Wenner's Birkie

A quick note about my Birkie.

-Before the race, I was unsure about my skis with LF6 and CF7. They
seemed to work fine, but not as fast as possible. If I had it to do
over, I would have liked to try LF4/LF6 with a Cera CF7 cover, or
simply LF4/LF6.

-When looking at the start, I was on the right side. I saw on TV that
the left side got let out first. Even thought I led out my gate, I was
quite a ways back after a 100 feet. I didn't have much success passing,
and I was careful to keep my skis away from other guys poles (so I
wouldn't get taken down). I didn't try the tracks because I've gotten
hung out to dry in the tracks when no one would let me back in. So I
simply maintained position over the first few km.

-After some hard climbing through the powerlines, I was in a pretty
good group including John Munger, Dave Nelson, Dale Niggeman, and a
bunch of guys I didn't know. I think Piot was leading the group.

-I was really trying not to argue too much about position because
that's such an energy waste, and I ended up sliding towards the back of
a huge pack over the first half of the race. I was also having some
problems letting some gaps open at the tops of climbs and I was still
unsure about my conditioning this year. I'd close the gap over the top,
but guys behind would get nervous and pass.

-At OO, I was looking for Julie to grab a feed and the place was a
zoo....wall to wall people. I couldn't find her and I started to slow
in the search. Finally, I grabbed my bottle and started chasing.
(Probably a 100 ft gap.) After the quick downhill, I took a few seconds
and slammed a Gu bottle and the gap opened up to 6 seconds total.

-For about 5 km, I chased hard, but I couldn't reel in the pack. The
gap stayed at 6 seconds and I was starting to bog down on the tops of
climbs. Falling off the pack pretty much meant my race goals were shot,
so I changed to "stay ahead of the next pack" instead of in chase mode.

-I essentially skied from "OO" to Hwy 77 alone. I followed #21 for
about a 1/2 km, and #79 for about a 1/2 km, otherwise it was solo. At
Hwy 77, the woman's leader caught me, and I followed her over the last
climb.

-My skis were nice and greasy in Duffy's field and on the lake, but
Peyrot was pretty impressive across the lake. My legs were just
starting to show signs of cramping, but I didn't have a much problem
hanging on.

After reading some posts about the split times, I did some
calculations:

Marker Min/km

9.0 2:49
22.8 2:46
38.1 2:45
51.0 2:33

These are min/km times between each of the markers and not overall
splits. The overall splits went: 2:49, 2:47, 2:46, 2:43. My overall
place was similarly consistent. So I was unhappy to come off the back,
but I only got passed by two guys and passed about 4 guys, so I was
happy about powering all the way to the finish. I actually finished the
race feeling really good. I felt fine on a run on Mon and a ski last
night. So, I'm thinking about continuing racing this year.

Jay Wenner