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20km and Fast and Female!

By January 8, 2012 No Comments

For the past 48 hours, I’ve had an awful lot of glitter on! Friday was the 20km mass start classic race, and Saturday afternoon was a shortened but still super fun Fast and Female event in Bethel, Maine. Cool beans.

Jennie and I at the front (Ian Harvey photo)

Sooo…the 20k. Pack skiing. It’s nuts. It’s also super fun! The mass start classic was such a cool experience. I went into the race with an open mind, not knowing how to pace but ready for anything. Since it was snowing and the tracks were getting softer, the pack didn’t split up for couple of laps. I wanted to stay near the front to avoid tangles and led quite a bit but didn’t want to break tracks the whole time, and I think the group did a really good job of trading leads and sharing the work.

Women's 20km podium

Then the last lap, I realized that I didn’t want it to come down to a messy 5-way sprint, so on the longer gradual hill before the infamous “high school hill”, I started to push the pace. I just kept thinking “pretend it’s a L4 interval, and you just started. Forget the last 5 laps…pretend you’re on fresh legs”. Once I got a gap, I kept pushing to get as much space as I could before the downhill so I wouldn’t be drafted, and got to enjoy the finishing stretch!

Zumba time! (photo by Dirk MacKnight)

The next day we did a Fast and Female event in Bethel, and it was so fun! Around 80 girls showed up to have fun dancing, making team cheers, listening to inspirational talks and get their posters, t-shirts and buffs signed by ambassadors from all over the country. I thought that it was especially cool that so many racers made time in their week to come help out. So although I was a little tired afterwards and losing my voice, I was totally happy and glad to be part of the event!

Group shot (Dirk MacKnight photo)

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