2008 Pole, Powder, Paddle
Posted by Fitzy on April 8th, 2008 |
It seemed only fitting that this year’s PPP was held in a driving snowstorm. As the snow study plots crested 600″, Jannine and I drove to Teton Village in near silence. Coming from Victor, the first thing we saw was the “Chain Law” sign flashing on Teton Pass. “Don’t worry, it won’t be this snowy on the Jackson side”, I assured her as her eyes grew wider with every road shoulder she saw covered in ice and snow. Jannine was slated to hammer out the bike leg for the women’s Fitzy Team while I was sitting pretty getting mentally prepared for the Alpine ski leg for the Men’s Fitzy team. Sure, the Alpine ski was certain to be a more pleasant experience than the bike leg, but I had my own anxiety to deal with. All week I had been talking smack with Rob at the Brew Pub about how I was going to smoke him on our ski leg as a precursor to the overall pummeling the Fitzy team was going to deliver to the Brewers team. The only problem was I haven’t ski raced since high school and I rarely ski groomers at all. In fact I had to borrow some alpine skis the night before so I had something that was even possible to win on. My first turns on them would be racing side by side with 6 other skiers bombing down Amphitheater. Rob on the other hand skied fast on groomers all the time, and had raced the PPP ski leg for years. Of course that didn’t keep me from talking a big game! Although our bet only consisted of lunch and beers, I was determined to not lose.
By the time we got to the Village the road conditions did not improve. Snow had drifted over most of the road shoulder and icy slush was on top of the travel lanes. Jannine was, well, a bit panicky! “maybe I should go get a mountain bike from the shop, or cross tires for my road bike. Should I not do it? Will they cancel?” Of course my response was, “you’ll be fine, don’t worry.” Anyway, there was no time left for a gear change. We were heading to the race.
OK, let’s skip over the next hour and get to the good stuff. There I was, lined up with my business class competitors, skis 20′ in front of us, ready for the count down to begin (Lemans start - run and jump into your skis). 3 - 2 - 1 GO! I’m never considered a strong runner and I was borrowing skis I’d never skied before, so I was completely shocked when I pulled away from the stating line in the lead! Like a mad man I skated as fast as I could before falling into my tuck. At first I was psyched, but I quickly realized my lack of course inspection made it a little tough to be leading the charge. Not to mention the 6 other skiers that I knew were breathing down my neck right behind me. One guy slipped around me half way down and I was thankful to have someone to follow through through the lower gates. Besides, my race was with Rob and I was winning! Turn after turn we got closer to the bottom while I barely held on through the icy turns at full speed. We dropped into the last steep pitch and all I had to do was hold back the burning in my thighs for a little bit longer and “- BAM -” something slammed into me from behind and I was off my skis in a flat spin towards the next gate. I demolished the gate and came to a stop just up hill of my attacker. “You all right” we asked each other. Amazingly we were both fine after our 40 mph collision! Then I heard that question once again… from Rob as he skied by slowly… on his way to the finish line… and to victory! I limped into the finish line and handed off to Hawk for the cross country ski leg.
Meanwhile Jannine was pacing nervously waiting for her bike leg to begin. Reports from further up the course were worse than we saw on our drive in. Apparently a good deal of ice had covered the course as you neared the river leg. I had to scramble to the car and start driving to the river to help with the transition there so my nervousness escalated as I saw the conditions first hand. “She’ll be fine” I thought, “she’s a solid bike handler”. As I waited by the river for her to arrive I started to get reports from other riders coming in. “man, it’s so icy every pedal stroke my back wheel slipped out” and “Oh someone is going down for sure!”. Then she appeared, breathing heavy, and searching for Trisha to hand off the bib too… she was all business, safe and sound, and smoking fast!
In classic J9 fashion she shrugged off the conditions and said, “I felt great and the roads were no big deal at all!” She ended up 15th out of 131 riders both male and female! Unfortunately she missed fastest female bike time by 1.8 seconds! Kris Lunning did capture the fastest bike leg for the Men’s Fitzy team!
The Fitzy Men’s team captured second place after losing the lead to a somewhat questionable racing skull on the boat leg even though Hawk had an amazing skate ski and Tim dug deep for a brutal river leg. The Fitzy women held on for a sixth place finish after great performances by Kirsten on the downhill ski, Rebecca on the xc ski, Jannine on the bike, and Trisha on the boat.
We had lots of other Team mates out there representing the orange in fine fashion - Thanks!
Thanks again to the JH Ski Club for hosting another awesome PPP. It’s truly the best community event of the year! Click here for full results.
