We finally crested the road, ripped our skins for the first time (there was a lot of downhill skinning in this course!) and made the final, glorious turns down to the finish. We crossed under the powerlines, and made a little descent before the final road skin. We were so close! My feet felt absolutely rubbed raw, but all I could think about was the promised beer at the end, and the snowmobile tow out. We skinned down to a cheery Checkpoint 2 where people were happily clapping and chatting with each other. All three of us were in high spirits, as we knew that there were only two checkpoints left, and the terrain was all familiar now. Luckily, we made it through all of the sidehilling, and crested the knoll that we had scouted earlier in the year. This made my right leg BURN and it got a bit exhausting after a couple of miles of my left ski slipping out constantly and my right leg catching my whole body weight. The last half of the course was largely sidehilling (traversing) with the uphill on the right side. Our pace slowed a bit, but we were able to trek on to each aid station in a relatively timely manner. (My methods of dealing with panic is enough to fill another post, so maybe I'll write that up in the future.) After a little bit of time, and a bit of technique practicing, I was ready to go. I hadn't had to deal with a panic attack in the backcountry for a couple years now, and I had forgot how I usually deal with it. After a minute or two of deep, intentional breathing, I could feel my throat opening up again, and my brain clearing up a bit. They stopped and let me take some deep breaths, and grab a big snack and water. It wasn't a major uphill, but my body wasn't letting me move! "Dangit" I thought, "We had been moving so well!" Andi and Tessa were awesome partners to have during this major low. We were a couple of miles past Mirror lake, which we skinned across, and we were heading back uphill. Yikes! I could feel my brain panicking, my throat closing up on me, and I knew that I just had to stop for a moment. Bonking often results in lethargy, in extreme cases hallucinations, but in my case that day, it included a panic attack. I was eating a decent amount, but it clearly wasn't enough. "Bonks" happen in distance races every once in a while, and it occurs simply when racers run out of available energy for their bodies to use. I could feel it happening - my body was bonking. We cruised along the first 10 miles or so, feeling great, and then. Andi had been a Nordic ski racer in high school, and with her pushing the pace, we were cooking! I was excited to push my body and see how long I could last. Up until this point, we had been going pretty fast (for my standards at least!). This race had 9 checkpoints, and 2 semi "aid stations", though with it being a COVID race, it was mostly cheering support and a snowmobile bail-out option! We scanned our first checkpoint and took off for the next. After almost getting taken out by some out-of-control ski dudes (they were really apologetic, but a close call nonetheless), we made it to the first checkpoint.
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