Six of the Northwest Vermont Ski Club members made their way to Maine and competed in the Rangeley Lakes Loppet. The drive over was quite an adventure as the road to Maine provided a rough ride combined with high winds, snow, and
impending darkness of dusk and night time. On race morning we awoke to warmer temperatures in the low teens, milder winds and a fresh coating of snow. With the way the winter has been, every little bit helps.

The new race course was an 11.5k loop with two easy, but significant climbs, with one easy down hill, and one, more technical down hill at the 5k mark. There was also plenty of flat as the course took you along a lake before going up the second climb to restart the loop. Half Marathoners did two loops, and Marathoners did four. Aaron Delfausse, Scott Magnan, Damian Bolduc, and Perry Bland started in the first wave at 9:30. Kevin Bessett was off in the second wave five minutes later, and Dhyan Nirmegh was out in the third wave five minutes after that.

Starting on the line, Aaron broke off early in the lead pack. Damian also had a strong start, but was not able to catch up to the lead pack, so skied a lot of the first lap with a small 2-3 person group composed of other skiers who fell of the fast pace of the first pack. Scott and Perry were in the main pack not too far behind. When the group got to the lake, Damian knew that he would not be able to maintain his pace alone, and saw that Scott was in a small chase pack closing in fast. At the start of the second lap, Scott's pack closed in and overtook Damian. He latched onto the group which was necessary due to the windy conditions. They were also closing in fast on an objective Scott has been working on all season.

With 6k to go in the second lap, the group overtook Jim Fredericks, who was in the 25k field along with Scott. Damian knew he could help Scott, and tried to keep himself positioned between Jim and Scott. Tactics were not relevant as Jim caught a tip and fell hard, and was not able to catch back on to the pack which was really moving at this point because a few of them were finishing their 25k race. Scott tried to make a few moves, and successful dropped a couple key 25k skiers before his finish, which placed him as the top Senior male, and third overall for the 25k race. The remainder pack kept pace for another lap and then fell apart, and Damian ended up in the middle of the mix tired from skiing harder for 3/4th's of a marathon than ever before. Even though he bonked pretty bad on the last 5k of the race, he hung on finished with an excellent time and place.

While all this was going on, Aaron was trading places in the first pack, which was slowly whittling away. Eventually Aaron skied off the front of it with some strong Williams College skiers and closed in on the elite four who worked together for the whole race. Aaron finished strong, right on Mark Gilbertson's tail and in the top ten. Meanwhile Perry was having an excellent race as well moving more freely with improved technique especially on the climbs. When he crested the hill for the finish, it was clear that all his climbing work on the Notch Road payed off as he charged to the finish winning his age group.

The second wave skiers had a tough day. The group failed to really pack up, and skiers were left to ski alone and exposed. This is a tough way to race a marathon especially in the wind, but even so Kevin Bessett finished well among the wave two athletes. Nirmegh was in a special M5 wave three which also experienced the fate of wave two, but he was able to work with one other competitor for the first lap, and then began picking up people from the previous waves. He could get a small break with these people while he worked his way by them. He skied way all the way up to wave one in this manner, placing third in his division and second in his wave. One other M5 skier apparently petitioned successfully to race in wave one.

All NWVT racers did extremely well over the weekend, and a few even had big break throughs. It is very exciting to see how far we have come along, and to see how the team environment has made us all improve. You know things are working when one person improves, the rest of us do too. I am sure that when official Rangeley results are posted NWVT will have impressive numbers. Lets keep our momentum as we sail into the last points race of the season next weekend.