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What a day to remember yesterday was. We arrived at Truckee (where the finish line was) a little bit before 7am. Changed into our boots, and waited for the bus that would take us to the Start. The bus was full of people who were also racing, but we got to sit down, fortunately.

We arrived at Tahoe city (the start line) at around 7.45, which gave us plenty of time to pick up our registration packages, use the bathroom and check people out as they came. One of the coolest aspects of the race is that a few people always race dressed up. There was a group of ladies dressed up as characters from the Wizard of Oz, some other people dressed as superheroes, or with silly tights and a wig. But the most outrageous one was one guy who was wearing nothing but a swimming suit, and a speedo-line one, at that. There’s a picture or two of him in my photo album, so make sure you check it out!

At any rate, at 9.15 we started. We were in the 6th wave, since I’d never raced before and we were in it just for fun, not to win any medals. As soon as we started, I told Stef goodbye, because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep up with her, and off she went. Our Genna was in my sight for about 15 minutes, but then she got ahead of me too, so I was on my own against 30 kilometers of snow.
It took me one hour to do the first 5km. I thought I had gone a lot further, but I was keeping up with a nice little pack, so at least I didn’t feel like I was the only slow one :unsmith:. It took me another hour to get to the 10km mark. At this point, I was imagining that it’d take me a good 3 more hours to get to the end. But I was already pretty tired: most of the track had been uphill this far, and I was short of breath and with very fatigued legs.
But then came the first “soup station”. There was a tent, with people handing out water and juice, and chocolates and cookies. I thanked them for being there, gulped down 2 little cups of juice and ate a few cookies and chocolates. A guy told me it was getting easier from there, and I was very excited. With renewed strength, I took off.

After that, I don’t really remember exactly how it went. I do remember some nice long stretches of mostly flat surface, where I was able to ski non-stop for a good 30 minutes, and passing a lot of people on traditional skis. That made me feel good. :shobon: One of those people was Genna, too.
Then, there was another soup station, where I had more juice and chocolates and cookies. After that, there were a series of steeper downhill sections, where I had to do the “pizza” to keep myself from flying , and at this point I started to really feel my fatigue.When going up the hill, if my legs were giving out, I could slow down, and start striding or kind of walking… but when going downhill, there was no stopping, or falling. I had a nice burn on my upper legs, but never fell, and made it down the hill.

Three hours and 50 minutes after having started, I saw the finish line. A very steep downhill was all that was left. I tried to ski down the hill, but fell. I got up, fell again. One more time, landed on my ass. Screw it, I said, and I butt-plowed it until it wasn’t so steep.
Finally, I got up and skied the last 100 yards. I finished, people were clapping and saying yeeeeey. I was exhausted, but very happy. I looked at my watch and realized that I had beaten my goal of 4 hours, and remembered that I had also beaten my “secondary” goal: to finish before Genna. :toot:

I found Stef, she had finished a whole 40 minutes before me, and was looking fresh as a cucumber. 20 minutes after I got there, Genna finished too. We had all made it, and in one piece! To celebrate, we had some of the chili that they were offering, and some beer too :cheers:. I licked my lips and realized I was a little salty. And that’s when I asked Stef to take this picture of my salty face:

It was an awesome experience. One that we will most definitely repeat in years to come. I still need to learn to ski up the hill without panting like a dying dog, but skiing for a couple of hours while being very fatigued was a very good lesson in itself. I expect to be better at this soon, and one of these days I’ll finish the Great Ski Race before Stef.

:siren:The official results of the race are here. Search for “Aguilera” to find us!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 5th, 2007 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.