Governor's Cup Weekend

I just got home from a quick weekend trip to Winter Park, CO, for a 30km Skate race called the Governors Cup, held at Devils Thumb Resort.

It was a good trip overall. I stayed at the Beaver Village Hotel with former teammate and now coach of Denver University, Dave Stewart. The skiing was awesome over there, as always. It seems that every time I ski at Devils Thumb, its perfect. Blue ski, tons of trails, great grooming... this time around was no different.

It was a pretty typical race weekend for me. I arrived Thursday night and went for a short run. On Friday I tested my skis and waxed them for the race. Saturday, race.

The race went OK, though certainly not my best ever performance. Glenn Randall, NCAA Champ, was on hand. Glenn has been known to ski quite well at altitude, likely because he trains at 10,000ft! When we started, he was content to lead. He pushed the pace early and near the 5k mark, I was starting to feel it. One thing I know about racing near 9000ft is that you don't want to go under early. So I backed off, hoping to ski the fastest race I could and catch him if he blew up late in the race...

Well, when we came through the lap at 15k, he was no where in sight and I didn't have it to speed up. Looking around, I saw former teammate - now sponsor - Natron a bit behind me and I slowed up hoping to pull him a bit. It worked but he couldn't quite hang on at the end of the lap and was beaten by another well known Coloradan, Michael Brothers. I cruised in to 2nd.

Natron and I both have experience cycling and it seems everytime we race together, we find ways to bring new tactics into skiing. I enjoy that.

It was a bit of a strange day for me. I didn't feel much snap in my body and had a tough time really putting it down when I needed to. In the past week I did some really big workouts to prepare for these upcoming marathons and I think I was just a bit behind the eight ball for this race... I think the training was good, it was the recovery that wasn't happening... Anyone can train hard, the key is recovering from it quickly...

I have another 30k coming up next weekend in Idaho, the famed Boulder Mtn Tour, where I will be defending my title...

I intent to do a lot of resting this week to create some speed. I know my fitness is there, I just need to get it out from under the training load I've been piling on!