The Adventures of Cait: Marcialonga

Vince and I just got back from doing the 70km Marcialonga (xc ski race) in northern Italy. You may have already read it, but I'm posting an email that I had my mom distribute about the race.

The race went really well. The first 15 km up to Canazei was a mess of people. There was no point in yelling "track" for people to get out of the way, so there was a lot of weaving around and going right through the middle of the tracks (a tight squeeze!) I passed a lot of people in the first hour and a half! There were a few short steep uphills where things would jam up with people herringbone-ing up and you just had to wait it out or look for an opening to slip through. There were a few big downhills as well, which were very icy by the time I got through from people snowplowing. I actually ran down two of the hills on the side because it looked safer and probably faster. Most of the people doing the race were older masters skiers and they were very tentative on the downhills! The course itself was very neat. A lot of the towns we went through we literally went right through the middle of the town on roads that they had dumped snow on. I laughed in one town to see padding on the side of the fire station as I was coming down the hill. Many towns had the church bells ringing while the race was happening, which made for a cool atmosphere. In between the towns the course mostly went along a river. Overall it was pretty flat, slightly uphill to Canazei and then slightly downhill most of the rest of the way. Apparently the elite group does sometimes go without wax, because they can double pole or herringbone the whole way. Vince and I opted for kick wax. The tracks were incredibly icy so we used green klister as a base and then covered it with extra blue hard wax. It lasted most of the race, but by the time I got to the 3 km uphill at the end it was warm enough that I used a wax station for some yellow klister. Toko was sponsoring the race and they had three stations at the bottom of the big hill with klister machines that just rolled the wax on. They even had kids there taking the skis from the wax tech and putting them back on your feet! I have to say, I was so tired of double poling by the end that I was glad for a long uphill just so I could stand up. The finish was right in the middle of town in Cavalese and the only problem with that was that in the winding little streets I had no idea where the finish was! I was really happy to finally come around a corner and see the finish and hear Vince yelling for me. I'm really happy with how I finished, especially with how far back I started (lots of people in front of me to slow me down). I was hoping to be in the top half of the women, but finishing 316 was great, especially on only 3 hours of nervous sleep the night before (reminder: tirimisu has coffee in it and should not be eaten the night before a race). Overall it took me 5 hours and 36 mintues!