Tyson Flaharty

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Madison and Beyond.....

We have just completed the weekend of Super Tour Sprints taking part in the Madison Winter Festival. It is a very unique event, something I have never done before. We had 3 races on a 200m swath of snow that they hauled into town in dumptrucks and smoothed it out over the main road surrounding the capital building.

The first little race we did was a 100 meter race. I have never had a 100 meter race on snow before, it is kind of different compaired to any other sprint we have done. First of all, they put the snow on the road and an hour after starting to lay it down we were racing on it. Because of racing so soon after it was put down it made it very soft, not really my kind of racing. Racing in super wet slush is usually ok but when you are racing only for 100m slush is not ok, but I guess if that is what you are given then deal with it and just race. So in the end I was not very fast, my body was not working right and I just felt off my game. I just figured it would be a good warmup for the rest of the weekend.

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Saturday brought with it the skate team sprint. It was hot and sunny and overnight the course had hardened up to a nice and fast surface that was going to perfect for sprinting on. I was the anchor leg so Sam my partner was leading off. The course consisted of 100 meters of slightly downhill then a 90 degree left turn into a 100 meters of gradual uphill, at the top of the hill the course spun around an icy 180* to point you back down the hill and back the 100 meters to the lowest corner then a right handed 90 degree corner into the fanal 100m finishing stretch. So one lap of the course was roughly 400 meters. In the race we raced 2 laps in a row before tagging off to the next racer. In each race we each went 4 times. So in a course that looks very simple actually gets pretty darn hard. The races total to about 4km of racing per person, so a lot of sprinting.

So back to the first race: Sam started out very well and was able to take the early lead which is critical in this race. At the first tag he came through in first and it was a very exciting tag and off I go. I am able to lead the full second leg without too much trouble and tag off to Sam again. This time Sam had some issues with his back on the second portion of his leg. Whatever had happened to his back forced him to not be able to use his body right because it was so painful. So at that point we got passed and were not able to recover very well. I was able to almost catch up on my second go and I did not realize how much Sam was hurting everytime he raced, but he just kept going and I kept cheering him on. In the end we ended up 4th a little ways back. We could have totaly been in the final sprint I feel like I was skiing well enough, So it was kind of a bummer that his back was having troubles, I really hope he is able to figure it out as he is skiing very well this season. It was just bad timing, but hey that is racing and the body does not always work as it should even when you have prepared it to perfection.

On day 2 for the classic team sprint Sam decided no to race due to his injury and I was left without a partner till we were able to talk an old Middlebury skier Donavan to step into Sams position on my team. He has not really been training much so pretty much anything could happen. Well he started off in a fine way and was just off the back of the pack on the end of the first leg. At the tag I quickly cought us back up to the pack and before the exchange I moved us into 2nd place. After that I think Donavan was feeling the speed of the race and was pushing himself through some very hard places in his body to try and keep us in the race. In the end the speed was just a little too much for someone who has not done a lot of training recently and we were passed by the winning team. I am so thankful for Donavan for coming to my rescue to let me race it bit on the second day even, and he pushed himself through his limits so that is all I can ask of anyone.

After it is all said and done the weekend was not what I had imagined for the outcome. The good things to come from the weekend are that I know I was skiing fast, I was skiing at the same level as the race winners, it was just hard to show. It was good to ski in a city sprint like that to give me more experience in different situations. Next year I can only get better and that is nice to know.

Next up is the Birkie this saturday. Currently there are almost 9000 people signed up, so it should be a great experience for Davya and I. The course is in great shape and should be nice and fast.