What started as beer-in-the-hot-tub talk actually came to fruition under the planning and persuasion prowess of a friend in Whistler. We entered a ski race.
Co-ed teams of 4, each team member skiing from the top of Whistler ski hill to the Creekside base - 1,443 m of vertical drop, over 5km of piste, and 170-180 gates. Combined team member age determined your category. Combined team time determined your finishing place.
It gave us great comfort to read that a typical GS (Grand Slalom) ski race has about 250m of vertical drop, and 35 gates...
The wednesday before the race, Colin and I got serious and watched a YouTube video of a previous year's event. Skin suits?!! Er, I declared Thursday evening ski-waxing night.
My teammates were various combinations of retired, self-employed, in-transition, season-pass-holder, able-to-ski-whenever-I-want types. One is a ski patrol, one is a mountain safety guy. As a full-time employee, I trained through the accounts and tips of their many weekday reconnaissance runs down the course. Oh, and I went for a nice ski tour off the top of the Sea-to-Sky gondola the weekend before.
6-8 minutes they were figuring, based on research of last year's results, and the 5 minutes it was taking them to ski the course, without gates, on their reconnaissance runs. Agreed-upon team goals:
1. DO NOT miss a gate - this results in disqualification; if you miss a gate, hike back up to it.
2. Make it to the finish line.
My third and secret goal was to not exceed 10 minutes - I kept that quiet.
Two of our teammates raced Friday, and both clocked times just over 8 minutes. Colin and I were on for Saturday. We did some warm up runs with the Friday guys, checking out the course and getting some last-minute tips, before we stopped at the Roundhouse for The Last Coffee.
Number 77 on my race bib - that meant I started 77 minutes after 11:00am. Colin, with bib number 88, would start after me.
Just below The Saddle, in the raging winds, officials stacked us up ten at a time at the start gate, releasing skiers at 1-minute intervals. As I side-stepped my way down the line towards the gate, I calmed the butterflies by commenting to my fellow racers on my joy at seeing more ski pants than skin suits in our group of ten. I wasn't the only first-timer. I then discussed with the gentleman behind me how he was going to gently pass me if (when) he caught me. The drop off of the start gate got closer, and more-cliff like - figuratively and literally. I couldn't even see the first gate.
I am a slow-twitch type, meaning my muscles are predominantly slow-twitch fibres, enabling them to keep on going for long endurance activities, but not necessarily powerfully. Downhill skiing is a fast-twitch exercise, for great big quads made up of predominately fast-twitch fibres enabling short but powerful bursts of movement. Crouching into my first tuck after about gate 5 or 6, there was already smouldering smoke trailing from quads.
The course was scratchy (icy), and I kept control by turning early, on snow, outside of the rutted ice track. I was enjoying that, which also meant I was conscientiously heeding the advice of experts, not waiting until the actual gate to initiate the turn (risking skidding, having to correct and traverse sideways to catch it), until I realized I was probably adding about a km to my route by staying out of the path-of-least-resistance track. Ah, but I was still alive, I reassured myself.
 |
| Look at that skier stance! ...real skier knees are bent down to at least 20 degrees |
Only once did I get confused among the gates, but corrected in time and did not miss. I payed close attention to the end, knowing that a few people had missed that last one or two gates. How demoralizing.
Meanwhile, Colin had decided in his head on the morning gondola ride that an hour was made up of 50 minutes. As number 88, that meant he raced at 11:00 + 88 minutes: 12:38pm. Arriving at The Saddle at about 12:20, he did not want to stand in the raging winds for 20 minutes. He hiked to a sheltered area, did some warm up, before heading back to the start area 10 minutes before his start time.
As Colin approached the start area, our Friday-race friends, a hundred metres down the course, were hearing continuously on the loudspeaker: "Number 88. Where are you Number 88. Colin, Colin. We are going to keep calling your name out until you show up at the gate. Number 88, Colin..."
 |
| A bit more of a race face on than #77... |
Number 88 Colin, who needed the most persuasion as the least experienced skier among us, also threw down the fastest time on our team, and won the opportunity to buy the first round. I met secret team goal #3, with a time of 9:55. At the bottom of the course, as we waited for our times to go up on the board, an official looked at our skis and said "you raced in touring skis?!"
 |
| Analyzing the results, over the first round |
We sat in awe as the winners of the '250 and beyond' age category were awarded - that would be an average age of 62.5 for each team member. The winning team definitely exemplified 'beyond', but all still slim, trim, fit, standing tall (no stooping with these folks!!), dressed nice, and just overall amazing. They beat our team time by 10 minutes. And were only 2 1/2 minutes behind the overall winners.
We stood in awe and clapped as the oldest female and male participants were honoured - 87 and 91 respectively. Mr. 91, sir, beat all of our times. And that included missing the last gate and hiking back up to go through it (to avoid being disqualified). And yes, he was wearing a skin suit.
We didn't finish last. And over our second round (a bottle of wine), we toasted and clanked glasses - equivalent to a handshake - to each knock 1 minute or more off our times for next year. I secretly signed up for 2 minutes.
No comments:
Post a Comment