The Boulder Mountain Tour is a great event for first time racers. It is well
organized, always has good ski conditions and the course is well prepped. It
also serves as a good motivational annual event for many skiers. For many
skiers its also a good break from races with harder courses.
The conditions were warm, with mostly moist and transformed snow. The overnight
temperature was about 32F and at start time it was around 35F. There was a slight
drizzle of snow/rain during the race. A record 1016 skiers started the race.
Wax:
Team TorbjornSport members did very well at the 2003 Boulder Mountain Tour.
We waxed up 4th place overall John Aalberg’s skis with Fluor powder heated
in and then heated in PowerJet 1 on top of that. Most Team TBS members, including
myself did the same or something very similar.
John was 1 second from winning. Well, let’s make the story a little better:
John has hardly raced the last 3 years – he spent the time designing and
organizing the venue and competitions for the Nordic events at the 2002 Olympics.
During the race, around the 12K point someone stepped on John’s pole and
the handle came off. A short while later he got one (short) replacement pole,
and skied up to the lead group. However, 1 km later his other pole broke. From
that point he skied the next 7K trying to stay with lead pack with one pole.
He finally got a second pole, and barely caught the lead pack again before the
setup for the final sprint started. With a short and a long pole he was still
sprinting to win and was very close – not bad for a 42 year old! I think
we can safely say wax and smart training worked very well.
Women
Last year’s American Birkie winner Jeannie Wall was 6th overall woman.
The important thing for Jeannie was to be able to ski with the pack until the
final sprint, which she did. Sprinting downhill is not her strength but that
bodes well for Jeannie in the upcoming longer marathons.
My own race
Last year’s Boulder Mountain Tour was the low point of my racing that
year and I hope that this year’s race represents the same. In the month
following last year’s Boulder Tour I actually went on to win all five
races at the US Master National Championships. I didn’t feel bad neither
last year nor this year, but the results were disappointing when comparing to
skiers I’m normally competitive with. Last year I was 24th overall and
2nd in my age group and this year I was 41st and 4th in my age group.
The Boulder Tour race course drops 1000 feet from start to finish. There are
no hard uphills in this race. It’s a fun downhill tour! Finding a good
group to ski with is important, since racing this way is much like drafting
when bicycling in a pack. If you loose the draft, your group is gone, and you
quickly loose lots of time.