PRESQUE ISLE – It was another fine day for the Maine Winter Sports Center team, especially Haley Johnson.

Johnson, who competes on the biathlon circuit in the U.S. and Europe, finished fifth overall and fourth among the U.S. finishers in the women’s cross country 30-kilometer marathon Sunday morning in the national cross-country long-distance championships at the Nordic Heritage Center.

As a biathlon athlete, Johnson doesn’t race distances longer than 15K. Even though Sunday’s race was double her longest biathlon race, she thought the effort between the two distances seemed similar.

“You’re wearing a rifle [in biathlon], and you have the mental effort of shooting,” Johnson said. “So that takes more energy. And the course layouts are much different. Biathlons are much tougher, where as here things get spread out a little more. That’s why I didn’t feel it would be too foreign coming into the race.”

Johnson was in the lead pack early in Sunday’s race, which she said had her feeling “delighted and surprised.”

Part of what drew Johnson to the race was the chance to ski with her cross country friends, whom she rarely sees during the winter season.

“We have such different schedules and we have different coaches and different coaching philosophies,” she said. “We rarely get to ski together, so this is awesome. I thank the whole field because it was a lot of fun.”

One of those friends is Kate Whitcomb, a former MWSC skier who is now based in Idaho in order to take advantage of the altitude there. Whitcomb outsprinted Johnson at the finish for third place in the U.S. race.

“We skied the entire thing together,” Whitcomb said. “I spoke with her after the race and told her she’s more than welcome to join our sport when she wants to put the gun down.”

Johnson is from Lake Placid, N.Y., but now lives and trains in Fort Kent with U.S. biathlon development team coach James Upham. She also skied for Bates College in Lewiston.

Johnson’s fifth was the top MWSC finish. Wilton native David Chamberlain, who led early in the men’s 50K, was 11th overall. Tom Keefe was 18th and Stockholm’s Russell Currier, a four-time world junior biathlon championships team member, was 21st.

Chamberlain’s wife, biathlon athlete BethAnn Chamberlain, was 15th in the women’s race.

Other Maine finishes included Matt Briggs of Colby College in Waterville, who was first in the combined master’s and junior’s 25K race.

Coke is it

The marathon skiers had a number of different ways to feed, as they put it, along the way Sunday. The choices at the feed stations included a watered-down light blue Gatorade, Fig Newtons, and a honey-flavored energy gel. Most of the top athletes had their coaches passing them bottles of energy drinks at different spots on the course.

The top in-race feed for the top two women’s finishers, however, was plain old flat Coca-Cola.

“Oh man, so good,” said Vermont’s Liz Stephen, who finished second overall in the 30K women’s race. “Do a 30K and then take a sip of Coke. It’s, like, the best stuff ever.”

First-place finisher Taz Mannix of Alaska said Coke’s combination of caffeine and sugar make it ideal, especially at the end of the race. During the race her U.S. national team coaches passed her first plain Gatorade, then Gatorade mixed with Coke, and then just Coke. Stephen had straight Coke the last 2-5 kilometers.

“It’s amazing,” Mannix said. “When you’re going hard, anything tastes good.”

Exchange blunders turn out OK

During a duathlon, where skiers trade in their classic skis and poles for free skate skis and poles, things can get a bit dicey in the exchange zone. Especially if there’s a big pack changing equipment at the same time.

Both Torin Koos and Dasha Gaiazova had their adventures there Friday, although both wound up on the podium.

Koos, one of the top-ranked U.S. skiers on the international circuit, purposely left a pair of different boots to change into during the exchange, which cost him some time despite charging into the exchange in second place.

Friday’s race was his first duathlon. The Leavenworth, Wash., native said he wanted to use his classic boots for the classic section, and his skate boots for the skate section. Other competitors used duathlon boots, which Koos has never used before.

“I didn’t feel like at national championships I should do something I’ve never done before,” said Koos, who had the third-best U.S. finish and was fifth overall. “So that’s why I changed my boots. It’s pretty difficult to go from classic to skating [because] you use different muscle groups and if you’re not used to that your legs feel real bad. I wanted the extra stability my skate boots would afford.”

Koos entered the stadium in second place with an extra boost knowing it would take him a long time to change footwear. The exchange took 40.7 seconds, by far the most time of anyone else Friday. He left the exchange area in the back of the chase pack.

Gaiazova, who was the first of the women into the exchange area, thought she clipped on her skate skis securely, but when she stepped away from the area where she left her classic skis, the skate ski on her right foot popped off.

“I thought, ‘Oh sweet, I’m gonna be the first one out’,” she said. “And I took one step and I looked down and thought, ‘Oh no. I’m not first anymore’.”

Gaiazova, who came in third overall, needed 28.5 seconds, the most of any of the top seven finishers, to make the exchange.

Getting back into the race was a matter of staying calm, she said. In her first duathlon several years ago in British Columbia, Gaiazova recalled, she stepped into one of her skate skis but accidentally kicked the other ski across a field. She had to run-hop on one ski to fetch the runaway.

“You have to be calm when you come in because a lot of things can happen when you’re nervous,” Gaiazova said.

Chamberlain nets top finish

Although he didn’t make it to the podium, Wilton native David Chamberlain’s eighth-place finish in the 30K men’s pursuit represents one of his better finishes this season.

“It wasn’t my best season,” he said. “There was a lot of transition. But I’m really looking forward to the next few years.”

Chamberlain and his wife, biathlon athlete BethAnn Chamberlain, moved to Caribou recently from Bethel so they could both train full-time at the Maine Winter Sports Center.

“We bought a house here and we’ll be here for the next two or three years,” he said. “BethAnn has a really good situation for biathlon here, and I’ve always loved what the Maine Winter Sports Center does. They’ve got a great thing going and I want to be a part of it.”

Chamberlain, a 1994 Mt. Blue of Farmington graduate, just missed making the 10-man 2006 Olympic team that was chosen based on a points system.