Blizzard!

Spring? What's that?

For the middle distance race today we were served a healthy dose of blizzard. Lots of snow and a good bit of wind to make it more interesting.

The heavy snow and moderate wind of course made the skiing more physical, but it also made the navigation very tricky. Often you could not see the tracks at all, as it only took a few minutes for new snow to cover over where someone else had skied. Even the wide, groomed XC trails (normally as clear as a two-lane road) were hard to pick up! This led to some interesting orienteering by many of the competitors.

Ali had another great result, 18th place again, while Greg Walker was best for the men. Ali was wearing a GPS tracker, so you can watch her little dot move around the map against other little dots (Part 1 and Part 2). You can see the men's map (none of our men were tracked), Part 1 and Part 2.

Our results (full results:

Women
1. Polina Matchikova, RUS 39:52
18. Alison Crocker, USA 48:45
30. Alex Jospe, USA 59:45
45. Cristina Luis, USA 1:26:00
52 starters

Men
1. Staffan Tunis, FIN 40:13
51. Greg Walker, USA 58:33
60. Scott Pleban, USA 1:02:57
62. Adrian Owens, USA 1:05:17
67. Nikolay Nachev, USA 1:09:49
78 starters

Stay tuned for some post-race interviews!