I have been skiing in Gatineau for about 6 years now and yet this is the first time that I participate in the main event. In the first two or three years, completing the distance would have been just that. No racing it, just trying to get through. In my defense I was just starting to train, to ski, to race and I was only 15. For the first three years of my ski career I was usually at a biathlon competition on Keski weekend as we called it. Then there were another couple of years where I was starting to race quite well but a 50km race was not a sound decision because of my age.
As of last year my coach John Suuronen had very strongly suggested that I do a 30km classic race in preparation for my first 50 km race at Nationals. The logic was that if Murphy’s Law (If anything can go wrong, it will.) prevailed, I had a long time to recover without significantly affecting the next important races, nine months later. A combination of short loops, a waxing nightmare, fast skiers (a dozen World Cup level skiers) and the strict application of FIS World Cup rules resulted in me along with about half the field being pulled from the race for being to slow. In my defense the winner was Ivan Babikov who won the final climb of the Tour de Ski and I had to re-wax twice during the race (I still ended up using herringbone-running and double polling for the greater portion of the race). In this sense not only was Murphy’s Law revealed to be true but so did Murphy’s Law Extended which states that: If a series of events can go wrong, it will do so in the worst possible sequence.
Fast forward to last weekend. The Gloppet was about to be my second 50km start and hopefully a first finish. To prepare for this event I found out I would do a regular school week and work at the Fresh Air Experience stand in the Mont-Bleu high school on Friday night and Saturday and Sunday afternoons. So far so good as there were no races the weekend before and I’m only doing the 53km skate. Even better, there is rain and then a rapid re-freeze meaning that the race surface will be my favorite chipped ice that forms a firm but not hard and super fast skiing surface.
Midweek I learn that despite good 30km classic and skate races I am electronically seeded in the B wave for lack of a 50km time. Karl helped in finding the right person to contact which turned out to be Sportstats. They looked at my average at past races and re-seeded me appropriately. Thank you very much Sportstats. On Friday afternoon I get the news that the races will be held on the contingency courses. In order to reduce the length of this paragraph and limit the possibilities of explaining myself in politically incorrect manner here is a thought diagram as I see it followed but one as I suppose the organizers see it.
| -A thick icy crust
-Big powerful groomers with ice chopping capabilities and
operators. -A course with big hills but no major technical down hills (trail 29 is as technical as any other hill on the course but with 5 times the traffic). -A contract that, if respected, assures the grooming happens with or without a race in the delays that were available. |
+ | -A long running international event -A permanent course that is groomed and open to the public for practice all winter long. -Wide trails by loppet and xc ski standards made soft, fun and quick by groomers. |
= | -A perfect chance to hold an international level event
as planned despite a correctable whim of nature. -Project an ideal of professionalism towards the ski community which contributes to the budget through taxes (Gatineau, NCC), registration fees and private sponsorship. -An opportunity for skiers to take full advantage of the park and thus accomplish its function of promoting the National Capital and its facilities to Canadians and tourists. |
| Obviously the organizers and I do not operate with the same rules of mathematics as their result differs quite significantly. | ||||
| -A thick icy crust -Big powerful groomers with ice chopping capabilities and operators. -A course with big hills but no major technical down hills (trail 29 is as technical as any other hill on the course but with 5 times the traffic). -A contract that, if respected, assures the grooming happens with or without a race in the delays that were available. |
+ | -A long running international event -A permanent course that is groomed and open to the public for practice all winter long. -Wide trails by loppet and xc ski standards made soft, fun and quick by groomers. |
= | -The technical committee ordering the use of the
contigency courses for ‘safety reasons’. -Limiting the effort necessary to run the full courses despite good snowpack. -Ignoring the grander impacts of relying too often on the contingency plan (enduring notoriety). -Ignoring part of the responsibilities of the organizers as promoters of the region and the sport. |
I personally believe that someone here had a job to do and was given a break before actually having to justify it and after having already failed. This is a simple assumption based on ‘La loi du moindre effort’ that has seemed to rule over grooming practices in the past two years. Grooming should have been done over Thursday night to make it skiable and redone on Friday night to acceptable event standards. Grooming hadn’t started early Friday morning and the decision must have been taken shortly after as the word had started to spread by 13:00. I have already heard of people deciding that they would rather fly to the American Birkebeiner than to the Gatineau Loppet. They said it’s just not worth it to make the trip here to be treated like this and I found myself hard pressed to disagree. Things weren’t shaping up very well this weekend and it wasn’t the end of it.
At 9:00 Sunday morning the horn sounds and we are off. I double pole the first 50m as required and start skating at a very reasonable pace seeing as everyone seems to understand that we will be doing this skiing thing for a little while. Life is good, I’m in the top twenty until a coworker and fellow competitor from the region decides to suddenly shift his six foot four body in front of me and crashes to the ground. Cat-like reflexes can’t beat Newtonian physics and I crash into him. Not sure what happened exactly after impact but he is on top of me and I have to wait for him to get up to start racing again. Quite surprisingly neither of us broke any equipment and I started skiing again but with about 50 or 70 people ahead of me.
Is that you Mr Murphy? No, that's Andrew and Justin going down, as captured by Kenmore.
I have to admit that I thought about Mr Murphy and his laws again as I passed people in the first 10km. The key was to go quickly without setting myself up for a prize winning article in the Gloppet Bonk Series. Next thing I knew I had missed the lead pack and couldn’t catch up without once again competing for a big Bonk. The next 35 km were passed in frustration as my transition skills, climbing capabilities and technical descending aptitudes are muzzled by slow gradual down hills and a pack of heavier skiers. Weighing in at a full 135 lbs, parkway skiing is not exactly my strong suit. In the end I finished 12th which was much better than I hopped about 30 seconds after the start but short of the top ten I expected and the top five I was aiming for. The positive aspect of all this is that being 21 means I’ve got a good 20 or 25 competitive Gloppets left. Sheila proved this to all of us by taking her first win at 44 years of age. It sure does seem like a long time to wait though.
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