I did my usual thing and took to the front off the start and with only minor trailbreaking in a couple of cm's of new snow, me and Eric were clear at the top of the first climb. Eric took charge on the 2nd climb picking his route and scanning for course markings, "trading off" to me after overshooting a switchback after which I finished off the trailbreaking which ended up being quite deep in the fan up to the base of the bootpack. I could see a group of 4 below, but fortunately that was as close as they would get. The pace along the flat section towards West Ymir was brisk. I fueled up at the top of the descent and dropped in right behind Eric, only to have him gradually disappear into the distance and leave the skins-on transition before I even got there.
On the final climb, I pushed hard to try to close the gap although it was obvious there were a couple of short spots where Eric did some significant trailbreaking. After pushing hard and running the flat section of the bootpack, I counted my time gap, only to lose another minute on the descent to the finish line. So obviously I need to work on my downhill skiing to be more competitive at this level.
The next race is the Steep Dreams at Panorama, so I decided to take a week off of work to do some skiing.
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