This week’s workout certainly met and exceeded expectations. What a night! Karl and I decided that enough was enough and it was time to test the team’s mettle. To save the anticipation – the team didn’t disappoint (by much!!).

We picked two equal teams of five skiers and placed a skier from each team at 1 of 5 pylons set up along the yellow trail (~1.3 km). The idea was that each team member would sprint the distance between two pylons and hand off to their teammate so that together the team could complete the trail as quickly as possible. The catch (and the test) was that each team had to collectively ski 5 laps before Karl and I completed 5 laps individually. Since we still had an odd number of skiers, and he won last week’s TT, we invited Ed to ski 5 laps as well.

The event got off to a smooth start until we got to a pylon that had only one skier standing at it! It would seem I had forgotten to include the start/finish as a pylon and we ended up with one extra on course. Not to worry as it was nothing that a mid-race shuffle of skiers and the removal of the extra cone wouldn’t fix. Each team had one skier that had to ski one extra leg on the first lap so it equaled out in the end (although one team’s skier had to double up on a tougher section of the course than the other team?!).

Everyone skied very hard and put in a great effort on the well packed and icy snow. Yet, despite their best efforts I finished first in a time of 19:43 and Karl finished second with a time of 20:17. The first team crossed the line, not too far behind, with a time of 20:39. Ed put in a great effort to finish close behind them with a time of 21:01. He bravely held off team 2 which finished close on his heels in a time of 21:09. The event was an interesting change to the usual formats and I think everyone enjoyed themselves – I was working too hard to tell!

Team 1:
Aaron, Carol, Lorne, Ros and Jan

Team 2:
Mark, Don, Dave M., Erin F. and Dave P.

The crew that made it out for the showdown

The social was a roaring good time. McCoy’s is a great establishment in the perfect location for our socializing needs. We had a few beverages, burgers and enjoyed rousing conversation well into the wee hours of the evening. The team presented Karl and I with very nice framed mementos of the season. Thanks again for the thoughtful gifts.

I’ve included my heart rate profile from the event for those interested! You can certainly see where each lap is thanks to the yellow’s trail profile. The last two laps I was working pretty hard up the main trail!