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Wednesday, January 13, 2010
It’s over. 2010 Tour de Ski is history.
Jeez. I don’t know how pro cyclists can even fathom racing for a GC position in any stage race, let alone during a 20+ stage battle royale like the Giro, Vuelta or Tour de France. Pounding their pedals – sometimes over 6 hours a day for days on end. They battle heat, winds, and climb mountain passes which drag on like a bad movie, as they churn and burn uphill for hours gaining thousands of meters in elevation. In my eyes, it’s both complete madness and a thing of beauty.
Why bring this up? We’ll, after finishing my 2nd of 4 Tour de Ski competitions, I feel pretty destroyed after a “mere” 8 races in 10 days, and find myself thinking of such things in my jet lagged stupor.
In society today, it seems more than ever rationalizing is everything. I’m tired. The Olympics are fast approaching now, but hey – in 8 races I only raced for a shade under 4.5 hours. Not even the length of one Grand Tour stage race in cycling. I’ll survive.
Let’s break down the last two stages in Val di Fiemme. It’s no surprise they were hard fought. What was a surprise was the weather – it was very un-Italian. No sun in sight. Instead – it was all fog, warmth, sloppy snow and precip.
Stage 7 – 20km Mass Start Classic – Val di Fiemme, ITALY
Even after a restful rest day – I was still upset and having trouble parking the disappointment of the 10km classic two days prior. I know – as a high level athlete I should be good at moving on from something like that, but knowing that I was back in 16th overall with only 2 stages left because of a mistimed
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Thursday, January 07, 2010
Internet has been a sketchy operation (in Prague, and in Dobbiaco/Toblach), and I haven’t been able to connect until this evening here in Val Di Fiemme (which is a bit of a shocker since internet in Italy is as likely as spotting, and photographing Big Foot).I’ll break it down into the 3 stages I’ve neglected to update on:
Stage 3 – 1.6km Classic Sprint, Oberhof GERMANY
Not a lot to report on here. I was fatigued from the 15km classic pursuit which took place the previous day, and my lungs were still feeling tight/sore – but I squeaked into the top 30 after a so-so qualifier (I was 24th).
Conditions were terrible for this classic sprint. There was a Nordic Combined race that began right before our qualifier (why FIS combined the Tour de Ski with Nordic Combined is beyond me), so they groomed the tracks 15 minutes prior to our start. It was a sugary, soft, mess out on the difficult sprint loop – making the two long uphills even tougher than they already were.
In my ¼ final I felt much better than in my qualification round. I was moving well...
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Saturday, January 02, 2010
Tour de Ski 2010, Day Two – 15km Classic in the true “pursuit” style. The Tour continues to click along, Northug continues to win and Oberhof remains engulfed in fog. Most of those statements are true – although in a strange twist of fate – Oberhof did “almost” clear off for a few minutes late this afternoon before it realized that blue skies over-head was a bad idea. Sadly, the course didn’t hold up, snow-wise. The tracks quickly began falling in on themselves because of the soft, sugary snow. It was literally as if the German army was conscripted with a “C and H” sponsorship and spread the sweet white stuff about 3 inches deep around the entire 3km course.
After yesterday’s disappointment, I regrouped well, refocused and was excited to get the next race underway – which is a favorite format of mine – a short, “en-masse” classic race. These races (short mass starts – I know it’s not a “true” mass start – but when there is that many men in such short order, it quickly becomes a mass start) have a habit of being dicey, oddly paced, tough endeavors. Today was no different, and ended up being a lot of people all over the place vying for position in the pack, right from the get-go and the choppy 5 lap course made for tough classic skiing.
The racing began with the women’s 10km pursuit. Renner had an improved performance over yesterday. A lover of classical technique, she took advantage and moved up some places in the overall. Although she started a little slower than she would have liked, but like...
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Friday, January 01, 2010
Under blazing lights burning holes through the incessant fog that hangs over Oberhof like the mood of a depressed, frowning old man on a rainy day – the 2010 edition of the Tour de Ski got under way.
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