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Mount Orford 30km Classic - Race Report
By:  Sheila Kealey   (2006/02/13)

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The Mount Orford 30km classic loppet took place on Sunday. As part of the national Salomon Marathon Cup Series, and Quebec’s Coupe Atomic and Challenge Atomic race series, it attracted a competitive field. XC Ottawa’s Tom, Craig, Wayne, Ed, P-O and myself took part.

The 30k course involved two 15km loops that covered a variety of rolling terrain including some nice gradual climbs, a few steep pitches, and fast fun descents.

Conditions & Wax

Conditions: The classic track was hard, fast, but quite abrasive due to the cold temperatures and small compacted ice chunks in the track. Saturday night was quite cold (-20 deg C), and we expected a colder race temperature, but it warmed to a pleasant minus 10-12 degrees when we were racing.

Glide Wax: layers (1-base) Vauhti Blue (regular); (2) Vauhti Speed Graphite or IR Spektra Molybden; (3) IR Spektra Green

Grip Wax: Vauhti Teho Green – multiple layers (depending on ski stiffness) with bottom layer ironed in. Some of us covered with vauhti green, while others raced on straight Teho Green.

How’d It Go?

The men’s mass start was a little rough, resulting in a couple of crashes involving XC Ottawa guys. PO got messed up in a pile up and spent the first lap recovering; it was more serious for Craig, who broke a pole in the same crash, and toughed it out for about 5 km with one pole until he got another pair – not ideal since they were skating length for him, but certainly better than skiing with one pole!  Ed ended up 5th, Wayne 8th, Tom 9th, and PO 10th.  The 30k race was won by Donald Farley, with Phil Shaw second and Steve Cyr third.

The women had their own start 2 minutes after the men, which is always a plus since it lets the women have their own race. The only issue was navigating through many of the men, but most were pretty courteous. My skis were very fast, and I skied with X-C.com’s Brooke Gosling most of the way, but lost her on a long climb during the second lap. I finished in second place, just over a minute back from Brooke (who’s been having a stellar season) which I thought was pretty good since she beat me by more than that in a 5 km race last weekend! I thought 30km of classic skiing would be really tough for me, so I was happy with my race.

Results

Photos of XC Ottawa and Nakkertok racers in action can be found at the Nakkertok racing site.

 

 
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