spin / second sole multisport team

The West End Tavern’s Chili Bowl has for years marked the start of the Cleveland Running Scene. Every year, it seems to come sooner and sooner… interesting. This year, Brandy Smith and Paul Lentini were there to test their early season legs. Brandy had a nice sub-8 race, finishing in 24:37. Paul met his race goal of not re-viewing the prior night’s dinner, so all’s well that ends well there.

Mike Schaefer has been racing on his nordic skis a lot, too. He’s got a race report this week from the North American VASA, where he finished the 27k Freestyle race in 7th overall, out of 120 men. Mike also had a nice result this weekend at the Nordic Flurry, northeast Ohio’s only premier XC races. We’ll have to wait for that report– the results aren’t up yet.

Click through for the reports– and to see what Paul was hoping to NOT see again on Saturday morning!

From Paul:

So it’s Friday night and I’m at the Q enjoying a rather exciting Monsters game that ended in a shoot-out win when in the middle of overtime I receive a text from Brandy asking if I’m running the Chili Bowl tomorrow. My first thought “The Chili Bowl is tomorrow?” We then exchange several texts about the time of the race, the distance and the times others are planning on running. All the while I’m watching a very exciting end to the hockey game. So caught up in the moment I agree to run in the morning (less than 11 hours from then) on the well planned pre-race meal of arena hot-dogs, nachos and soda. Yummy! I figure the race will be a success if I don’t re-view any of the above mentioned food during or after the race. Well it wasn’t a PR but considering how much (or little) running I’ve been doing and that the PR was done in an IM training year I can’t complain about the results.

From Mike:

Did the 27K today (first race of the year for me, since PA race had too much snow for driving (and I was feeling under the weather). Still a bit suggish after 2 days of antibiotics, but I had fast skis and a lot of motivation given so few racing opportunities this year. The course is pretty hilly, especially in the first 12K, so I definitely had a rude awakening. The early hills broke up the lead pack by 8K, and I found myself in a nice trio, sitting in 6th place when the big climbs were behind us. Figured it was not too bad for a big guy on soft new snow. Lungs and legs were pretty equally matched, both really taxed at HR 182 bpm average between 4 and 12 K. (~93% of max I think). I skied the whole race with Jason Zimmerman (triathlete from PA some of you know.) Great guy!. We worked together for ~10K to chase down a lone skiier, then he toasted me on the last climb. Managed finish 7th OA / and 2nd AG. (~120 skiers).

Filed under: 2010 | Tagged: 5k, chili bowl, cross-country skiing, results rehash, VASA |