 325 (or so) racers were there and a fine time was had by
all!

To cap off a wonderful day, I won a pink water bottle at the awards
ceremony raffle!

- Bob

It's a fun race on very challenging terrain. The couse is a 25K loop
skiers do once or twice. Classic and freestyle skiers start
separately, and the races doing the distances start separately too, so
after the first several K it is not crowded. I should mention that
some guys get too hectic at the start - I saw one broken pole in my
race in the first K, and another guy was being really aggressive
trying to pass people (he should have lined up in front, which isn't
hard with only 70ish people in each group). The funny thing is that
at the 6K mark he blew up and stopped skiiing for a few minutes.

The course has a lot of big climbs in the first 2/3s through the
Porter Mountain Loop and the Ladies 5K trail. For me (a
back-of-the-pack skier) these are extended periods of diagonal
skating. I could proably V1 pretty much any part of it for a short
distance, but in aggregate it's too much, especially in a long race.

Better skiers probably V1 it all. I suspect in the classic race
everyone has to herringbone parts of it.

There are some sweeping downhills too in that section too -- with good
snow like we had this weekend they are not too bad but in marginal
conditons I tend to fall a couple times. Not this year, which pleased
me.

They have feed zones with kids and adults every 5K or so, and the
course comes through the stadium at about the 17K mark before heading
out to the biathon trails, which are a bunch of little hills.

Everything is in the trees - spruces mainly I think - so it's pretty
scenic.

Here's a race report from the front:
http://blogs.fasterskier.com/justinf.../sick/#more-27

and a report on earlier years from a guy I skied with almost the whole
time on Saturday (Peter Minde).
http://www.xcskinj.com/articles/loppet.htm

This year after about 10K of the race we were in a group of about six
or eight skiers. It was going at a good pace (for me) that I thought
was doable for me for the whole distance. At the end of the first lap
our group blew up - some people dropped off the back and two guys
skied off the front. A young woman from Willaims College also caught
and passed us about then. We remarked on how fresh she looked and she
said she'd been conservative earlier because she'd never skiied 50K.

Anyway, we still skied steady - mainly Minde and me and a woman in an
Aplina suit but eventually we were all skiing alone. I spent the last
10K trying to keep Minde in sight - that provided some motivation. I
was very tired, but beyond that my hip flexors were cramping a lot. I
think that was just from a lack fo skiing -- I only rollerskied twice
all year and roller bladed about six times. And his was about my 12th
day on snow. I was blown at the end, but apart from that specific
muscle problem it wasn't horrible. Drinking, eating and being in a
fairly conservative group helped a lot.

Afterwards I had problems getting my boots off due to my ab muscles
cramping every time I leaned forward.

The race has a nice though long awards ceremony at the Olympic hockey
complex -- they call up the top three in every age group/distance/sex
so it's a lot of people. Plus a raffle for everyone. Plus they
recognize some of the oldest and youngest skiers. Cool. THough I
couldn't make -- had to stay at the venue as my wife was skiing in the
afternoon.

As Bob said, the snow was really good, especially considering how new
it was and how soft it could have been. I imagine they ran Pisten
Bullies on it all night or something. Usually by the second lap there
are lots of ruts and stuff (especially bad for me as the skaters start
last and I'm one fo the last of the skaters) but the snow help up
really well and it was easy to side step the ruts.

Good glide too considering the newness of the snow. There can be
really varied snow conditions at this race (and at Van Hoevenberg in
general) depending on the location of the trail, but there were no
problems

On Feb 13, 7:09*pm, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
Here's a race report from the front:http://blogs.fasterskier.com/justinf.../sick/#more-27

and a report on earlier years from a guy I skied with almost the whole
time on Saturday (Peter Minde). *http://www.xcskinj.com/articles/loppet.htm

This year after about 10K of the race we were in a group of about six
or eight skiers. *It was going at a good pace (for me) that I thought
was doable for me for the whole distance. At the end of the first lap
our group blew up - some people dropped off the back and two guys
skied off the front. *A young woman from Willaims College also caught
and passed us about then. We remarked on how fresh she looked and she
said she'd been conservative earlier because she'd never skiied 50K.

Anyway, we still skied steady - mainly Minde and me and a woman in an
Aplina suit but eventually we were all skiing alone. *I spent the last
10K trying to keep Minde in sight - that provided some motivation. *I
was very tired, but beyond that my hip flexors were cramping a lot. *I
think that was just from a lack fo skiing -- I only rollerskied twice
all year and roller bladed about six times. And his was about my 12th
day on snow. *I was blown at the end, but apart from that specific
muscle problem it wasn't horrible. *Drinking, eating and being in a
fairly conservative group helped a lot.

Afterwards I had problems getting my boots off due to my ab muscles
cramping every time I leaned forward.

The race has a nice though long awards ceremony at the Olympic hockey
complex -- they call up the top three in every age group/distance/sex
so it's a lot of people. Plus a raffle for everyone. *Plus they
recognize some of the oldest and youngest skiers. *Cool. *THough I
couldn't make -- had to stay at the venue as my wife was skiing in the
afternoon.

As Bob said, the snow was really good, especially considering how new
it was and how soft it could have been. I imagine they ran Pisten
Bullies on it all night or something. *Usually by the second lap there
are lots of ruts and stuff (especially bad for me as the skaters start
last and I'm one fo the last of the skaters) but the snow help up
really well and it was easy to side step the ruts.

Good glide too considering the newness of the snow. *There can be
really varied snow conditions at this race (and at Van Hoevenberg in
general) depending on the location of the trail, but there were no
problems

Thanks Guys, I appreciate you taking the the time to do that. I skied
in the World Masters at Lake Placid in, I think 84 or 85. All I
remember is the Russian Hill.