vert 170

I was pretty pumped to find out that my MecE 460 presentation would be earlier in the day, to give me time to get to Calgary to race the Vert180. The presentation went well, we didn't get destroyed by any questions from the judges, and one of the judges, who works for a company competing with out project sponsor, was handing out business cards at the end.

So, I set off for Calgary at 2pm, but the roads were pretty icy, and it took me an extra hour to get there. I rolled into the COP parking lot after 6pm got my shit together quickly (leaving my music, and HR monitor in the car), but by the time I figured out where on the hill the race started, they had already started. I was able to start late and instantly went into kill mode.

It took me a couple of laps to get dialed in (unfog glasses, remove skin sheets from skins), but after that I was feeling good, until about 45mins to go, as my left hip flexor was killing me (need to do more skinning on the trekker/Explosiv setup to build strength!).

All of the fast guys (and girls) were racing on relay teams, so I ended up winning, even with all my bumbles during the first 30min of racing. I got a pretty sick down jacket from MEC, and also collected my RAB national team jacket, so I'm pretty much a bird.

I came with 1 down jacket, and left with 3.

The organizers did a swell job, and I even got to sleep at Niall's house when I decided that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to drive to Canmore. Fun race, good swag, skied some pow at COP and threw some tricks off a jump on the course.