You can check out the official results on the Birkie website; www.birkie.com Type in someone's name or bib number and you'll get their splits. One thing that proved my lack of conditioning for the hills was evident between 9K and County Hwy OO at about 23K. That's where I lost most of my time and that has the highest and hardest climbs on the course. Some of the guys that beat me by 8 minutes or so buried me in that section. My splits for the second half of the race are close to, even or faster than many of those skiers. How to get faster? train more in the hills...
This is consistent with the fact that they did not have my time at the finish... not until they checked their manual records. My chip was probably crapped out.
jay_tegeder@yahoo.com wrote:> You can check out the official results on the Birkie website;> www.birkie.com> Type in someone's name or bib number and you'll get their splits. One> thing that proved my lack of conditioning for the hills was evident> between 9K and County Hwy OO at about 23K. That's where I lost most
my time and that has the highest and hardest climbs on the course.> Some of the guys that beat me by 8 minutes or so buried me in that> section. My splits for the second half of the race are close to, even> or faster than many of those skiers. How to get faster? train more in> the hills...>
Jay Tegeder> "Keep training, lycra never lies!" JT
jay_tegeder@yahoo.com wrote:> You can check out the official results on the Birkie website;> www.birkie.com> Type in someone's name or bib number and you'll get their splits. One> thing that proved my lack of conditioning for the hills was evident> between 9K and County Hwy OO at about 23K. That's where I lost most of> my time and that has the highest and hardest climbs on the course.> Some of the guys that beat me by 8 minutes or so buried me in that> section. My splits for the second half of the race are close to, even> or faster than many of those skiers. How to get faster? train more in> the hills...>
Jay Tegeder> "Keep training, lycra never lies!" JT>
Neat improvement from itiming. It's interesting/fun to compare skier-skier and see where your friends & rivals were at the same points. I also hacked my watch every 10K and at the 25K post. My slowest split was the first 10K, the fastest from 25-30K (no surprise). Granted the first 10K has a lot of uphill, but it really showed how much time it eats up passing slower traffic, especially in the first couple of K.
Gene Goldenfeld 2 March 2005 07:45:42 [ permanent link ]
OTOH, compare your first 10k with the skaters around you (or your real 9K time vs others posted). Good striders have an advantage until the race thins out, at least after wave 1 or 2.
Andrey, you weren't the only one w/o splits. Kati Campbell, the women's 55-59 winner, only had a 22K time.
Gene
Marsh Jones wrote:>
jay_tegeder@yahoo.com wrote:> > You can check out the official results on the Birkie website;> > www.birkie.com> > Type in someone's name or bib number and you'll get their splits. One> > thing that proved my lack of conditioning for the hills was evident> > between 9K and County Hwy OO at about 23K. That's where I lost most of> > my time and that has the highest and hardest climbs on the course.> > Some of the guys that beat me by 8 minutes or so buried me in that> > section. My splits for the second half of the race are close to, even> > or faster than many of those skiers. How to get faster? train more in> > the hills...> >
Jay Tegeder> > "Keep training, lycra never lies!" JT> >
Neat improvement from itiming. It's interesting/fun to compare> skier-skier and see where your friends & rivals were at the same points.> I also hacked my watch every 10K and at the 25K post. My slowest split> was the first 10K, the fastest from 25-30K (no surprise). Granted the> first 10K has a lot of uphill, but it really showed how much time it> eats up passing slower traffic, especially in the first couple of K.>
I think these split times will prove very valuable to me as I continue to try to move up in the waves. I skied for over ten years out of the first wave and many years before any waves. I quit the race the year I got pushed back to the second wave and everyone around me in that wave was incredibly bad tempered. After a seven year lay-off, I have worked up to wave five from wave ten.
This year I hoped to knock an hour off my 2004 time so I skied off the front of wave five and hit the powerlines to find 3+ inches of whole wheat flour across the whole track...no cord remaining anywhere. Even so, I pushed pretty good to 9 km...so that split was faster than the split between 9 and OO. Between 9 and OO, I caught a lot of wave 4 people and had to ski the hills at their pace...mostly glideless stepping on the steeps. The split for that section was the worst of all.
The course for the second half of the race was much better than the first half...at least the center of the trail was fairly firm...not so much whole wheat but still lots of traffic. As everyone knows, passing takes a lot of energy and even wave five skiers have fast skis.So uphills and rolling sections are the place to pass...good transition skiing probably would help the most...attacking the hill before the conga line settles into a shuffle and clearing the top of the hill aggressively. Few skaters back in the race ever think to jump in the track which remained fast the whole race. The second half split was far faster that the first half
Despite the whole wheat flour first half and the traffic, I skied 30+ minutes faster than 2004. This might get me a wave 3 or 4 start for Birkie # 20. I think each wave up is worth 10-15 minutes so I might yet see some of you faster skiers out on the course. At 55, however, I will probably never see wave 1 again. All things considered, it was a great race....wish I could ski it again sooner than a year from now.
Used Peltonen Cosmics(Birkie flex)/Fast Tan/perfect grind for flour
