National Masters Report: Day 3, Day of Rest
Mon, Jan 19, 2004
Today’s an off day at the Suburu National Masters Championships – no events. Jamie, Bill and I got up late, had a nice breakfast at the Sweetwater Café, signed up for the free ski drawing at the Downwind Sports, hit the Sports Rack to get more information on their stone grinding service, then grabbed a cup of joe at Dead River Coffee. The proprietor at the latter is quite the character – he grinds the beans fresh for each individual cup of coffee! Now that’s service.
Back at the hotel, Bill and Jamie get ready to ski at Blueberry. I’m taking the day off. I could ski, but I think it better I rest. They drop me off at race headquarters at the Nordic Bay Lodge. I figure I’ll have some lunch at Lodge’s restaurant, work on getting some pictures ready for the web site, then go to the Toko Wax Clinic in the early afternoon.
The restaurant was closed for lunch.
Fortunately, one of the Nordic Bay staff offered to run out a pick up some lunch for a couple of us sitting in the lobby! We ordered takeout and he went out to get it. He got a nice tip from me!
The Toko Wax Clinic was good, and because only a small group of us attended, we could see everything Michael Dean (the Toko rep) was doing. I was specifically interested in how to apply Toko X-Cold Powder and Helix. I also wanted clarification on when to use New JetStream, Old JetStream, Warm Helix, and Cold Helix. And I wanted more information on brushing – what to brush to use when, and how. All my questions were answered and demonstrated (and I’ll write about them in a separate article later if for no other reason than to have a reminder for myself).
Jamie picked me back up, and it was back to the hotel to wax skis for Tuesday’s Duathlon. My skating skis were pretty much ready to go; I just added a layer of Toko High Flouro Blue mixed 1:1 with X-Cold Powder.
The classic skis required more work – I’d used them last at the Hanson Hills Marathon where it was considerably warmer than tomorrow’s expected single digit weather. The striders received some World Loppet Red for cleaning, then layers of Low Flouro Molybdenum, LF Blue mixed 1:1 with LF Molybdenum, and a final layer of High Flouro Blue mixed 1:1 with X-Cold Powder.
Kick wax? Jamie and Bill experienced icing when they jumped out of the tracks today – and they were using Green kick wax. The deeper, fresh powder was considerably colder (and sharper) than the tracks. I went conservative and used Toko’s coldest kick wax, Carbon Turquoise. I can always go warmer tomorrow.
So we’ll be leaving the hotel around 8:30, and start racing a little after 10:00. Five kilometers around a moderately hilly course, change skis and poles in a transition zone, then 7.5 kilometers around a very hilly trail. I plan on using my skate boots for both segments. We’ll see how it goes…