We have a few great reports from the Craftsbury Marathon Festival, from Karen and Rick. Here’s the lowdown from Rick on both days:
Saturday’s classic race – It was a coaches dream for both kick and glide. Pretty much everything we tested for grip worked quite well. TOKO Blue, Swix VR30, VR40, and even some colder green waxes were working.The tracks were hard packed powder with just a slight bit of transformed snow worked in which created fast tracks that never broken down for the entire race. Hardwaxes were working fine over both a hardwax binder and klister binder. Some of the 50K skiers opted to add some klister in the binder to help with durability. Most of us used TOKO green binder ironed in then covered with anything in the green to blue range. Liam and I liked the feel of the Guru Green but felt grip could be a little better. A little Rode Super Blue was perfect… Just a little better grip in the tracks with no perceptible loss in speed. On my own skis I also added a little Vhauti Super Base binder in with my TOKO Green. I’ve found this to be extremely durable and I still had great kick after the race was over. Some of us also applied a Vahuti LF green liquid/gel shortly before the start that really helped speed up skis.
In talking with the Craftsbury coaches and skiers after the race I found out that most of their team also used Rode Super Blue.
On Sunday the course for the skate race was fairly soft due to several inches of new snow during the night. We skied the course backwards from what was use on Saturday. It was quite fun to ski the loop in the opposite direction but most of the competitors I spoke with felt that this seemed more difficult, perhaps because we were pretty beat from the classic race. The long climb up Ruthie’ and across Creek Road was grueling, followed by a very nice decent down Sam’s. However, going up Elenor’s hill (twice) was a tough and made more difficult by the fact that there really isn’t any recovery from there to the stadium. I can’t speak for others but the Duck Pond Loop never felt so hard!
Coach Rick: 88km of racing over the weekend! Photo by Liam
For wax on Sunday, where glide was much more important and difficult to find then it was on Saturday, most of the skiers used some sort of HF blue wax with a Fluoro cover. Mike Millar, Emily Stitt and I all used TOKO Blue/Cold Jetstream and then applied a Vhauti HF red liquid/gel which is rated down to 18 F. I believe it helped, especially on the second lap as the temperature climbed up to about 22F.
Overall a Wonderful two-day event that offers something for everyone. Look for this to be a key weekend every winter.
Some stats from Karen!
Day 1: Classic
21 MNC racers participated today!
5 MNC Board members and 3 MNC coaches!
8 MNC racers placed in their age groups! AND
Emily Stitt of MNC was 2nd overall in the womens 50K!
Day 2: Freestyle
9 MNC skiers
6 MNC skiers landing in top 3 of age groups
4 MNC skiers raced in both the classic and skate races Charlie Cobb, Rick Costanza, Mike Millar and Emily Stitt
Emily Stitt – 2nd overall yesterday and 6th overall today
Karen, Renate, and Jen enjoying the race atmosphere!
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