Sail, Part 2

So, when we left me I was four miles into a 26-mile marathon, with no draft, a near-max heartrate, a huge headwind, a nice case of heartburn, and a strong sense of foreboding.

It seemed that "Sail" was about to become "Fail."

And then I heard a glorious sound; the sound of skaters approaching from the rear.  It seems that the paceline had indeed broken up, and a perfectly sized--and paced--faction was now approaching from behind to save my sorry butt.

So I happily jumped into the line, and there I stayed.  I took my share of pulls, and enjoyed the draft when I had it.  Things seemed to be going well as we neared the halfway point--even my heartburn was beginning to behave itself.  So when we passed the "13" mile marker, I looked confidently at my watch, expecting to see a fairly good time.

52 minutes.

Wait...what?

Last year I was at 44 minutes at the halfway point; I knew we had a headwind this year, but 52 was ridiculous!

Still, there was nothing to do but "keep on keepin' on."  So I did, but it was getting harder--harder physically, but mostly harder mentally.  My little friend "Nagging Self-Doubt" had turned up again, and began whispering sweet nothings in my ear.  Stuff like "This is hard.  You can't do this for 13 more miles.  Why don't you drop out of the paceline and take it easy?"  Stuff that I did not want to hear, yet that was strangely seductive.

But I fought it.  I reminded myself of just how many tough things I have done, from marathons to a 10K on ice to brutal Crossfit workouts.  And when that wasn't enough, I reminded myself that, with a headwind like this, dropping from the pack and going solo was likely to guarantee me another two hours of skating.

That was enough to keep me going.

Then, somewhere around mile 14 or so, things improved considerably.

My happy paceline of five or so skaters had been occasionally overtaking single skaters, presumably those poor souls unfortunate enough to be dropped from the previous wave.  Most just looked forlornly at us as we sailed past, but one group stuck.  In fact, they did more than stick.  One, a fellow a bit older than I am, hopped briskly to the front of our paceline and offered to pull.  His daughter, he said, was skating with him, and he wanted to get into a good paceline and pull for her.

And pull he did.  For the entire rest of the race, right up until the final sprint up the exit ramp hill, he pulled us.  In fact, he pulled us so well that we had to ask him to slow down a few times.  He was, in short, a machine.  Since I, happily drafting in third place behind a teammate and not having to take the occasional pull anymore, now had more breath to work with and was feeling quite grateful, I asked our orange-clad workhorse a bit about himself.  His name was Nick, he said, he was 58, his daughter was 18, and they were from Canada.

Apparently they grow them strong in Canada.

And so we followed our Canadian Savior for the second half of the race.  I felt bad when we hit the uphill exit ramp and the paceline from behind us began sprinting past on both sides.  I jumped in front of Nick and offered to pull him up the hill--it seemed the least I could do--but he declined, saying he'd done his job getting his daughter to that point and was happy with where he was.  So I went as hard as I could, up the hill, down the hill, around the corner, and down the final straightaway (finally, a tailwind!).  When I crossed the line I looked at my watch.  1:47 something.  Lovely, I thought.   A Personal Worst.

As soon as I coasted to a stop I began looking for our Canadian Savior.  Here I am, to the right in this picture, shaking the hand of the fellow in orange and thanking him profusely for the pull.

Thanks, eh.

And then EB and I wandered the post-race scene, eating free food, chatting with fellow racers, and waiting vainly for results.  I joined in the Max Muscle post-race picture...

...and then it was time to leave.  We hadn't seen results yet, but we were heading up the shore to EB's and my parents, and we needed to get there in time to make dinner.  Besides, the Hubster was completely worn out from dealing with all of Keira's admirers all morning; apparently every dog lover in the twin ports had mobbed her while I was wandering around drinking chocolate milk and waiting for results.

So we headed north.  Finally, at about 8 o'clock that night (after a fabulous steak dinner topped off with cupcakes in honor of Sherpa Boy's birthday), I remembered that I hadn't yet checked the results online.  So I pulled out my phone and looked them up...

...and found that EB had come in second in her age group!

And then I looked further and found that I had come in second in my age group as well!

Apparently the head wind was so hideous that my time--21 minutes slower than my time last year--was actually not bad.  Second is my highest place ever in the NSIM, so I was thrilled.  EB beat me by seven minutes, though, which doesn't bode well for next year, when we'll be in the same age group.

Still, if I remember not to attack at three miles and if I find a nice Canadian to draft off of, maybe I'll be able to keep up with her...