Trophee du Muverans (Running)

Monday 30 March 2009 10:07PM

This was a race that Ben and I had been looking forward to for a long time, given its reputation for being one of the most spectacular ski courses out there. Unfortunately it snowed heavily for much of the week before the race. This, coupled with very strong winds in the mountains, meant that the avalanche danger was very high and the organisers had to shorten and considerably tame the course. They did a great job, and for saying that the whole course was within a ski resort, somehow it often still felt a little wild, with some very picturesque skiing through snowy trees.

As you might expect from two relative novices (this is Ben’s second season racing on skis, and my first), we’re still improving with every race. This time there were no major mistakes, and we were well matched on both the climbs and descents, and we were even getting a little faster in the transitions. The guys at the front of these races are seriously impressive though, we’re now around 135% of the winners time, perhaps we can make 125% next season…

I was quite excited before the race about how much better I’d be on the descents after a whole week of practice on the skis the week before, but it made virtually no difference. It seems that once my legs are full of lactate any technique necessarily goes out of the window and it’s survival skiing all the way. Unfortunately this is slow, frustrating and cold when you fall in the snow!

Some nice pictures of the race here.