Patrouille des Glaciers - race report. As always, it's long so skip at will or grab a cuppa a settle in. The race itself was 29km and m of vertical in really challenging snow conditions but of course the race is actually the very last part of the journey. This winter I ended up being away very much more than I thought I would.
I have learned so much, seen so much more of the skimo season than I normally do and got to know better than before the federation, the elite athletes and all the other people that make the World Cup work.
However, this meant my training was sporadic. Partly due to being away so much, partly due to being tired and not always prioritising it when I was at home. We also started as a team who had, as it turned out, different visions of what was involved in training and how to go about that. This led to quite a few stressful conversations and tests on friendships which, thankfully, withstood the test.
Fast forward to about a month ago and our reserve was called in to play the race is entered with 3 racers and a reserve and we had only one opportunity to skin together as a team before the race.
Cough meds and rest seemed to be the only options the doctor could give so we kept our fingers crossed and got to the meeting point at the barracks in Sion at 1am on Sunday morning. We had devised a strategy that seemed to suit our health situation as it turned out Mini also was coming down with the same chest infection! We were all determined to get to Verbier, but we needed to be sensible. We would start and decide at the first check point whether we felt we could continue.
