XC Ottawa Duathalon
Sunday was another day at the races. The XCOttawa duathalon was held at the Nakkertok ski center. I’d helped out last year and it was a good time so I signed on again for another day of marshalling. The weather looked pretty grim as the day approached with bitter cold forecast. As I drove to the trails – with the moon sinking on one side and the sun slowly rising on the other I was a little worried but it actually turned out not too bad with just biting (instead of bitter) cold in the morning. In fact, once the sun came up it was almost pleasant. Of course skiing in this weather and standing at a trail intersection are two different things but I had worked my layers quite well – i.e. wear lots - and even tested out some chemical hand warmers in my gloves which worked pretty well. I took the opportunity to take a few shots of the races which would serve to remind me of some of the technical aspects of shooting in the cold. Should serve me well next weekend when I’m out at the Pursuit races (which is just another name for a duathalon… unless the rules have changed since I last looked). Next weekend shouldn’t be near as bad with temperatures forecast around zero for the races so some of the issues I had today - like battery performance plummeting and fingers going numb while adjusting settings on the camera – shouldn’t be an issue. More pictures from the races here.

For the initial open races I was somewhat free to walk around near the stadium area while staying near a particular corner (skating right, classic straight) but once the younger age groups got going I relocated to a corner a little further out in the woods. When the time came I walked down there but found no V-boards to demark my turn. No worries, I’ll just walk back a few hundred yards where I saw a huge pile of them… but just as I arrived at the V-boards, the starting horn went off! Mad panicked sprint ensued back to my corner with a couple of v-boards under my arm arriving just as the first racers did. Skiers (even young ones) move much faster on snow than I can run but fortunately no one went off course – crisis averted. All in all a fun day at the races. I went home and had lunch and an unanticipated nap before heading out to get my own ski in. As I looped around Pink Lake I had the moon starting to rise up in front of me thus – having seen it go down in the morning - made for a long day out in the fresh air… but a good one.