Minimum altitude: 980 meters
Distance: 21.6 km
Slope Aspect: Various
Vertical Climbed: 330 meters (1,083 feet)
Vertical Descended: 326 meters
It was time for the 44th edition of the Foulee Blanche. I'd skied it back in 2019 then Covid interrupted things; or at least politicians did. I opted for the 20km event again as I have both an ankle sprain and a torn muscle in m stomach. The latter was the most problematic as it meant I couldn't apply full force on my poles. I arrived reasonably early but still ended up parking 2km from the village center as I don't really know the roads.
I picked up my bib and warmed up for a few km then joined the start pen. I spotted my colleague Valerie right up front so moved forward and she told me that the first climb would be a "bordel" and I should stay near the front. Then we were off, and indeed it was a bordel with people tripping over their skis and other people's poles and generally blocking everything. I got over the first climb and we turned south to Meaudre with the wind behind us, about 10km to cover. It was fast and the wind was blowing my poles around, I managed to plant one between my skis and I was down. I lost about a minute getting up and my tummy muscles were very painful when I got back on my skis. Oh dear.
I was able to make up some places on the fast straights by skate threeing, whereas a lot of people were doing some kind of skate one but they were annoyingly fast with their bad technique. The climbs were another spot to make up time but I didn't seem to be getting much glide on the descent. At Meaudre I stopped for a cup of tea, how very English! Most people bashed on. We were now heading back into a strong northerly. I hopped between skiers as I got back onto the back of the bunch; then another crash as we were mixed in with the other races and the narrow trail became really crowded with skis and poles and I'd tried to dart between two ladies who were blocking the trail.
I'd just overtaken a local skier and rather than pushing on she seemed to be setting a good pace and I tucked in behind after getting up from the semi-crash for the 6k back to Autrans. We were making up a lot of places and she was keeping me out of the wind. On the very last climb I got a bit off the pace and a few people I'd overtaken came past. We did a big loop around the village which I didn't expect. Turning back into the wind I got back into this group then came passed them at 500 meters to go. We came into the finish, the local girl was 20 seconds in front and I duked it out with 3 skiers from my group who'd managed to stick with me eventually coming 2nd out of that little race. I couldn't really sprint due to my injury
Overall I was 133 out of 433 (scratch); in 2019 I was out of 218 536 so that looks like an improvement despite my poor form.
Hard snow to start, a bit sticky around midday on the return. Strong wind from the north blowing over the Vercors Steppe. 3C at 9am.
