Loppetting....

Who says bronchitis isn’t a good thing for a ski race? Well I can tell them differently, I can say...... okay, that they’re entirely correct. But that should never stop anyone from ski racing with bronchitis. Unless they’re smarter than me. 

It seems inevitable that I’m sick in the fall for cyclocross season and again in March just before Mount Washington’s annual loppet race. The fall is due to all the little kids going to school and passing cooties around - and then everyone gets sick - but why March? Nothing happens in March!

Unfortunately someone came to the Wilderness First Aid course with a nasty fever and flu - and it spread like wildfire. I thought we were homefree when we left the course healthy. I headed up the mountain the next day for a ski but somehow the ski was too good, suspiciously too good for someone that hasn’t had any exercise. It felt great - huge strong long strides, flying forward on skinny skis eating up the distance - it was awesome. And then came the fever and the flu, closely followed by the chest cold.  My asthma is not a fan of chest colds... 

At emergency the doctor suggested a whopping dose of prednisone for a few days might be just the thing, and I always do what the doctor says. Prednisone short term is wonderful. I would wake up each morning feeling great! I can breathe! By about 10 am I’d want to die again. Steady improvement through the week convinced me it would be a good idea to do the loppet after all, and today was the day. 

The above picture is not from today. Today was grey, slight drizzle, some strong winds, and overall it was pretty miserable. Luckily the course was mostly in the woods where the wind couldn’t reach us. Marc had done absolute magic on my skis, and they were rocket fast. Warm-up was nasty - windy, wet, snowy with ice pellets jabbing my eyeballs. 

Given recent illness, it seemed that if I was going to be stupid enough to race I needed new priorities. So new priority was to stay alive - no puking, dying or passing out allowed. Which meant I needed to pick a sustainable pace and stay there as much as possible. I easily confirmed that decision by briefly trying to sprint - which ended very quickly as my body immediately red-lined and alert buzzers started blaring. 

The start was a bit gnarly - I made sure to line up well back in the crowd to avoid the sprint start but somehow the racer kids had lined up along one side and all got mushed into the crowd racing up the first hill. The kids are strong and fast, but they’re little, and many of them got trampled. My friends will be happy to know I did NOT trample any small children :o) 

Up and around for lap #1 - a new course this year that I much preferred - rolling terrain for 12 km followed by steeper terrain in lap #2 for the rest of the 30 km. The first lap hurt more than the second, but I always warm up slowly. Every sprint effort had my body giving me up for a bad joke and drooping like a tropical plant in the frost, but I could sustain a fairly decent effort overall. Once in a while I could even get long forward strides that ate distance - but I couldn’t sustain more than 30 seconds worth, much less 2 hours. Eventually I zoned out, maintaining an even effort that was comfortable while my mind wandered around happily, thinking about everything but nothing. It was the most relaxed I’ve felt for weeks! I paced with other skiers for several km’s at a time until they either fell back or pulled away, and watched the scenery go by. Grey and foggy, with all the trees covered with a bit of snow frosting on their green limbs - it was surreal and lovely. 

At some point it had to end - not a bad thing all in all but I did have a nice pace going. I headed to the finish at my current relaxed pace - no sprinting or rushing. If I was going to rush I should have done that long ago, and that just wasn’t the point this race. 

My lungs are thanking me, as I’m not coughing worse and other than clearing out some mental cobwebs am none worse for wear. The race was more relaxing than I’ve ever raced, and although I hope to actually race next year, I’m very happy to have spent a few hours chasing my skis around in the snow. And - thanks to the new age group (or maybe only 3 skiers??) I came third... ! YAY!