Lake Placid Loppet, 26 January, 2002
50 kilometer x-c freestyle [2 x 25k circuit] 3,700 feet of climbing for the 50k

Reported by Steve Thorne
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Now, I've been around lots of Russians and know a few quite well. They are not soft. They are not easily daunted. Their soccer players don't roll around on the ground crying foul like the Italians. Russian nordic skiers are particularly scrappy. Who says the Lake Placid Loppet is a tough course? The Russians, that's who.

6:01 a.m. race day morning For some reason I am aware that the alarm ought to be going off. Turning toward the clock I notice that I'd set the alarm correctly for just after 6 a.m., but it turns out the clock was 12 hours off and reading 6:01 p.m. Disaster, however, is averted, and Cecilia (racing the 25k freestyle) and I get up, consume roughly 400 calories, then go back to bed for an hour. We're up again at 7:15, dress, and depart for the short drive to Mt. Van Hoevenberg, the race venue and home to the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics.

8:45 a.m. at the start corral I'm sleepy and skiing lightly in a half-hearted attempt to warm up. My preparation for this 50k event had been unorthodox -- a number of deliriously satisfying cyclo-cross rides along snow-covered trails, some running, and 2 nights earlier, while visiting old Berkeley friends Mark Jury and Kathryn Alexander (currently colonizing a rural compound near Albany), we were up until nearer dawn than midnight, gazed at remnants of the "sex shack", wandered around a 150 year old barn, and examined the new tractor. This is all I can divulge about the secret training session occurring that night.

30 seconds to start Standing at the line, I actually feel surprisingly good. I'm in the second row right behind the Rossignol factory team boys. The 50k freestyle (skate) group is smallish, perhaps 140 competitors. For a stampede start, this is a modest number and I'm not too worried about breaking a pole (the plague of mass starts). The gun sounds and we're double-poling for the first 100 meters until the corral narrows from 50 meters to 5 in width. I'm in about 30th position and moving at a hard but manageable pace through the initial 2 kilometers of gentle climbing. I pass a few people on climbs but we're pretty much sorted out as we come to the first of many short and very steep walls of 15 to 20 percent grade. There's not much rest as we move from these steps to the big climbs. I'm pacing with a guy and we're making good time. The legs feel a bit heavy, but my arms are springy and happy for the work.

We come to the base of a daunting set of inclines that were developed for the 1980 Winter Olympic games. This is a tough section that roller coasters up terrifically steep pitchs only to drop down and then reclimb higher up onto a ridge. According to 1980 Olympics lore, Lake Placid wanted to create a reputation for the fledgling North American nordic scene and so had made the 50k course super tough by creating the set of climbs I was now struggling through. When the European teams arrived they were indeed surprised at the extreme steepness of these ascents (according to race officials, the Placid Loppet is the most challenging of the American ski marathon series and is one of the toughest 50k courses on the international circuit). The Russians, however, were not merely impressed, they were pissed off. The course includes too much climbing, they argued, and they lodged both a formal protest with the Olympic committee as well as submitted a complaint to the local course planners. Their formal protest was noted but rejected. At the local level, the result was to mockingly name this portion of the course "Russian Hill", a designation that continues to be used today. Though I appreciate the humor, and the climb does leave me feeling funny (in that hypoxic sort of way), the full body burn at the summit isn't that humorous.

As I pass by the 15k marker, the temperature is up to 40 degrees and the snow is soupy slow. The classic tracks are nicely glazed, however, so I double pole whenever declination allows. The course profile from 15k around to the start-finish (25k mark) is one of decreased amplitude -- flatter and faster without the monster climbs that had transformed Russians skiers into Italian soccer players 22 years earlier. I begin to pass skiers periodically but am alone for the most part.

At 25k, as I pass through the start-finish area to begin lap 2, I am shocked by a sudden lack of energy. It takes a moment for my addled brain to recognize the incipient signs of a big bonk just o'er yonder horizon. I can't believe that through marathons and ironmans I've emerged relatively bonk-free only to succumb to a wee 50k event! Forced to moderate my pace I continue moving toward an aid station I know is 4k ahead. The shorter climbs I'd jumped up earlier are thigh deadening the second time around. My resolve is dulled. I am a blunt object.

At a particularly weak moment cresting a modest hill, I fly outside of myself, look down, and see a whining Italian striker ready to drop to the snow, squeal a bit, and await the sympathy of some referee. Snapping back into my energy-less body, I regain a semblance of composure and forge on, saying to myself -- I'll not be made an Italian soccer player! Think hockey! Think hockey!

I hear the cow bells marking nearby aid! Slowing to grab water, I call out FOOD! FOOD! Responding negatively to my query about gel ("[a young woman with a big cherubic grin] no, this year we have granola bars!"), I am handed said granola bar. I put the entire dry, brittle thing into my mouth. Inhaling oat dust, sputtering bits on each exhale, cheeks hurting from where the sharp edges poke through, I jump back on course behind two skiers I'd passed a few klicks earlier. We move up and up, legs a-gumbo at the top of each climb, with all too brief a recovery period during the short descents.

Russian hill, smirking, presents itself for the second time. The snow is slush and the going sludgy. The suction on the skis makes even descents tough work. Up and up and down and up, but I'm surprised that despite my worries about the big bonk, I'm merely absolutely exhausted. Arms good, legs wobbly and heavy. At the summit I mentally prepare to maximize the descents in pursuit of the two skiers within view. Compressing into depressions and working to hold momentum over short climbs, I am gaining on my rabbits as I crash forward onto my face at the bottom of a steep wall. I can't remember the last time I crashed on nordic skis and in the nanosecond it takes to realize I've fallen I think to myself, "I can't remember the last time I crashed on nordic skis". Such is the brilliance of the sport-enthusiast's mind.

No matter, there's nothing to do but get up and move forward as it's the final 8k of this 50k grind. I'm feeling hollow but know I have sufficient resources to race, rather than endure, this last section. Now on generally rolling terrain I can put to use the power I still have available in my upper body. Big poling, save the legs where possible, momentum scramble up climbs through to the descent on the far side -- this was the pattern carrying me to the nearing finish.

It is miserably warm now, but I don't care. The taste of completion is immediate, "tingling, near the edge of the sea, concerned with itself, sweating in the sun that melted the wings' wax" (William Carlos Williams, Landscape With the Fall of Icarus, in Collected Poems: 1939-1962, Volume II). I pass a few folks as I grunt up the final steep pitch. I see the rabbit I'd been ready to pass just before crashing and give it the juice, but he holds me off as we pass under a road through a corrugated storm tunnel and up a shallow incline into the start-finish area. Cecilia comes into view, standing angelic on a wooden skybridge, waving and calling my name. My technique feels clumsy as I struggle to keep the pace up through the finish line. Immediately after finishing, I consider kneeling down and resting in the snow, but with all the fun I've been making of soccer players and their dramatized performances, I figure I ought to remain standing.

I am at the end of this hilly event, and again, like last year, found it to be a crusher. I really love this race, though, and appreciate the humility proffered by its challenges. Next year I'll carry along a suitable snack.

Time: 2:55
Place: 5th of 28 in my age group (overall results not currently available)

Cecilia was also 5th in her age group in the 25k freestyle!

Next stop, the Keskinada Loppet, an international World Loppet Event, in the Gatineau region of Quebec, Canada!

A few generic photos from the start of this year's Lake Placide Loppet (from www.orda.org):