Craftsbury Green Racing Project

September 16, 2009 (Vermont) – The Green Racing Project just finished a race simulation week: four races in five days. We started off with a 7-mile running race; then a 5k SkiErg test; then back-to-back 6.3k rollerskiing time trials, skate on Saturday and classic on Sunday. Our bodies were tired and beat-up by the end of the week. Still, though, it didn’t seem so bad, and certainly not any worse than a normal speed block. We didn’t do volume and barely did any strength. Our week was arranged for optimal recovery, just like a real race week in the winter.

One of the most interesting time trials was the 5k on the SkiErg. We’ve been experimenting a lot with the machines, and Pepa loves to test us against each other over and over, like a lab experiment. Craftsbury has been a testing location for Concept2 for years, mostly for rowing equipment like oars and ergometers. This relationship has continued with the SkiErg, and I’m sure we have more of them to play with than any other team in the country. While it’s nice for us, it’s nice for Concept 2 as well, because they can get a sense of how the SkiErgs are being used.

But back to the time trial: I can’t say I had been looking forward to it at all. In fact, I admit that I might have even said it was stupid. 5k straight of double-poling? Remind me of when I’m ever going to do that in a race?

Part of my bad attitude might stem from the fact that double-pole isn’t my strong suit on snow or on rollerskis, and the slight changes in technique on the machine seem to just exacerbate my weaknesses. My 2k scores are always the worst of our whole group, usually by a lot. Plus, I had never done a 5k, so I had no idea how to pace myself. This was daunting. It’s frustratingly hard to predict what will tire your body out when you do the exact same motion for an entire test; we all assumed we could do a 1k at a much faster pace than our 2k pace, but we all bonked. It seemed like something could easily go terribly wrong and make the test completely miserable.

When we arrived at the testing room, we set up our four machines to “talk” so that instead of simply doing the test at the same time, we’d be racing each other. Each of the monitors would show, below the numbers for pace and time and distance and heart rate, a graphic of four boats (the latest model now has skiers) with distance ahead and back for the other competitors. I thought: Oh, whatever. How competitive can you really get over a couple of pixels, anyway?

We waited anxiously while our machines counted us down. 3. 2. 1. ROW! And we took off. The room was filled with whirring as all of the ergometers got up to speed. All of a sudden I found myself going faster than my 2k pace. It felt so easy, fueled off the adrenaline of four women, side by side, pulling wildly. I remembered how hard the last two minutes of a 2k can be, when your legs fill with lactic acid and you want to fall down, and slowed to about 10 seconds below my 2k pace.

Around me, Hannah, Lauren, and Ida were probably having the same realization. Although our little boats started out in a clump as we sprinted off the line, in the first minute or two their positions changed repeatedly as we slowed at different rates, trying to find a pace and cadence that we thought we could sustain for 20 minutes. I thought: Don’t think about the boats yet. Don’t think about the numbers either. Just get into it, get some momentum.

After about a kilometer, I was shocked to see that my boat was not, actually, in last place. I had about 25 meters on someone else. Who, though? It seemed improbable. I glanced over at Lauren’s screen next to me. Her pace was similar to mine. It must be her, I thought, but I still couldn’t believe it. I am in this thing.

I am in it, yes, but we have a long way to go. What if I’m pacing myself all wrong? What if I bonk far before the finish? What if she knows better than I do, since she’s done a 5k before?

Stop. Just ski. If you bonk, what can you really do about it anyway? Does this feel so hard? No? Well then, keep doing this just like you are. Maybe it’ll all be fine. Don’t slow down just because you have embarrassingly little self-confidence.

And so I chugged away, and built up a lead that was at times 40 meters. After the halfway point it took much more focus to maintain the same pace.
With 1k to go, things got exciting. The other boat was closing: only 20 meters now. By the time I only had 500 meters to go, my lead was down to 10 meters. I was pulling the same pace I had pulled all along, sometimes faster. Lauren must have been saving herself up for the end. She should have been working harder the whole time. I was bitter that she was racing smarter than me and catching me. I can’t let her pass me. Her trick will not work.

I would push as hard as I could for maybe ten strokes, then look at the monitor, see that I had lost another meter, and try to push harder. I was dropping my pace, but I was still losing ground: Lauren was dropping her pace much faster. My legs filled with lactic acid and I struggled to reach as high as I had before. I tried to compensate by raising my stroke rate, which helped. Her boat caught mine. Then I put a second on it. Then it put a second on me. I only had to make it 100 more meters, 50 more meters, 20 more meters, that’s practically nothing…

And then it was over. I somehow thought that I had gotten her, even though I finished in 22:06 and Lauren had finished in 22:03. I didn’t know this until later; I hadn’t even read the number on my screen before we both collapsed onto the carpeted floor. Pepa reached down to take Lauren’s hand and prick her finger for a lactate strip. “I don’t need yours,” she said.

In a few minutes I was back to being a functioning human being, standing up and walking around. Ida was on the bike, so I decided to jog on the trails (slowly) for a cool-down. I wondered that this test had not been anywhere near as miserable as I thought it might be, and marveled at how motivating it had been to see those little boats racing each other.

As you can gather from my pre-race assumptions, I am not an unconditional fan of the SkiErg. I see its use; I am also a fan of being outside. That’s one of the main reasons I love skiing. I’d rather bike in the rain than do a distance workout in the gym. A lot of you probably feel the same way.

This test changed my opinion a little bit. Strangely, it was the most “into” a race I have been all summer. This is probably my fault for not being more “into” the other races. But we haven’t had a mass-start race all summer, and we certainly don’t have splits on our time trials. In a way, the little racing boats were the most direct form of competition we’ve seen. And I think it showed: it turned out that the same pattern had occurred in other matchups, with one skier leading most of the way and another chasing them down to close a big gap over the last kilometer. It’s much harder to do this when you can’t see your opponent: without something immediate to fight for, there is just a little tinge of competitiveness that my brain has a hard time capitalizing on.

When Judy Geer asked earlier in the summer what we thought about having an open SkiErg race somewhere, I had shuddered in disgust. She pointed out that Crash-B’s, the now-huge indoor race for rowers, wasn’t a big hit in the beginning either. But still, I thought, no way. Skiers will never like the idea, ever, case closed.

Now I’m not so sure. I don’t think I’d train more on the SkiErg just to prepare for the event, but I’d go if they held one. It wouldn’t be fun, exactly; in my mind it’s more like a hill climb, the freak brother of a normal ski race, consisting of one sustained effort without changes in terrain or technique. But it has value. That is undeniable. If nothing else, I haven’t gotten my heart rate so high all summer.

Maybe the SkiErg is pretty cool, after all.

On to volume month.

(note: you can see SkiErg records online here, and submit your own)