Minimum altitude: 1,613 meters
Distance: 17.8 km
Slope Aspect: North-East
Vertical Climbed: 384 meters (1,260 feet)
Vertical Descended: 384 meters
Final compet. of the season. Basically a tour of the black piste (Justine Braisaz) at les Saisies. I was feeling on great form having caught a virus the week before and in the cold air I had some trouble breathing. The start was early, 9am, and it had snowed heavily on Friday and Saturday. After taking the Gorges d'Arly the road was white from the turn off and the snow quite deep after Crest Voland. The EPS had to think hard as I climbed the 10% grade out of Crest. Fortunately the snow plough had done a good job on the hairpins, cleaning back to the road to maintain some grip and luckily no-one was coming the other way once I cleared the village. Still, squeaky bum time.
I picked up my bib, all very well organized. Chatted to some other people from the club who were skiing (colleague and Brit James Clugnet would come second in the 42k race, not bad for a sprinter) and we were off. The usual "bordel" of broken poles and fallen skiers at the start and we climbed almost immediately (800m), which I wasn't expecting. This caused a tailback and I might have been better served getting nearer the front and letting others battle to get past me; it would have taken some time to catch up. However I didn't have the form for such shenanigans. There was a big descent then what I remember about les Saisies, for a flat ski area, you are climbing or descending all the time. At 3.5k the big climb began, on paper seemingly not bad: 150m over 4.5km but lots of little ups and downs and fresh snow on the climbs that wasn't easy. The km boards didn't count down quickly but at least they had some indication. Up on the high plateau I took a quick pit stop for tea and and an orange at 9km thinking I had another 12k to do. A fit young lady pulled by (Constance Bouchage, a former junior swimming champ) and I was able to stay with her until the technical descent where she was able to pull away. It was a kind of zig-zag border cross and with my sunnies I had trouble seeing the edge of the trail. Judging by the holes in the snow other people had had a similar issue. On the last climb at 17k I had both her and Genevieve Truc-Vallet in my sights but instead of a final 4k loop where I might have been able to catch some of that group we did a last climb to the finish at 17.75km. A bit short changed. Anyway all good experience even if my performance was not that note worthy.
Fresh snow, fairly hard work on the edges of the trail, ok in the middle and under trees which had prevented the fresh snow from hitting the tracks.
