2011 Ski2Sea

[PeterW]

This past weekend was the ski2sea in Kelowna, and I competed in the Mountain bike portion, on a team that finished 3rd overall!!
I feel like I struggled a little with the race, so I want to highlight the negatives first, and then talk about what went well.

First of all, as Matt put it, "i went from 4 weeks lying in bed, to racing." I have been sick for 4 weeks now, in the past week the cold transitioning into my chest, causing a nasty cough, and weak resp. I haven't done any intensity in these 4 weeks, and have hardly been on the bike...
I brought my trainer up to the hill, planning on getting in a full warm up, knowing that my Resp system really needs it, as well as my legs/cardio, knowing the 10min climb out of happy valley, right off the bat. Unfortunately... my big 29er wheels would not fit into the trainer, so my warmup instead was jumping up and down....
The 39 chain ring in the front was definitely too small, and I spun out of gears quickly on the downhills, where I felt I could keep gaining speed with more gears.
On the Forestry road, the mud was so thick/slimy, that the gears were jamming up, skipping all over, and caused a lot of frustration. I realize this is something everyone could have struggled with. I should have thought to use my bottle to spray the cassette periodically.

The good...
I still had the 2nd fastest time of the day on the mtn, 4mins behind a local superstar, and 3.5mins ahead of the next fastest. Not bad considering my sickness.
My lungs were taxed and sick, and I could not breath my normal comfortable rhythm/volume. However, I was able to find a comfortable, sustainable breathing pattern, breathing less volume, probably ~3L, at a quicker rate than usual, without feeling lightheaded or SOB.
With my lack of warmup, I took the climb a little easier than I would have, seated the whole way, which allowed me to "warm up" and feel fairly strong throughout the whole ride. Over the top of the first climb I maintained a pretty consistent HR around 183, up until the FSR, where I was beginning to feel fatigued, and stressed over the gear issues, so HR dropped to BP and just over.
ELoad's fly is Great. I am a big fan of clean tasting water, without any stickiness in my mouth. Fly aloud me to take in some calories during the ride, without any stomach, or sticky mouth issues.
Cannondale's Flash Carbon 29er is absolutely amazing. It was so fast the whole way, super stable at speeds over 70km, and smooth through the bumpy fsr. Kudos to Cannondale, I am stoked to ride this bike all summer!

My team killed it, thanks to those guys! Fastest Alpine and Nordic times, third fastest TT (on a road bike!), 4th fastest run, and 2nd fastest paddle. Wicked day!!
I look forward to hearing Ian's report. Soloing the whole day!!

[GinnySellars]

Thanks for that great report Peter!! I think you've said it all...if you were to do it again, you'd need a bigger chain ring, and spray down the back cog. You should be SUPER stoked being second while your chest is still full of cold. It only begs the question of what you could do healthy! Congrats on a solid performance.

[IanC]

Ski to Sea Solo

I have always wanted to try the ski to sea solo and figured that this was the year to do it.  There is a lot of organizing and gear prep to do for six different legs!
The race started out with the uphill/downhill, which was a trudge up the hill and a fun pass-fest down through a gated course.  Haha! There were some SKETCHY people on downhill skis!  There was even a dude on Snowblades! (illegal)
Next was a quick transition to skate skis and a controlled cruise through the cross country course.  I wanted to keep a steady pace through the ski portion as it would have been really easy to hammer it and be cooked for the rest of the day.  As it was, I still had the top time for the soloists.
The mountain bike portion was next and it was now time to start pounding the calories back.  A bottle of e-load, a couple gels and some e-disks on the bike ride helped out.  Gary Wade (the eventual solo winner and all-around cyborg!) and I had been together up to this point, but now he really stamped his authority on the race and took off!  It was impressive.  Once again, I just wanted to keep a steady pace without going over balance point too much.  I was using Steve’s Trek 29er and it was an excellent choice for the road/mountain bike portion.  It could have used bigger gearing as I was spun out for most of the downhill sections and had to tuck as much as possible.  The forestry road was incredibly mucky and I really baptized his bike!  Thanks dude!
The road bike portion is deceptively difficult with lots of false flats through Joe Rich.  Coming down from the summit, there are also lots of potholes and gravel on the road and as my glasses were covered in mud, I didn’t attack the descent as much as I normally would.  Once again, I made sure to get fluids, gels and electrolytes in me.  By the time I reached the little uphill by 8-mile Ranch, the lack of time on the bike and especially in aero position was starting to make itself felt.  I was getting some cramping occurring in my right hamstring and had to essentially coast the rest of the way to the run transition.  My road bike time was definitely slower than I would have liked and would be later in the season.  However, for the amount of time I have spent on the bike this year so far, I’ll take it.
Onto the run portion: Fresh socks, shoes, fresh glasses, strip off the bike shorts and leg warmers to expose the compression tights.  Grab a banana, a handful of e-disks and away we go!  A couple minutes into the Greenway and I finally had some privacy to have the pee break I had needed for the last 2 hrs! Phew!  I started out at about 4:30min/km and by the end I had slowed down to about 5:00min/km.  The run felt pretty good for the most part, but I just had to run at my own pace even when the soloist Mark Sherman passed me to take over 2nd near the end of the run.  I had Walter, from my support team leapfrogging me and handing me bottles, gels and electrolytes periodically.  I was taking a chocolate espresso gel that was really giving me a noticeable boost!!
Into the kayak, and I could see Mark about 500m ahead of me, but could not close the gap, so settled into an enjoyable lake cruise, exchanging cheers and encouragement with teams on the out and back course.  Getting out of the kayak was a different story when my right hamstring seized up and I had to be helped upright until feeling returned to my leg.  It probably looked pretty funny!!
I ended up with a time of 4:09:44 for 3rd soloist and 25th overall out of 101 teams.  It was a fun event in a grueling sort of way.  Many, many thanks to Walter, my wife, Emma and my Mom for being on my support team, setting up the transitions and dealing with the mountain of gear required for this multi-stage race.  They probably had a harder and more stressful day than I did.

[GinnySellars]

Thanks for the great report Ian! What a day. That is absolutely epic....the organization alone is a feat. Preparing mentally for the transitions between each sport would part of the race too. No surprise that your xc ski leg was the fastest split, as you've had a brilliant ski season. It's smart that you thought of the day as a whole, rather than planning on posting a best time for each split. Sound like there was some great spirit out there. Congrats on a gutsy race.