Team 2017

Keski Report #12 - Dealing with Illness.
By: Jean Roussel (2007/02/26)

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This year I had planned to do the 53km skate for the 1st time, instead of my usual 25-28km skate race. For the 1st time I had joined a training group associated with Skinouk, and I had done a lot skiing by mid January.

Unfortunately, my 4 year old son brought home some sort of cold/virus and by mid-January had passed it onto my wife. Although I felt like I was going to be spared, for some obscure reason, I was not. What was to happen did happen. I had a cold that eventually turned into a bronchitis. By the time that the Eastern Canadian Championship race came around, I believed that I was feeling better. Enough so, that I did take to the start of the 30km skate race, only to drop out of it after one loop due extreme fatigue. That was 2 week before the Keskinada weekend.

I had to stop training completely for 5 days, no skiing and/or running. Then I skied short distances again although still coughing a bit. Finally, I decided not registered for the 53km for this year and waited until Feb. 14th to decide to register for the 28km skate without knowing if I would be able to go the distance.

I had waxed 2 pairs of skis, Xium versus CarbonLite. One with LF4 and one with LF6 which I both tested before the start of the race and for some reason selected the ones with the LF6. That proved to be a serious mistake for me at least. Very rapidly in the down hill I realized that I was so slow that I couldn't keep up with the people I was climbing with.

I managed to finish the race, I was so happy not to have tried the 53km with my level of training. Two lessons learned for me: I need to improved my waxing technique and if in the future I get sick again with something affecting my lung, I will stop all cardio training until completely healthy again.