ski-o! race 2:20:00 [3] *** 30.0 km (4:40 / km) +500m 4:18 / km
spiked:23/24c shoes: 12 fischer scs skio (96)
WCup Long. Three loops, each down into the valleys from the middle, then a climb and back down, then back up for some long legs through roughly flat forest roads. Times three. Not particularly interesting, since the good legs (in the valleys) were very close to the same on each loop, plus we'd already done them in the middle. But I still made a pretty solid mistake on the first loop, where I was following along just fine in the flat forest bit then my brain just completely blanked and I had no idea where I was. Relocated off another control that was on a funny shaped trail, but it blew a couple minutes. Then just suffer fest for two more loops. Warm temps (+2) and basically raining.
Finished just as they were finishing up the medal ceremony, so I changed in the field and ran to the bus, back to the hotel, showered and packed, then 6 hour bus to Kiev with everybody else for the charter flight to KZ for round 3. We get to the airport 1.5 hours before the flight, about 40 of us, and with maybe 1200 skis and a ridiculous amount of waxing benches and trunks. Airline says: charter flight? no there is no such thing. you are on the regular flight, and you can pay for all your extra luggage. $15 per kilo over 20. The swiss were at $600, and the norwegians at $900 and counting. The swedes weren't playing that game so they called up the 'charter flight' people and had some words, and an hour later everything was free. Except none of us (or our mountain of gear) had checked in yet and the flight was leaving in 10 minutes. Magically they fit all our stuff on board (well except they didn't have seats for two of the Finnish coaches), and we only took off 1.5 hours late. The 'normal' passengers on the flight seemed somewhat pissed.