So I have noticed one decidedly difficult part of keeping a blog. Either there is not much interesting going on and therefore very little reason to write, or there is a ton of interesting stuff going on and no time to write. So anyway, there has been a lot going on and thus no blog posts. I'll attempt to catch up on much of it here, which will make for a long post mostly about skiing.
Vinterfest: My hometown race (not my current hometown, but the home where I grew up.) I have won this race the last two years, so I came into it with high expectations. The weather was really cold, so Start green was a no brainer. Since it is only a 20k I didn't even bother to put on the flouros. The race broke up quickly with 3 of us getting off the front right away. Chip Tabor I recognized as the guy I out sprinted last year to win this race, and another guy in a skinnyski suit who turned out to be Ben Popp. Ben put in a hard surge early but when it became clear he wasn't going to walk away things settled down and we all worked through a couple rotations. I noticed the other guys skis were running a bit faster than mine, and since they were teammates (as little as that means in citizen skiing) I let them do a good bit of the work. After climbing the courses tough hill on the second lap I put in a hard surge to see what the other two had left in the legs. Ben covered my move no problem and Chip did at first but then started to fade. Seeing that I wasn't going to lose Ben I pulled aside and let him pull for a bit. This brought the pace down and Chip caught back on. I knew if it came down to a run down the last 1k downhill I would be in trouble, so with about 2.5k left I really turned on the jets. Once again Chip fell off, but Ben hung in there and sure enough on the downhill he zipped by and I couldn't hold on to him. Second place is still a good finish, both Chip and Ben are great skiers and were really fun to ski with, but I was a bit disappointed to lose the race. Plenty of good company for that race - my teammates Jim and Paul came and raced, as did Emily and Caitlin, and Erik and Loren Teig and Elena came to cheer us racers on. Then it was off to Wapo for some broomball, where I actually scored goals, including the winning goal. I missed way more than I made, but when most NHL goalies have a save percentage around 90% I'm guessing that's kind of the norm for this kind of sport.
Swimming Pool: When I got home Sunday from what was a pretty good weekend home I walked in my basement right into a puddle of water. One of my pipes to an external faucet had burst in the -20 weather over the weekend and my entire basement floor was in about 1" of standing water. I shut off the water main (which was very encrusted and continued to leak), called in an insurance claim, and got to work hauling stuff outside into the garage (it was still very cold so things like rugs froze by the time I got them up the 3 stairs from the basement to the garage. I vacuumed and squeegeed until I was too tired to do any more and then went to bed. The next day the insurance adjuster stopped out and got a company in to start drying things and a plumber in to fix the broken pipe (which my insurance covered) and the leaky main valve (which it didn't). For the next week my house was very loud and my basement circuits were all at full load running the fans and dehumidifiers. Things did dry out though, and all the carpets but one were saved. Things are still not put back together, so I mostly stay out of the basement still because it is sad to go down there.
Northfield Racing: Saturday the 29th and my house was still loud, so I went ski racing. That morning there was a 6k put on by the high school. It came down quickly to me and one college skier from Carleton (Ryan Skinner) who put a gap on a couple more Carleton skiers. He was moving very well and the pace of the very short race took me a bit by surprise, but on the sharp corner on the back of the course he was too fast and ended up in the weeds and deep snow. I made the corner and that was the last I saw of anyone. If I hadn't just been beat in a sprint finish the weekend before I might have slowed to let him up and make the race interesting, but I needed a confidence booster. Then that afternoon was the Crazy Carleton Classic relays. Jim and I picked up a 3rd racer and hung on for Second place overall (I skied the fastest split on the day, tied to the second with Ryan).
William O'Brien
I like this state park and the race here is pretty good, although I never manage to pull out a result I'm happy with. I lost the lead pack early on the double pole section, but pulled them back in when we hit the hills on the first lap. I hung with them pretty well until the second lap when the hills gave way to more double poling, at which point the lead group (Including Evan and Piotr) pulled away from me. It was fun to know I can almost ski with those guys, and on top of a good Seeley result it looks like my classic skiing is starting to catch up to my skating.
City of Lakes
Went for bib pickup and sprint watching on Saturday, stopped by the Finn Sisu booth to say hi to Jallie and Devin, and ended up buying some pure flouros. I was hoping to erase my bad result of last year at this race, and to continue my streak of not getting beat by any girls, and if a bit of really expensive wax gave me that edge I'd be willing to give it a try. Devin was nice enough to put the TK-72 on my skis, and even some magic liquid flouros to boot. My friend Annie separated her shoulder playing Broomball, so I went to ski the Luminary Loppet with her (she walked, no skiing by doctors orders), and ran into Mike Kosloski out there amidst the reported 10,000+ skiers who took to the lake that evening. Then it was off for a pasta supper and to bed.
Race morning was warm, but thankfully below freezing. The course had not set up well so things were soft, but the skis were rockets, I could tell right away. Travis and I watched the classic race take off, and went to get in our warmup. We did the par 3 and were just getting back to the start area when we heard the 2 minute call for our race. Oops, I had gotten a bad spot at this start last year and payed for it, now it seemed history was planning to repeat itself again. I quick threw off my warmups and just dropped them out of the way off the side of the trail, no time to find my bag and pack things away. I ended up near the back of the wave next to Jesse Fark (the women and men were starting together this year, so at least I would know if I was getting girled while I was racing). I took the start pretty slow, wanting to take care of my poles and keep from having to snowplow on the fast skis. I took the Monson's mound skier choice, who wouldn't sign up for more hills whenever possible, but didn't get the cutoff I wanted on several other splits. I passed Christina Owen at about 3k, and caught Travis and Caitlin Compton going up the sledding hill.
Once I got ahead of Caitlin and hit the front nine I relaxed a bit and just decided to do what I could to keep reeling people in. I saw Andy Brown well out ahead of me and figured I wouldn't have a shot at him. I passed a couple groups here and there, but every time I passed a group of spectators they would be cheering for the lead woman. I looked back and sure enough Caitlin was hanging right in there in the train I was pulling.
Now I decided I had better keep the pedal to the metal or I could be in trouble if Caitlin was still behind me heading up main street. I have no doubt that she is a better skier, and a much better sprinter than I am. I was just hoping to work hard enough that she couldn't hold the pace. I hammered up Jar hill, across Wirth lake, and back into the Butler/Bog area. I kept pretty relaxed on the climbs, making my skates as long as possible without losing speed. When we hit the parking lot in Eloise Butler (now snow covered) I passed Andy Brown and warned him that we had girl trouble. There are some good pictures on Skinnyski of me pushing up the hill after the descent down the road from the parking lot with Andy and Caitlin both in tow. I kept the pace up through the Bog, but couldn't lose either of them, then relaxed a bit behind a couple guys we caught. I tried to pass on Cedar lake, but once you got off the one well skated lane things got much slower and I was making no ground. I attacked again once back in the woods by the train tracks and managed to take over the pack. I kept that lead and conserved energy, and somehow also managed to drop Andy and Caitlin off the back of the pack. I heard a couple guys behind me scheming to make a break, so I preempted them and turned up the pace. I managed to break up that attack and my group was down to myself and one other skier. We caught Chip Tabor with just over 1km to go, but he surged and managed to leave us behind once we got off the lakes. The other guy with me also got by me (see this is the reason I didn't want to have Caitlin or Andy right on my heels this late in the race) and I cruised in to finish 20th, a far sight better than my last years performance. Andy was only about 30 seconds behind me, and Caitlin another 20 or so behind him, good company for me to be in I figure. I was hoping this race would set me up well to contend for the Hoigaards Challenge series this year, but considering Matt and Evan both won their respective races I think I may be out of the running for the series.
Mora Vasaloppet
This is a race that U of M skiers seem to love, maybe because the club pays for the entrance fees, maybe because most of them win horses, I don't know. I have one reason for going to this race, the blueberry soup at the end, and cheering for other skiers I guess. After a spectacularly bad Vasa a few years ago in which I lost to Elspeth Ronnander I decided to learn how to classic ski and switch over to that race. This was my 3rd year in the classic race, and every year I finish 5th in my age group despite making large strides (pun intended) in my classic skiing. Part of the reason is that my double pole is still dismal. A combination of bad technique, lack of upper body strength, and too much kick wax makes this a bad choice for classic races for me to do since Mora is very flat and normal people sometimes decide to ski this classic race on skate skis, a feat usually accomplished by world cup sprinters and FIS marathon cup winners. Despite that I fought my way to 13th overall and skied most of the race with Dave Nelson and Andy Shackel, good company indeed. I made the decision to switch back to the long skate next year when I was double poling behind Andy and taking two poles for every one of his. I have a large height advantage on him, so the opposite should be true. This just demonstrates how bad my double pole is, and also how good my fitness was at this point of the season.
This is the point of the season where the wheels kind of blew off the cart however. Two weeks to go until the Birkie and I started to come down with a cold. It was nagging for a couple days then flat out bad by Thursday and Friday. Bad enough that I did little skiing and no speed work for the week. I felt like I had mostly shaken it by Saturday in time for the Finlandia however.
Minnesota Finlandia
The trek all the way up to Bemidji is worth it for this wonderful race, and the great hospitality of the Buessler family who puts us U of M skiers up every year. With Nate Porath back in Northfield getting moved into his new house and the Minnesota Skinnyski series already decided the race field in the Pursuit race, my Finlandia choice every year, was weaker than usual, enough so that I thought I might have a chance to win it. The morning was very cold, it hurt to breathe. I still went with thinner gloves, on Travis's advice, and so I could more easily make the transition to the skate skis. The classic portion of this race is pretty double pole heavy with couple beastly climbs. I was sitting good through the climbs, but couldn't hold on to the leaders. I did manage to pull back one guy also dropped off the lead pack. I came into the transition with the leaders already out of sight on the skate leg. The second part of the course has more hills, and I worked them as hard as I could to try shaking off Phil Rogers, the skier I caught in the classic leg. I had just gapped him a bit when I saw the leaders just ahead. I pushed to catch up to them, but then sat in and let them pull me along for a bit, which allowed Phil to catch back on. I tried a couple attacks but couldn't get free, so with 2km to go I took the lead and really pushed it. Much like the Vinterfest this was not a successful tactic. Phil and I put a small gap into the other two skiers, but he went around me pretty easily in the home stretch to take the win.
Sickness really kicked into overdrive after Finlandia. I don't know if it was the cold race or if the sickness was just slow to set in, but I was out of commission most of the week. I didn't ski at all until Friday, and I could tell then that things weren't all clear. Still, it's the Birkie, so I was pumped to get out and race, especially since I would be wearing bib 64.
American Birkebeiner
The race morning was cold, forecast was for 1F at race start, but I later heard it was -9F when the Elite wave went off. Despite this the course was rock hard and rocket fast. I had trouble keeping my skis under me as they were running so fast and kept getting pulled into the corduroy. I free skated more than I had my poles in the snow until we got up to powerline. By this point my shins were already shot, so I knew that things were going to be trouble since they don't recover quickly. I was starting to get pretty cold by this point too, so I hit the hills pretty hard in hopes of working up some heat. Not very successful since the down hills immediately chilled me back out. Even the 7k hill was no big thing this day. Still, I knew I was flying and the race would be fast if nothing else. It seems like I blinked and there was the 9k food stop already. Wow, how did that happen? I knew by this point I was losing ground. I had watched Travis and Andy cruise by me a couple km earlier and was skiing with Blake. I was getting colder too, and my core was actually starting to cool, so that worried me a bit, that never happens in races. I took my feeds and kept the pace in control, waiting for my shin muscles to loosen up so I could crank things up. At OO the course suddenly got noticeably slower, finally allowing the balance muscles the rest and recovery they needed. I started to up the work rate from this point on and was starting to pull people back. It was a slow process however, since my skis, fast though they were, were not keeping up on the downhills, so I ended up passing the same people several times, and had an even harder time dropping the people I passed. Still, I was finally working hard enough to start warming up and was getting things back under control. The cold weather and remaining congestion from my sickness made breathing hard, but with the Birkie imparted adrenaline surge going that was easy enough to overcome. Like many Birkies there seemed to be little of significance in the second half. By the time I hit the lakes I was sure that the lead women were faster than me, but was still disappointed to get tracked by Caitlin Compton about half way across the lake. Her, an APU skier, and Evelyn Dong buzzed by so I hopped on the back of that train figuring I'd get a superb view of the women's finish if I could hang with them. They also helped pull me past a few more guys on the way. On main street Evelyn was clearly out of gas, so I snuck around her and could have maybe went after the first two, but since I knew they had already beat me on time I had no motivation to get in the way of Caitlin's victory pictures, and so snuck over to the side to finish unobtrusively as possible.
I went to the changing tents and put on all the clothes I had, but still couldn't stop shivering until I had put down about 3 bowls of soup and everything else I could get my hands on. I did a bit of cheering but was just freezing cold and had to go back to the warming tent often. Jeff had a great race and made the jump to wave 1 after finishing second in wave 3 behind only Grant Dornfield. Dave raced the classic race and finished respectably considering his current condition. Annie did the Prince Haakon race and did very well for missing a month of skiing, having to skate, and only having one arm.
That wraps up the ski racing season. There was still some fantastic skiing after this point though, so that will be the next post. I need to step up the posting pace, or running season will be under way before I finish the ski season.
