Eload Marathon Race Report: Nationals Distance Day 50km and 30km Skate day
By:  Andre Marchand   (2015/03/28)

It was a surprisingly cold day for the end of March, -13 degrees celsius, but you would have been hard pressed to not enjoy skiing that day, with the sun beaming down from a bluebird sky. The last day of nationals is always going to be hard. Not only is it the “Long Distance Race Day” (open men do 50km/ open women do 30km), but it comes after having raced 4 races earlier that week. The body is tired, but you can will it to race one more time, and that’s what we did!

A huge thank you to Eload for providing us the fuel we needed for this long race. To give you an idea of how much fuel we took in, during the 50km I was taking 2-3 liquid feeds per 7.5km lap, and consumed a total of 7 gels! 

There were some great results for the XC Ottawa men racing in a very competitive mens field! Karl Saidla finished 23rd, Steffan Lloyd finished 35th, Arthur Ayers finished 40th, and I finished 42nd. 

The XC Ottawa women also raced extremely well in the 30km, with Megan McTavish finishing 19th, Sheila Kealey close behind in 20th, Ingrid Hagberg in 22nd, and Kyla Vanderzwet finishing 24th! In the Junior Women’s category, Logan Hong raced well to finish in 22nd!

Stefan taking an eLoad feed!

... there are sometimes casualties in a 50K (maybe he’s napping?)

 

Karl racing away!

Steffan in with a strong pack of skiers

 

Kyla managing the carnage of the mass start!

 

Ingrid off-setting away!

 

A nice shot of Megan with her fantastic Infinity ski poles!

Photo Credit goes to all the Ski Nationals 2015 Photographers.

And now it’s on to some fun spring skiing for us until the snow melts! Hope to see you out there! :)

Andre M.