True to Quebec style it poured rain throughout the night and into this morning, accompanied by a howling wind that woke a few of us up in the night. We had an hour of practice this morning, which was basically just enough time for one practice run (remember the 20 minute lift ride...).
The course was actually in decent condition given the rains of the night. The mud was nice and thin and fast, and the roots and rocks had a fair amount of traction. The holes were getting a bit bigger but that's to be expected with so many riders grabbing brakes down a fast course in the mud. I had my one practice run and headed back up for seeding. Thankfully the rains had stopped by then but it was still very much a goggle + tear off type of run.
I've been running my Minions all weekend, and so far they've been working great. I do see a few mud tires out there though and apparently they're working fine on all the roots and rocks. The rain seems to have the worst effect on the bottom section - it's a bit flatter and flowy, so the water just sticks around and produces nice big mud pits. It kills the speed quite a bit so the whole end section feels quite a bit slower than the top part.
My seeding run went decently - decided to play it safe and try and keep the shiny side up. I had a small encounter with a large tree in a mud pit, but it was fairly quick and painless... just took a bit of time.
I came in second, a long ways behind Claire Buchar who easily took first place. In third was Anne Laplante, fourth was Rebecca McQueen, and fifth was Katrina Strand.
On the men's side it was Yann Gauvin in first, Dean Tennant in second, Rob Fraser in third, Simon Garstin in fourth, and Samual Vallee in fifth out of 45 elites. Kyle Marshall took first in the juniors, with Remi Gauvin in second and Trenton Zoobkoff in third.
The sun is shining now so the mud is getting ugly... aka thick and sticky. Fingers crossed that it will rain tomorrow!
