US Nationals: Tough day

Happy New Year to all! I am currently in Maine, staying in a small town called Andover. The event is US Nationals and started today with a 30km classic. The races are hosted by the Chisolm Ski Club, at Black Mountain, just outside of Rumford, ME. Nobody knew what to expect except adversity, with the forecast calling for snow, turning to freezing rain and then turning to rain. That's exactly what we got, and the timing couldn't have been much worse. We changed from hard wax to klister close to the start, and I ended up having marginal grip the first two 7.5km laps dwindling to no grip on the last lap. It was very humbling to run outside of the track on some very gradual uphills, at times I would just double pole to try and keep the speed up a bit. At any rate I hope I haven't overdone it; from what I heard most of the guys in my situation did not finish, most likely to save themselves for the races next week. I was feeling pretty good, so it was disappointing to not be able to leave it out on the track.