Terrain: rolling dunes, softest powder snow
Weather: sunny, about zero - perfect!
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First ever x-country ski race! I told the organizers it was my 4th time ever on skis, and maybe the 400th orienteering, so we'll see how that averages out, haha.
Turns out I left my orienteering brain at home (must have fallen out at night, rolled under the bed, and I couldn't find it in the morning), but I brought out my skiing brawn in full force.
The course was mainly flat and extremely well-groomed, making it easy for me to muscle my way through quickly. I had one of the fastest splits to control 1, wow. But things quickly fell apart because I was so nervous about doing well in this new sport.
I knew we were allowed to go off-trail, and even take off our skis, but I had no idea how to do that efficiently. I successfully hopped once between two trails, carrying my skis, but after control 2, I should not have done the same thing. I tried cutting across two wide parts between trails instead of going around. A branch must have caught my compass, because the dial came right off! I had to waste time backtracking to see if I could find it, but no luck. I decided to be smarter and take the trail on my actual skis, duh.
I had a good run after that, but kept overshooting trails, not really paying attention to where my turn-offs were, and just muscling and muscling forward. I also had no idea until the end that the trails marked as skate trails also had classic trails on them, and elected not to use them, oops.
But suddenly at around control 6, I started seeing other racers again, and I got all confident that I wasn't doing so badly. I was handling really well, moving quickly, and I finally started to cut between trails again, but this time on my skis. There was one really cool climb and soft, off-road downhill, and it was awesome. Once I got to 8/9, I was actually in sight of the other competitors. In the end, I was too far behind, but they all thought I looked really fresh, sprinting the last few clicks.
Turns out I was only 15mins behind the winner, and it was mainly due to my idiotic decisions at the start and a few lay-overs where I tried to really figure out how to tackle what was essentially a trail-O. There was a young girl there who is the fastest skier in her age group in the province, and she couldn't believe this was my 4th time on skis. :) So I'd been worried about the skiing, but in the end it was my navigation that slowed me down, while my skiing went fantastically well!
This was my try-a-ski-O - next year, I am racing this thing for real!
--Distance: 13K
--Duration: 1:45:51
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