West Yellowstone Skate Sprints
I'm exhausted, we didn't get home from racing until about 5:30 and then I had to clean and travel wax my skate skis and prep my classic skis for tomorrow's race. whine, whine, sorry, but I want to go to bed so I will give you only a 5min segment of my day.
Race Start: 10:00:15 (bib #1)
conditions: cold, near zero F
I'm standing over at our wax area with all of my warm-ups on picking out a hat to wear or something inane.
"2 minutes to start"
what, really? I jump on my race skis, grab my poles and dodge the SuperTour milieu, ski up to the line, pop off the skis, pull off the gloves so I can take off my jacket, throw my jacket to the side, frantically try to remove my warm-up pants which only have a short zip up the back of the calf.
"45 seconds to start"
Still trying to get my warm-up pants off. It's the kind of thing where the less time you have the harder they are to get over your boots.
Okay, toss the pants to the side.
"10 seconds"
Clip my skis on, feeling extremely grateful that it's cold and dry enough that I don't have to pick snow clumps out of the bottom of my boots.
"5"
okay, poles and gloves are lying at my feet, there's 5 seconds to start. This is not good.
"4"
There's maybe barely time to put on my gloves or to strap on my poles. Ah, I have these nice new Toko gloves that are fleecy on the inside and wind proof but still nice and thin and with long enough fingers and so so WARM. But those sweet red Swix poles look pretty useful too.
"3"
Throw the gloves off to the side and pick up the poles.
"2"
Right hand strapped into the pole.
"1"
Still fumbling with the left pole.
"go"
and just half a adrenaline filled heartbeat later I have both poles on and am pushing out of the start gate.
epilogue:
crossed the finish line and did an immediate 180 back to the start where I reached under the fence and grabbed my beloved gloves. Oh gloves, how I love you and how happy my hands to be back in the fleecy gloves!
Race Start: 10:00:15 (bib #1)
conditions: cold, near zero F
I'm standing over at our wax area with all of my warm-ups on picking out a hat to wear or something inane.
"2 minutes to start"
what, really? I jump on my race skis, grab my poles and dodge the SuperTour milieu, ski up to the line, pop off the skis, pull off the gloves so I can take off my jacket, throw my jacket to the side, frantically try to remove my warm-up pants which only have a short zip up the back of the calf.
"45 seconds to start"
Still trying to get my warm-up pants off. It's the kind of thing where the less time you have the harder they are to get over your boots.
Okay, toss the pants to the side.
"10 seconds"
Clip my skis on, feeling extremely grateful that it's cold and dry enough that I don't have to pick snow clumps out of the bottom of my boots.
"5"
okay, poles and gloves are lying at my feet, there's 5 seconds to start. This is not good.
"4"
There's maybe barely time to put on my gloves or to strap on my poles. Ah, I have these nice new Toko gloves that are fleecy on the inside and wind proof but still nice and thin and with long enough fingers and so so WARM. But those sweet red Swix poles look pretty useful too.
"3"
Throw the gloves off to the side and pick up the poles.
"2"
Right hand strapped into the pole.
"1"
Still fumbling with the left pole.
"go"
and just half a adrenaline filled heartbeat later I have both poles on and am pushing out of the start gate.
epilogue:
crossed the finish line and did an immediate 180 back to the start where I reached under the fence and grabbed my beloved gloves. Oh gloves, how I love you and how happy my hands to be back in the fleecy gloves!
posted by LAV at 20:00
2 Comments:
Great story, and decent results, huh? Congratulations!
(Pray tell, what model gloves are those you mention? They sound pretty nice, and would help me realize my lifelong ambition to dress fast, if I can't be fast.)
Toko Gloves
They were the Thermo WS with windstopper. For most races though I race in the Champion WS which are thinner. Actually I use the women's model since it's cut for a thinner hand with longer fingers.
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