Pain I Am

i did my first Classic-style nordic ski race and suffered like i don't remember suffering before. yeah, i've said that before, especially after most cyclocross races, but classic skiing has a much deeper full-body effect.

i've done a fair bit of classic skiing this year and i've been focusing on technique. it takes years to bring all the technical elements together and i'm really doing this for the first year in earnest and i'm happy with how my "diagonal stride" is coming along. however, in this latest 30-km classic race i would be that not much more than 25% of the time i was striding. i would bet that 40-50% of the time that i was double-poling and the remaining percentage was spent herringboning up the steep climbs.

in the off-season (that is, cross-country off-season; in the summer i call winter the off-season) i'm a cyclist and we generally pride ourselves on our slight upper bodies. we are t-rex's, with chests the size of 12-year old girls being the benchmark for cycling success. so come winter there is not sufficient time to put on the strength necessary to double-pole for an hour at 95% of your maximum effort. 20-minutes into the Gunnar Hagen my back and triceps went out, and if prior to the race i had any muscles in my shoulders those went out too.

at 10-km, one lap and 1/3 of the way into the race i seriously thought about bailing. i just couldn't fathom 2 more laps of this pain. little by little we learn to measure out our doses under such pain, and thats just what i did. when i thought about the distance to the finish i felt the staggering weight of despair and would momentarily ease up until i brought my focus back to just the next hill, just the next section of the course. the thought of the guy just up ahead or the of another person catching me from behind fired up my competitive juices and also helped me to continue pouring forth my efforts despite the uncomfortable pains that i felt creeping in.