Saturday, February 03, 2007

Junior racer


junior racer
Originally uploaded by kenmore_photos.
Today was day 1 of the Eastern Canadian XC Championships in Gatineau Park. I went up to see if I could watch the elite racers doing a time trial classic race. Unfortunately the organizers didn't post a schedule on the website for the races so I didn't know what time the elites were racing. In the end I was there for the midget and pee-wee racers which wasn't really what I was looking to see. I skied around a bit and took a few pictures (none were too successful). It was kind of a bleak day while I was there, -7 but quite windy so I decided not to hang out too long.

Instead I went down to Montebello to check out the snow conditions for the CSM next week. The northen parts of the course look to have good snow but as you drop down to the river things get a little thin. I can see why they chose to adjust the course. Many of the spots on the old route have almost no snow at all and where it twins a gravel road (the CSM plows down the snowbank along a few roads to form a ski trail in a few spots) there are no snowbanks at all. We'll see how this new course goes. I could only get to a few spots as the main part of the trail goes into the Kenauk Wilderness reserve.

Unfortunately, the many long training days - trying to get into shape with a limited number of snow days- seem to have left me with a bit of tendonitis in one of my feet. I may not be able to ski long days next weekend. It hurt a lot for three days after my long ski last weekend and is still annoying right now. Strangely it doesn't bother me to skate - I guess the foot flexes differently when skating rather then the classic stride. I'll see how it goes on Saturday next week. Hopefully I can manage a few sections without too much discomfort and still go back for more on Sunday. Doesn't really matter too much. Its a tour so I'm looking forward to skiing some of it and then I'll call it a day when/if the pain gets too great.

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