I also know after decades of racing that you better have some secondary and tertiary goals, because you do not win every race, not every outing brings a PR, nor does every peak get bagged. My other goals for this Quebec adventure were two-fold: help Lucy achieve a three year-old dream of skiing the full route, and getting back-to-back gut busting days under my belt to be sure I was physically and mentally ready for the Silvretta range ski traverse. In this, the weekend was a resounding success.
What were the take-aways from the experience:
1) Beware ... when your longest workouts are long drives to look at secondary schools, your strength workouts are unscrewing the sudafed and ibuprofen bottles, and you find yourself packing GU next to your flu medicine for the endurance event ... you may not be headed for a peak performance.
2) Trying to keep up with Lucy for the first 30k, when her "slow" pace is not really slow at all ... is a recipe for disaster.
3) After 40k of tough hilly skiing as a prelude, going airborne because I chose to aggressively ski the icy, three kilometer long, tight, and technical, downhill section nicknamed "The Bobsled Run" was madness. In a fall that would have made Ted Blandy proud, my left shoulder was damaged, I screamed bloody murder, but found that after I dusted myself off I could raise my arm to mid-chest level without too much pain, and more-or-less use my pole. (Pain, real pain however, was trying to get my shirt off later back at the ranch.)
So what did I actually do? On Saturday, after my wicked crash - a crash guaranteed to produce enough damage that only a twenty-something could absorb - I used the age-old ski pole brake technique to get me off the hill. I limped and shuffled to the 50k checkpoint and called it a day. On Sunday after ingesting oodles of pain killers I had a great 35k ski, bailed early, retrieved the car, drove to the finish line and watched my daughter arrive after 160k, looking fresh as a daisy.
Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks!
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