This post is only going to cover the 3rd lap of my race in today’s Craftsbury Marathon. The first two laps went well but weren’t terribly exciting. The 4th lap was exciting in some respects, but only because I bonked half-way up the long hill out on Ruthie’s. (Ollie already wrote a bonking post.) A lot of stuff happened on the 3rd lap, hopefully I can remember all of it through my low blood sugar induced foggy memory.
The first exciting thing that happened on this lap was that I found the water bottle I had dropped on the 2nd lap. It was sitting next to the trail at the top of a hill on Lemon’s Haunt. I stopped to pick it up and put it back in my water bottle holder. Taking up too much precious time? Perhaps. But I needed some Gatorade. (long story short: they were only serving Subtle Strawberry Heed at the feed stations and I am allergic to strawberries. And believe it or not, Heed uses only natural flavoring. And yes, I know I’m weird.) Miraculously the water bottle wasn’t frozen, so that was a nice surprise.
Then at the bottom of the downhills on Race Loop I almost got taken out by a high school skier in the relay. She switched tracks without looking back but I averted catastrophe by yelling really loudly. I think I scared her pretty bad; however, she will probably always look now before switching tracks.
On the long uphill out on Ruthie’s I got passed by the leaders of the men’s race. It was great to see Tim in front with Juergen right behind. At the time I couldn’t tell who was in third, but I assumed (correctly it turns out) that it was Justin Freeman. I was extra happy to see Gould and Bates grad Tim Whiton in 4th – he had a great race!
Immediately after the boys passed me I tripped myself two times by sticking a pole between my legs. I may have sworn and I’m pretty sure the people I had just passed were (understandably) laughing at me. I’d like to say it’s because I was so excited for the guys that I got distracted. But I’m pretty sure it happened because my hands were so cold I was having trouble controlling where I planted my poles.
Somewhere on the downhills after the feed station I passed Melanie, one of our awesome BKL skiers. She was doing the 25 km and looked great, if not a little cold.
The final exciting thing to happen in the 3rd lap was that before heading up into Wilbur’s Field I got passed by Matt. He looked really strong and seemed to be having a good race. I wondered where Ollie was. (Refer to previously mentioned bonking post.) At the time I wondered why Matt didn’t say anything to me. Only after finishing did I learn that it was because he never saw me, and even if he had known there was a person there he wouldn’t have been able to tell that it was me. I’ll let Matt tell his frostbitten eyeball story himself.
I’d like to give a giant “thank you” to our BKL kids (and my Dad) for giving us feeds. It was a huge help! Also, a huge thanks to the tons of volunteers that made this race happen. Thanks for braving the cold!!
Results and photos can be found on NENSA here. Congrats to everyone!
