Climb to the Castle (and more photos)

A small crew of SLUSKIers headed down to Lake Placid on Friday for the annual Climb to the Castle, a rollerski race up the Whiteface toll road. Myself, sophomore Eric Lustgarten and first-years Adam Swayze and Reed Likly all hit the road after practice for the race. Big thanks to SLU alums (how weird is it to say that?!) Steve Vargo and Lanky for letting us crash on the floor in their apartment in downtown Placid. The weather on race day was incredible, with chilly morning frost giving way to blinding sunshine and views at the top of the castle all the way from the Green Mountains to the cityscape of Montreal, to the massive wind turbines near Malone. There was a pretty competitive crowd including the entire US Ski Team and US Biathlon Team, plus several other top racers from around the country. It's hard to judge rollerski races as a level playing field for competition, but it's not hard to see the benefits of this type of race. Not only are you pulling on a bib and racing head to head in a ski-specific environment, you're going straight uphill for five miles. More than any other race situation, technique comes into play as a limiting factor. I'm sure everyone that raced can think back to that one unfortunate moment where their technique and fatigue level, always teetering in a delicate balance, tipped too far in the wrong direction. Poles begin to slip, body position begins to get less aggressive, core begins to rotate, feet begin to step rather than glide, and so on. It happened to everyone who wasn't racing for the win, and even probably happened to some of those who were. Unrelenting races like this emphasize that breaking point. And in lots of ways, going past that point is the fun part. How much more can you keep hurting? Why not try to find out? When you fall apart, there's no hiding it in this race, so you better just keep going. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal. CLICK HERE for men's results. I don't have any photos, though there may be some online eventually. In the meantime, here's some photos of more great training closer to home: some threshold skate intervals and head-to-head sprint starts in the sunset at Brown's Bridge.