Suffering is part of any long-distance race, be it on foot, bicycle or cross-country skis. Indeed, endurance athletes hunger for a burning in their lungs, an ache in their legs. Such pain is addictive — and at some races it is particularly available.
So it was last Thursday night, as this season’s third Headlamp Hustle ski race played out beneath the lights on the steep hills of the Dublin School Outdoor Center. The new snow was soft and hard to move through, and the course for this race – twisting and 2.9 miles long – had merciless hills. I know this firsthand as I was, per usual, competing in the race – and for the first half-mile, I actually led the race.
Was it wise for a grizzled 61-year-old journalist to leap from the start line with unbridled gusto? It was not. When the eventual winner, Rob Riley, passed me on a turn, I had nothing. Riley, a 53-year-old Canterbury resident, glided up the hill before us with ease. He would soon notch a decisive victory, and the race, really, was a battle for second place.
Just behind me, Lindsey Burkhardt, a 43-year-old Dublin photographer, and Mark Florenz, a 47-year-old Keene pig farmer, were neck and neck – and also hot on my heels. I could hear their skis scratching at the snow. And I was dying. Could I hang on?
The race zigzagged almost to the top of Dublin’s Beech Hill, on narrow paths deep in the woods, and then we sped downwards over a series of S turns that were pleasantly cruiseable in the soft snow. When we reached the almost flat field near the warming hut with 200 yards to go, I’d built up a narrow but sufficient lead. I finished second in 17:06, far back from Riley’s 16:01. Florenz, fifth at each of the first two Hustles, reached the podium this time, finishing in 17:10. Burkhardt was close behind in 17:15.
Burkhardt has handily won the women’s division of all three Headlamp Hustles. After the race, sitting inside, nursing cold fingers, she regarded it as a medley of beautiful moments. “When we started to climb the hill,” she recalled, “I could see the moon ahead of me.”
The evening’s suffering was already in the rear mirror. It was already being reimagined as a pleasant memory. And as the racers slipped out of their ski boots, into their street shoes, they were already honing a hunger for their next dose of pain.
The fourth race of the Headlamp Hustle Series is Feb. 5 at 6:15 p.m. Register online at dublinxc.com.
