Tour of Anchorage Goals

View from the top of my run today on Pyramid

The Tour of Anchorage cross country ski race takes place next Sunday, and I'm all ready to race in it. Despite the warm winter I actually got in a lot of training - more than I did in 2009/2010 when I last did the 40K race.  As I said in an earlier post I am going to do the 40K race on classic skis.

In the past, when I've raced in the 25K classic race my pace was around 3 1/2 minutes per kilometer.  At that pace I'd do 40K in around 2:24.  Except I KNOW I could not go at that pace for a full 40K.  So my goals are a bit more modest - I want to average a kilometer every 4 minutes.  That's 5K every 20 minutes, and would get me across the finish line in 2:40.  Even that is a bit ambitious. So I'll be REALLY happy if I break 2:40, and satisfied if I finish in under 3 hours.

Anyway, today was my last day of training.  From now until the race I'll take it easy and save up some energy.  This afternoon I climbed up Pyramid and went downhill skiing.  It was the first time I've been downhill skiing in 3 weeks.  Patrick

The snow conditions were actually pretty good for downhill skiing