Racing, Training, Dancing, and more!

I probably should have had this post up a few days ago, last weekend is old news by now, but here goes anyway.  Last weekend was pretty exciting and event filled, so there is news to share.

Saturday morning kicked off the ski racing season with the Hoigaards/Breadsmith relays.  I have raced this with Dave Anderson several times in the past, but was racing with Nate this year.  The format is 6x1.5km skate technique, so each person races 3 times.  I was our scramble leg since Nate has a stronger finish than me and typically the stronger racer goes second since that is where a close race is won.  The first racer just has to keep the team in contention.  Unfortunately I couldn't even do that.  Not through any fault of my own really.  I'm not a strong enough skier to keep up with Matt Liebsch, that is why he is racing to earn a spot on the US Olympic team and I'm racing to hold on to an elite wave spot at the Birkie.  I paced much better than I have in relays past, but was still flooding with lactic acid by the end of my last leg.  Nate and I held our own well and finished 3rd behind Matt Liebsch/Doug Debold and a St. Olaf team.

The race was only the beginning however.  After a short cooldown the Vakava skiers got together for some video technique work and a couple hours of easy skiing.  By the end of the day I ended up with somewhere around 4 hours on skis, not too bad.  My skate technique is coming along, but so much of skating is so ingrained for me that I fall back into bad habits easily.  Here is a video of me during the race, I haven't attached video before, so hopefully it works.

  

I got home just long enough to shower and play a little bit of Mass Effect.  I really didn't play video games all summer, but something about wintertime makes me crave a bit of time curled up in front of a computer screen every day.  I headed back up to the cities for Emily's family tree decorating party.  This is a pretty spectacular event with a huge tree that is decorated by people climbing ladders with hangars full of ornaments and secured by climbing harnesses with belays and all.  Then once the tree is decorated the tinsel is shot onto the tree by a couple cannons made from modified leaf blowers.

After the tree decorating party I went out with my friend Krystal to meet her former roommate Elizabeth (also Emily's former roommate, but that's another story altogether) and friends for some dancing.  The place we chose to go to has a reputation for being pretty hopping, but when we got there it was dead.  After waiting around for about a half hour and drinking a strange martini with maple syrup and bitters in it, our group decided to take on the challenge and get the dancing started.  After a few songs others started to join in and by the time we left things were in full swing.  We stayed up and talked for a while after the dancing, so it was 1:30 by the time I got to sleep.

The next morning I dropped Krystal off at the Zen center for their morning service, or whatever it's called, and headed up to French park to meet Jeff, Erik, and Elspeth for some classic skiing.  It was a cold morning, so the skis were kicking well, but the going was slow and we were all dragging a bit it seemed.  Jeffy had been out even later than I was.  We got a bit over 1.5 hours in and then I headed out across the metro to Battle Creek to meet the Vakava crew for some classic cruise intervals and video work.  I made it through the first interval well, but the second one I ran out of energy about halfway through and had to dial back.  The video session went well, my classic technique is improving greatly after a summer of work and I feel much more confident in my kick, and marginally more confident in my double pole.  I am excited for race season to see just how this training translates into an actual race situation.

I got home deep in calorie and heat deficit, so the evening was pretty low key, reading, making supper, and early to bed to get ready for another week.  Total time on skis for the weekend was over 8 hours, so I'm planning to keep this week low key.  My work is shut down for the two weeks around Christmas/New Years as well, so I fully intend to have a couple big ski weeks with the extra time off.

Winter arrives

Over a week without a new post, people were probably starting to wonder where I'd gotten off to.  Ok, since there is an accumulation of snow here in Minnesota probably nobody wondered that.  I've already managed to ski in 5 different places since getting back from Silverstar, and two of them were actually on groomed trails.
Last year started out rough for skiing in Northfield.  There were several January races in the Metro and further North where I would leave the race in dumping snow, only to arrive home to freezing rain on still brown terrain.  Before City of Lakes in February the arb still had not been groomed and resembled a skating rink more than a ski area.  Things eventually turned around, and March had some of the best crust skiing I've ever experienced.  This year is starting a bit more promising, but while many places in the Metro have been grooming and people are already scraping wax off their best skis it is still rock ski conditions on wherever you feel confident that there will be grass and not rocks under your skis when you break through the thin crust.  To add to that Temperatures have been struggling to get above 0 F so it isn't all that pleasant to be outside either.  Despite all that I've been skiing most days since getting back from Canada.
Last weekend Nate and I made a couple trips up to the cities to find groomed trails.  Saturday temperatures had just creeped above 0 F when we started striding at Lake Elmo, where there was not yet a track set.  Trail conditions were pretty decent though, and I was able to explore the whole trail system, including the red and blue loops that were not open on my trips there last year.  On Sunday we ventured up to Clifton E. French Regional Park for some skate skiing.  The weather was much nicer to be out in, but the fresh snow made for slow going.  The fact that I forgot to scrape the skate skis I brought with also contributed to the slow going, and made the ski much tougher than it would have been otherwise.  Turns out more wax is not better.  We still put in over 4.5 hours over the two days though, so that's a pretty good way to jump into training.
There are no new pictures to go in the post today, but I will point any interested readers to my photo album from Silver Star where there are many pictures of gorgeous ski trails against the backdrop of even more gorgeous mountains.
One more skiing note relating to skiers who are far better than me.  It has been an exciting start to the nordic racing calendar so far.  Caitlin Gregg has kicked off the season in fine form winning all the supertour races in West Yellowstone and grabbing the final podium spot at the Bozeman supertour yesterday.  Her husband Brian took 2nd in the West Yellowstone supertour then headed up to the Nor-Am races at Soverign Lakes to pick up a win there and head back to Bozeman to take 5th in the supertour race there.  Matt Liebsch was 4th in West, 2nd at the Nor-Am race, and 4th in Bozeman.  Great early season results from some great local skiers.  On the world stage Noah Hoffman posted the fastest time of the day on the final stage of the Ruka triple to finish 9th overall in the mini-tour, a huge step up for him.  Sadie Bjornsen has posted several top 10 finishes, and the US women's relay team grabbed another 3rd place in the Relay.  Things are looking exciting for the season and the Olympics if everyone stays fit and healthy.

Silverstar day 3

Sking conditions have been great up here in Silverstar.  Erik Pieh and I have been putting in 50-60 km per day, striding in the morning while the snow is colder and skating in the afternoon.  It is our goal to ski all the trails in the Silverstar and Soverign Lake systems over the course of the week.  The trails here are a good challenge.  The downhill area claims 760 meters of elevation change, and the nordic trails go all the way to the top.  I'm curious to check out my gps data when I get home and see how much we climbed each day.  Here are a few more pics.  The scenery here can be hard to see through the trees, but that makes it that much better when a good vista is found.

My friends Dave and Caitlin are along on the trip too.  They are getting married in the spring and are a bit excited.

Silverstar day 1

As soon as the temps in Minnesota got chilly I hopped on a plane for the coast.  The coast of Canada that is.  I flew into Vancouver yesterday and drove up into the mountains to Silverstar/Soverign Lake to find some early season snow.  The snow up here is really great.  I got out for a 30k classic this morning on my new Atomic skis and have been pretty happy with them so far.  The grooming here is pretty amazing, and the views are I think the best of anywhere I've skied.  I look forward to exploring as many of the trails as possible over the next week.

World Cup Time

The Nordic skiing world cup kicks off in one week with the Ruka Triple miniseries.  I get excited for skiing like normal Americans get excited for normal American sports, like football or baseball.  It isn't as easy to find coverage of skiing, but for the past few years someone has been putting up torrents of full coverage from Eurosport, so that means I can download and watch full races with a bit of a delay.  There are ways to get live feeds, but the quality isn't as good and the hours the races are going on don't match well the hours I'm awake always, or if they do they are in the morning when I would rather be out skiing myself than watching others ski.  I am going to miss the first weekend of racing this year because I am going to be at Silver Star resort in BC skiing on some great looking early season snow.  I'll put together a post on that soon, maybe once I arrive and have some pictures to add.

One of the things that makes watching skiing even more fun is having a fantasy ski team.  Much like the fantasy leagues in other sports a player builds a team of athletes and their performance throughout the year scores points for any fantasy team they are on.  A magazine called Ski Trax hosts several nordic skiing leagues.  I have done pretty well in a few of these and even won a couple small clothing items.  Not bad for the 5 minutes of work I put into figuring out my team.  Unlike other, more involved, leagues where a roster is set each week here all the selection is at the beginning of the season, then all there is to do is sit back and watch.  Here is my team for this year.

Female Skier #1 : Kikkan Randall (Usa)
Female Skier #2 : Marit Bjoergen (Nor)
Female Skier #3 : Justyna Kowalczyk (Pol)
Female Skier #4 : Therese Johaug (Nor)
Female Outlaw : Maiken Caspersen Falla (Nor)
Male Skier #1 : Dario Cologna (Sui)
Male Skier #2 : Petter jr. Northug (Nor)
Male Skier #3 : Alexander Legkov (Rus)
Male Skier #4 : Emil Joensson (Swe)
Male Outlaw : Teodor Peterson (Swe)

I feel like most of the selections were pretty straightforward this year, especially on the women's side where there are a few skiers that have been head and shoulders above the rest of the field in most races.  The outlaw skiers (outside of the top 15 overall) can make or break a team when the skier selection is straightforward.  I feel pretty confident about Falla for my women's pick because she is blazing fast, one of the few skiers to beat Randall straight up in a skate sprint last year.  On the men's side Teodor Peterson is young but had some very promising races last season, especially later in the year.

This being an Olympic year always effects regular season results as well because many of the best skiers will be training hard through the early season to peak for the Olympic games in February, but many of the bubble skiers will be trying to have great races early in an attempt to make their nations Olympic team.  This can shake up early season results a bit.  After the Olympics some skiers may be burned out or on their way to retiring, while skiers at the top of the heap have to refocus before the world cup finals in March if there is a close competition for the crystal globe.

The Olympics themselves are a great spectacle too of course.  There is a lot riding on the shoulders of the top athletes, and somewhat unlike a normal race where points go to anyone in the top 30 at the Olympics if you are not in the top 3 you are forgotten (At least forgotten by anyone outside the ski world, I am in no way implying that a 4th, or a top 10, or a top 30 at the Olympics is anything less than an amazing performance for most athletes.)

I'm off to find snow, let the games begin!!!

Lunch Special

Time for another food post, with a picture none the less!  I looked back on my blog archives and noticed how boring they are, so from now on it is my goal to have at least one picture with each post.  This means I'll have to start taking more pictures, so I made that a goal, and then promptly lost my camera.  My goals over lunch today were:

1. Clean my gutters before it snows
2. Find my camera
3. Make lunch

I accomplished all of those goals, but the third one got a bit time crunched, plus I'm trying to use up as much of the stuff in my fridge as possible before taking off for Canada next week, so my selection was limited.  So without further ado I present to you today's lunch creation (and accompanying picture).

Fried egg apple sandwich.

The idea was based on the contents of my fridge, and the contents of this blog post by Noah Hoffman.  It was a good flavor combination.  The apples added a good moisture and tartness to the toast and egg.  It would have been better with Norwegian brown cheese, or peanut butter, but I had neither available.

What's in a name

Just a couple updates for today.  First this post is going up because I'm sitting at work on a Saturday morning waiting for a machine to fail.  I was in pretty late last night working on it, and it shut down again after I left, so I came in this morning and started it and am not waiting for it to shut down again so I can attempt to diagnose what component is failing.  That's boring stuff though, the non working part of yesterday was much more fun and interesting.

My friend Molly called me up Thursday afternoon and asked if I wanted to sneak out for a bike ride on Friday.  It was supposed to be over 50 degrees, possibly the last great biking day before the snow comes (soon hopefully) so it was too good of an offer to pass up.  She came up to Northfield to meet me so I needed to find a route that would show off some of Northfield's best road cycling while fitting within the 3 hours of daylight we had available.  It wasn't a hard route to plan.  It looks something like this:

A great route, but what is it called?

After a quick warmup climbing out of town on 246 the route turns off onto a section called Valley Grove, named after the valley grove church which is located on this ribbon of pavement that winds through the countryside.  There is a great downhill with a wonderful view out over miles of farmland when this route is ridden anticlockwise.  The road then features a couple more scenic climbs before meeting back up with 246 just outside of Nerstrand.
There is just enough time after making the corner to set up for the Nerstrand town sign sprint, if you're into that kind of thing.  A flat reprieve awaits for the next several miles, small rolling hills only, before turning onto highway 14, another winding stretch of pavement with good hills and plenty of farm scenery to take in.
HWY 14 drops you off right in the little hamlet of Sogn at the base of the best paved climb in the area.  From the bridge at the bottom to the crest of the hill is a full mile long an average grade of 5%.
After this it is a downhill roll into Dennison, with another town sign up for offer on the outskirts of town, and a nice cruise back in to Northfield by any of several different routes.

At almost exactly 40 miles it is a great route when a couple hours are all the time available to ride.  It is easy to add on a spur heading towards Cannon City or Cannon Falls if more time is available, or to cut out the eastern portion of the ride if a shorter ride is needed.

This was probably the first "long" ride I did with the fella's who would form the core of the EMVC, we rode this on 4th of July weekend my first year living down in Northfield.  Several riders were on mountain bikes, including Jeff who rode a Giant Rincon with a basket on the back.  I rode most of this route as part of the Tour de Nick, my first group ride with the Northfield bike club, and my first long ride with my fixie.  I had planned to ride it with my bible study group before some mechanical issues drew us up short.  I rode it earlier this summer with my friend David who over the last couple years has built himself up from 20 miles on the flat Gateway trail being a long ride to a 65 mile day with hardly a flat spot to be found.  Riding it Friday was a great opportunity to share some fun roads and a wonderful sunset with another friend.  Once the crops are in and the farmers are fertilizing heavily is not the ideal time for riding from an olfactory perspective, the horizon is just as large, and so are the hills.

One habit of Jim's is to name all the regular routes/features that we ride, but as far as I know this loop in it's entirety does not have a name.  Parts of it are well known and do have names, but this great route needs a name of it's own.  Any suggestions anyone?  If anyone is interested in going out for a road ride and trying this loop out let me know.  It may be getting late for it this year, I'm ready to get the skis on at this point, but when the snow goes away there will be plenty of time for some good rides next year.  I also have it on my bucket list to rollerski this next summer, so if anyone is interested in that we'll make it happen.

Minnesota Gravel Championships

I posted a condensed version of this post on the Vavaka Racing Blog, so if you want the slightly shorter version you can head over there, or read this for all the extra bits if you want, or are the kind of person who always watches the directors commentary on DVD's just for the sake of completeness.

Last weekend I took part in a couple of the races in the inaugural Minnesota State Gravel Championships bike event in Northfield.  Contrary to the official sounding name the races were low key and most of the riders were just out to have a good time.  There are some great gravel roads around Northfield, and it was great to take part in an event that showcased about 140 miles of those roads.  There were three events over the course of the weekend, a 10.5 mile time trial prologue on Saturday morning, a 55 mile stage Saturday afternoon, and a 85 mile stage Sunday morning.  I raced the time trial and the Sunday morning stage.

Saturday morning was warmer than I expected, and riding the 12 miles out to the race directly into a 20 mph headwind warmed me up pretty quickly even before the racing began.  By the time the group got together to ride from the finish to the start of the point to point course the wind had picked up even more to 25 mph.  This made for a very fast time trial with a tail wind almost the entire way.

 Boonies Bar and Grill, the finish of the Prologue Stage

I rode the time trial on my fixed gear, just for an extra bit of challenge.  I shared a start time with Nate Porath, who was trying out his newly rebuild single speed, and had a couple of EMVC riders in the time slots ahead of and behind me, so I had plenty of people to gauge myself against over the course of the race.  I got a jump on Nate right off the line and was flying down the first hill, my legs spinning furiously to keep up with the bike, when all of a sudden I heard a crunching noise from my rear wheel and felt my chain go slack.  My chain was not tensioned tight enough and had jumped off the cog from the bumpy gravel descent.  Luckily it did not wrap up on the cog or in the wheel, so when my speed ran out on the uphill I stopped and quickly spun the chain back on.  I had to run the rest of the uphill because it was steep enough that I couldn't get back on the bike and get traction from a standstill.  I hopped back on and had just made the first corner when Galen flew by me.  I passed Nichole Porath who was doing her first ever bike race, and my friend Claire who I almost didn't recognize because I didn't expect her to be as far up in the race as she was since she doesn't ride a lot either.  I kept Galen in sight and slowly pulled him back as I got back into my groove.  After I passed him I was on my own for the next several miles of the race until I caught sight of Mike "the moose" Kosloski ahead of me.  I fought hard to pull him back in over the last 3 miles or so of the race, and going up the last climb I gave a hearty moose call to let him know I was on his heels.  When he turned and saw how close behind I was he put on the afterburners once we turned on to the pavement he clicked up a few gears and took off.  I still ended up beating him time-wise for the stage, but didn't catch up to him.

I decided to skip the Saturday afternoon stage to rest up for the next day and instead donned my cow suit to go out and help with the start/finish of the stage and to cheer on the riders.  I got to signal the start of the race, and be there at the end to direct riders down to the river bottoms trail in Sechler park for one more mile of sandy fun before the end of the day.  The cow suit was a big hit with the racers, about the only thing they had to smile about as they ground their way into what was by then a well over 30 mph headwind.  Watching the riders struggle made me a bit glad I decided to sit that stage out.

By Sunday morning the wind had died down and the sun even poked out through the clouds as the final stage got underway.  My plan was to ride conservatively for the first half of the race then crank it up if I was feeling good, a strategy that had worked out very well for me at the Inspiration gravel race this summer.  Jeff Lanners and my friend Jake came up to race this stage as well, so the three of us and a few other Northfield folks formed up a good pack a few miles into the race.  I was feeling pretty good, so I took pretty long pulls and tried to keep the pace steady and manageable so everyone would have time to take in the amazing views some of these back roads offered.  The roads by and large were in really great shape, except a few miles of freshly graded gravel that were a bit soft (and by fresh I mean very fresh, we actually saw the grader out there while we were racing).  Jeff fell off the back a couple times but we controlled the pace to let him back on.  In the mean time we dropped the rest of the group so it was just the three of us.  I amped the pace up to try for a Strava segment on Shady Lane, a long, steep gravel climb in Sogn Valley.  It is a minimum maintenance road, so the conditions can vary quite a bit, but it was in really great shape this weekend.  Last time I attempted this climb I broke my bike chain, so I wanted revenge on this hill and a chance to put up a good segment time.

Shady Lane Minimum Maintenance Road (MMR)

After Shady Lane there was a mandatory check in point just before mile 40.  I waited there and chatted with the volunteers and ate a cookie while I waited for Jake and Jeff.  Once we were all back together we started out, but there were more sizable hills shortly after the checkpoint and it quickly became clear that Jeff was struggling to hold the pace.  Since there were a few more riders leaving the checkpoint behind us Jake and I kept riding figuring Jeff would catch on with them, and they might be closer to his pace.  Jake was losing ground on the climbs too but catching back on well on the flats and downhills, but after doing this for a couple climbs he stopped for a mechanical and decided to dial it back, so he told me to push on.  We were with a couple Northfield riders at the time so I kept on with them.  I was climbing better than them too, so I left them behind on the next climb and decided to push ahead to catch on with another rider who I could see ahead.  I worked to catch him and we traded pulls for a bit before he pulled over to eat something, so I ventured on alone.

This was the worst section of the course to be by myself, 20 miles directly into the wind.  The miles seemed to crawl by and every climb I could feel my energy draining.  The rider who stopped to eat caught up to me just before the town of Nerstrand.  We once again traded pulls for a bit before he got a gap on me, and then stopped again to eat.  This happened at least a couple more times before the end of the race and it got frustrating.  I was not strong enough to keep up with him or drop him, and yet when I passed him I felt like I had to try to hold him off, so I would push on.  I tried some shot blocks for the first time and they were like eating fairy magic.  I was convinced at the time that I had never eaten anything so good.  Finally we turned out of the wind and the rider ahead had a 200 meter or so lead on me as we rolled through Cannon City.  At this point I knew what waited ahead.  My co-worker Jim drew up the route for this race and he loaded up the last 15 miles with hills, and the last four climbs are all big on their own, much less after 75 miles of riding and hills already.  Right as we turned onto Farmer Trail with about 8 miles to go the rider ahead of me pulled over and stopped again, this time to pee, so when I went by him I was determined to not let him catch up.  I pushed hard on the hills and pushed the pace even on the downhills to hold him at bay.

I looked back a couple times and saw him behind me, but he didn't look like he was closing in on me, so I kept the pace high and just hoped he was hurting as much as I was.  I still had 100 meters or so on him when I made the last turn towards the finish.  The finish was on top of "Radar Hill" a minimum maintenance road with a slope over 15% at some points.  Right near the base of the hill there was someone cheering who said there was a rider behind me closing fast.  As I pushed up the hill there were some great cheerers, including Nate and Nichole in full cow suit attire, but I was struggling just to keep the pedals turning.  I wasn't in a good mood and having people yelling at me right in my face after 40 miles of being alone with my own thoughts was a system shock.  The hill was a system shock on an entirely different level too.  On a good day this climb takes about 3 minutes, so I just kept reminding myself how little was left after five and a half hours of racing.  I took one glance behind me when I was about halfway up and the rider had closed the gap to about 3 meters.  What!?  How can he still be riding that strong?  I just didn't have anything more for the climb, so I kept cranking my way up and when the slope eased up I shifted and really stood on the pedals.  My legs were not happy at all, but I could see the finish line ahead and I was not going to get out-sprinted after this many hours of racing, especially when Jim and Jake and Galen and the Poraths ventured out in the cold just to cheer me on.  I managed to fend off the hard charging rider and just hold on to 10th place.  Jeff and Jake both ended up dropping out at Nerstrand and taking the pavement in, and Jake made it out to cheer for me at the finish.

"Radar Hill" this one really hurt.

There is something really great about a tough race where you finish knowing you had nothing left.  When I crossed the finish line I could not have climbed one more hill.  I just stood bent over the handlebars for a couple minutes trying to catch my breath.  It was all I could do to pedal the mile downhill back into Northfield where there was hot soup waiting.  The race hurt, and there were points along the course where I questioned why I was doing this to myself, but the pain fades quickly and already I'm mostly only remembering what a great day it was to be out riding.

The only downside to my second gravel race is that it just confirmed that I really enjoy gravel racing, and will now have to continue to compress a busy race calendar to make room for another type of racing.  The recovery is quick from these races though, and I can mostly rely on general fitness as long as I get in a couple long rides here and there to keep the body used to long hours in the saddle.

I miss my farm

With fall in full swing and the first wisps of winter in the air I'm already starting to miss the summers bounty of fresh vegetables.

After going on a bike tour of several Northfield CSA (community supported agriculture) farms last autumn I found a farm that I really enjoyed.  The farmers were friendly and answered all kinds of questions as the tour wandered around their farm, they had a nice plot of land and a cute little tractor.  The farmers were very knowledgeable about what they were growing and about the business side of running a CSA and were very open about sharing their experiences and struggles running the farm.  It was readily apparent that a lot of thought and attention went into making the operation a success and that the farmers were committed to raising good produce and improving the land they were growing on.  The size of the operation seemed sustainable and had a nice family farm feel to it.  Plus it was close to my work on the edge of town so it would be easy to bike over after work and pick up my share.

The farm I joined was Spring Wind Farm and after a year of being a member I have to say I love it even more than when I signed up.  I am not a very picky eater, so I have no complaints about mass produced store produce, but it certainly doesn't compare to food fresh from the farm.  Plus knowing how and where my food was grown, where the money I spend in my grocery budget is going, and that the food is grown, harvested, and distributed with sustainability and care for the environment in mind are very much feel good bonuses for me.  The farm also sends out a weekly newsletter with what will be in the share, what is going on around the farm, and a recipe for the week.  They have a website with many more recipes too.  They also have a couple potlucks over the course of the year so all the CSA members can get to know each other, swap recipes, and just hang out on the farm.

Here's how the system works:  Every week I show up and there is a table with produce and a board that says how many pounds of produce each share gets (beets, radishes, eggplant, summer squash, carrots, onions, potatoes and much more).  I could mix and match whatever was available on that table to make the weight I was allowed.  There was another table with greens (mixed salad greens, kale, spinach, ect.) and a volume that each share was allotted.  There were also special items (tomatoes, pumpkins, winter squash, sweet corn, melons) and the number of each per share.  Finally there were fields of herbs, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, beans, peas, flowers, and other things that I could pick myself up to a certain amount (often that amount was unlimited once the season got going).

I got the chance to try a whole lot of foods that I had never had before, and getting them right from the farm meant they would be as fresh and flavorful as possible, plus I could ask the farmer how to prepare them in addition to trusting my good friend Google to provide recipes for me.

So now that the season is over, was the $285 I paid for my CSA share worth it for the 19 weeks of produce I got?  The answer depends a bit on how I choose to value my produce.  Buying produce at Aldi has a lot different price tag than buying it at Cub or buying it at Just Foods coop or buying it at the farmers market.  Since the quality of produce I'm getting is best comparable to what is at Just Foods that is where I did most of my pricing to determine how much the food I was getting was worth.  My note taking was not meticulous throughout the year, but I took mostly the same produce, so I kind of just made a per pound average for the produce and used that every week.  There are some differences too, since I got squash per unit and not per pound, same with tomatoes and corn, so I kind of guessed at how much weight that was equivalent to.  I also didn't add up all the herbs I picked from the U-Pick fields since I didn't really weigh or measure those, but that is another significant plus because fresh herbs are expensive.  If I had bought all my produce at Just Foods it would have been at least $450, so I came out way ahead there.  My bill at Cub is usually about 60% of my bill at Just foods, so I pretty much break even vs. shopping at Cub, which is where I was getting most of my produce.  So for the same price I get fresher and better tasting (because it is harvested ripe and not shipped) that is pesticide and herbicide free (I do still have to wash my CSA food because it is not all dirt free, but I think I actually trust ingesting a bit of dirt more than some of the chemicals sprayed onto commercial produce).

So why put this post up now?  Because today marks the first time that I have had to go through the produce aisle since early spring to pick up lettuce, and also squashes and other things I can no longer get fresh from the farm.  Since I started eating produce I never thought much about when it was in season.  I know this stuff, it just didn't seem that important when I could just go to the store whenever and buy it.  Now the produce selection looks a bit sad all stuffed into bags with price tags on everything, but on the plus side my summer of trying new foods means I have a much better selection of produce that I know how to prepare and eat.  I also have another reason to look forward to summer :)

Mankato Marathon

Last weekend I ran the Mankato Marathon.  I posted a recap of the race on the Vakava blog, but left out analysis of the race because that might be more than most readers on that blog want to hear about.  I figured if you have found your way here however that you are interested enough to sift through some more details, or you can always navigate away at any time if you aren't.

First off I'll say I did luck out weather wise.  The forecast was for rain, but all we got was some mist for a while about half way through the race.  It was cold though, probably 36F at race start and not much over 40 by the end of the race.  Overall the temp felt good, but I noticed my legs never really warmed up, so maybe that contributed to their tightening late in the race.  It was very similar weather conditions to R2T marathon last fall where I had a similar issue (although at that race starting too fast was the likely cause of most of my problems).

I was running with one other guy almost from the start and for much of the early race Brian was in sight 200 meters or so ahead of us two.  We hit some hills around mile 7-9 and that is where we caught and dropped Brian and also where the guy I had been running with got a small gap on me, that he then proceeded to quickly widen.  There was one runner in sight ahead who I caught at mile 13, and I didn't see another marathon runner for the rest of the race.  I used to run a lot on my own and then loved to run in packs on race day, but now it seems like the opposite, I do almost all of my running with Nichole, and then on race day I often find myself completely alone on the course.  I really like running alone in trail races, it brings the seclusion of the woods much more into my conscience and I can enjoy just running in the woods.  For a paced road race effort though it is harder to remain focused and remember that I am racing when I'm all by myself out on the roads.

The race started in control, and I really didn't feel like I was working at all for the first 4 miles.  Then when we turned into the wind it was a bit of work but still felt easy and relaxed.  When we hit the hills from miles 7-9 I felt like I was working a bit and still that is when I got gapped.  After that I tried to methodically close distance on the runner ahead of me, who I caught just after the halfway point.  I had one downhill mile at 5:58, otherwise most of my miles were in the 6:10-6:20 range.  The legs chilled a bit going into the wind from mile 14-16, and they were starting to tighten up going down the long hill around mile 18, but I still felt like I was holding pace alright.  Then about mile 20 I just couldn't keep the tempo up any more.  The legs were not going through their normal range of motion, they were not swinging easily, and I really had to focus on the correct motions, which means I was not focusing on the correct tempo.  Pace quickly slipped to about 7:00 miles, then 7:15.  At this point we were running through a park with a bunch of twists and turns, so I couldn't even get into a rhythm at all.  When I got back on to the trail, a familiar section from a bike ride last summer, I told myself to go faster because it didn't hurt more to run harder.  This was true for about 1.5 miles, and I did manage to pull just below 7 minute pace for mile 24, then it did hurt worse to run faster, and I was worried about a leg cramping up because they just felt so tight, so I limped in to the finish.

The race course was a bit long, so according to Strava my marathon distance time was 2:50:38.  Not that it's really worth anything, still 6 minutes over my goal for the race.  On one hand I'm happy I finished and paced most of the race well, but really the race was a failure in that I didn't achieve the goal I set out to get.  I'm ok with failure, but not happy with it by any means.  I still think my goal was an achievable one, and now I have motivation to be consistent about getting long runs in next spring to give myself a better chance of finishing my next marathon strong.

Now I really need to start hitting the strength work hard if I want to see good improvement this ski season.  I was using running as a bit of an excuse to not work on strength too much and risk putting on weight, but now the focus is all about getting faster on skis.  Oh, and having fun, really the focus is all about having fun while getting as fast as I can.  Towards that end this evening I'm picking up a couple pairs of Cat skis from Fit to be Tri'd and strapping a headlamp on my bike helmet to go Cat ski around the arb in the dark.  It should be sufficiently ridiculous to pick my spirits up.

A Very Good Bad Idea

Sometimes I do things that I know aren't safe or good for me, because they just sound so good I can't resist.  I'm a pretty healthy eater in general, but I also like many foods that are less than good for me.  Yesterday I was frying up some bacon that I somehow ended up with.  It must have been very on sale or something when I bought it, because in general I'm not a huge bacon fan and I would never buy the stuff for myself.  As I was frying it I thought, hmm, it would be a shame to let this tasty bacon grease go to waste, what else can I make in it while it's in the skillet?  I had sauteed yellow squash and eggplant in a bit of bacon grease last weekend and then mixed the bacon and squash together to make a pretty good meal that probably wasn't all that terrible for me.  I opened the fridge and the first thing my eyes settled on was was some waffles I had made a couple days earlier.  This gave me a great idea.  Some wonderful Canadian came up with a magical concoction called maple bacon peanut butter.  I have not had a chance to try this, but it just sounds amazing, so I thought I would try to recreate the flavor.  I grabbed one of the waffles and fried it up in the bacon grease, then put on maple syrup, peanut butter, ice cream, bacon chunks, and dark chocolate syrup.  It tasted absolutely amazing, but is probably one of the least healthy things I have ever eaten.  Oh well, it's not the worst thing in the world to do a bit of nutritional offroading from time to time, and today my stomach is reminding me that it prefers salads and vegetable stir fry, even if my taste buds prefer peanut butter and ice cream.

A couple Races

Every winter when I'm off racing every weekend I make a list of projects that I'm going to get done during the summer when it is light out for longer and I'm actually home for a weekend.  What I tend to forget is how much stuff is going on in the summer too, and so many of those projects never get done, or get split up into several evenings when I happen to have some time for them.  There are tons of great races to do in the summer, and I have had a couple fun ones over the last couple weeks.

Ragnar 8/16-17:  I know a few people who are just getting in to running and were struggling for motivation to keep with it over the winter.  Since I didn't have any good advice (I don't run at all in the winter if I can help it) I went to my fallback motivation plan, put a race on the schedule.  I ran on a Ragnar team a couple years ago and one of the things I liked best about the race was how runners of different fitness and ability levels could all race together on a team and all feel proud about how they and their teammates raced.  So I signed up and started to get runners together.  If you read Rob's blog post he had a pretty good description of what the race entails and how our team did.  I'll give you a short recount of how things went for van #1.
The day before the race Jeff and I decided to have a contest to see who could pass the most teams during our legs.  I was the very first runner for our team and since I was ahead of the other 20 or so teams that started at 9:30 with us right from the line I did not count them in my total.  I worked hard to try to catch a team from the next wave 1/2 hour ahead, but while I had a couple of them in sight by the time I reached the exchange zone 8 miles was not a long enough leg for me to actually catch any.  I did my 13 push-ups and hopped in the van to head to the next exchange.  The other runners in my van passed a steady stream of teams as the day began to heat up.  We handed off to the other van early in the afternoon and went to find a late lunch.
Jeff sent me a message before my second leg that he had passed 31 runners during his first run, so I knew I had my work cut out for me.  I started my second leg at about 8:30 PM and charged off into the setting sun.  I set a fast pace and about a mile in decided that maybe a hamburger and cheese curds was not the best meal option a couple hours before my second run of the day.  It was a very picturesque run, with a gorgeous sunset over the Mississippi river and a string of blinking runners along the road ahead.  I passed 31 runners, enough to even the score with Jeff, and handed off just as darkness was starting to settle in. We drove ahead to a rest stop a bit up the road to cheer on our next runner and I struggled through my 41 push-ups.
I was not as diligent as Rob about getting good sleep, so when I started my 3rd leg at 5 AM, but it was a cool 55 degrees out, perfect running weather, so I took off, headlight bobbing, chasing after the blinking tail lights ahead of me.  There were some trail sections where I definitely had to keep my speed in check a little and could only keep the headlight on the trail right in front of me.  Then I got out of the woods, the sun cracked the horizon and navigation became much easier.  I passed 24 runners and came into the exchange zone... and my team wasn't there.  What, where was van, where was the runner I was supposed to hand off to?  Well, I didn't have to wait long, a couple minutes later she came sprinting up to the line.  The van had gotten a bit lost trying to find the exchange and got there just a little behind schedule.  I handed off and did my 36 push-ups then grabbed one of the super chocolatey cookies I had in the van for when I was done running.  Once our van was done we made some french toast and eggs and then went to see our team finish and to celebrate a race well run.

Ngede Challenge 8/24:  I really like unique races, and the Ngede challenge certainly fits that description.  It is a 50km, 4 leg race near my hometown of Amery, WI.  The race includes a 10k road run, 10k mountain bike, 25k road bike, and 5k trail run.  It is a very small race (14 racers/teams this year I think), but there is some good competition at the front.  It can be done as an individual or a relay team, and it is one of the most scenic and fun races I do each year.
I kept a steady pace for the run and was the third person to the bike transition.  My friend Erik was about 3 minutes ahead of me, but I'm a better biker than him, so I was hoping I could close the gap.  The mountain bike and trail run are on the Balsam Branch Ski Trails, where I learned to ski.  They are really great trails and I know them well and ski them whenever I am back in the area.  The Balsam Vinterfest race held on these ski trails is the first ski race I ever won.  That all makes it that much more embarrassing that I took a wrong turn and ended up adding about 5k extra onto the mountain bike leg.  Part of me knew right away when I made the wrong turn that it wasn't right, it wasn't that I was lost or anything, I just somehow convinced myself that I was going the right way.  I eventually got things straightened out and went to work making up ground.  The road bike was an out and back, so I could tell how many people were ahead of me and by how much.  It turns out most of the racers ahead of me were relay racers and so not directly my competition.  My friend Erik was leading the individual category and I was in 3rd with second place just ahead of me.  Erik had broken a chain on his cyclocross bike so was doing the road bike on a far too small mountain bike.  This gave me a bit of hope that I might still be able to catch him.  I passed another rider putting me in second place, but by the time I got to the run transition I still saw no signs of Erik and knew I wouldn't gain back time on him in the running leg, but 3rd place was not too far behind, so I pushed as hard as I felt comfortable with after having been out for a bit over 2 hours already and held on to my 2nd place finish.  It was a bit disappointing to not win, but gives me extra motivation to come back next year and try again.

After that effort I was pretty sluggish on Sunday morning's rollerski (the heat probably didn't help either), so now it is time for a couple rest days until the temps hopefully come back down a little.

The winter that won't end

I've been waiting to put this post up until the snow was gone.  It has surprised even me that it would take this long.  I have loved the late season skiing, although it hasn't been high quality skiing for the past month or so, and has caused a significant setback to my biking, running, and paddling.  Here are some of the highlights:

The skiing in March was still quite amazing depending on location, so I decided to head up to Theodore Wirth on March 16 to get some good skiing in on some lingering snow.  I wanted a relaxed ski, so I invited my friend and fellow Pepsi Challenge champion Molly Watkins to get a few km in.  She is super busy, so would only have time for 30k or so, that was my plan to make the day a reasonable one.  I arrived in the parking lot and Jallie and KJ were just setting out on a ski.  Kevin was joining a couple other guys in a 12 hours of Theodore Wirth ski challenge, so he had 50k under his belt already, and Jallie was just going out to join him for a bit.  Once Molly showed up we joined up with those two and had a fun little skiing quartet.  We soon picked up Tim Dahlberg and later Andy Brown, so there was all kinds of skiing company on the trails.  The skiing was pretty low key and easy except one uphill double pole contest, in which the Alaskan animal soundly defeated me.  About the time Molly left the classic skiing was not working out so well anymore, so I switched over to skate skis and went out to put in a few more km with Jallie, so much for an easy day.  I ended up skiing 60km, and would have done more except it was getting dark and I was out of food.  Both Molly and Jallie provided me with tasty cookies along the way, and conditions were really amazing actually.
The next morning I got a call from Nate asking if I wanted to head out for some crust skiing.  We met at the arb, but quickly ventured off across the golf course and into the fields southeast of town.  The crust was perfect, hard enough not to sink in, soft enough on top to get an edge.  We had a vast landscape that was ours for the exploring, and explore we did.  The worst part of the whole ski was when we got back onto the trails in the lower arb and ran across a stream that had cut the trail.  I saw Nate go down around a corner and was prepared to laugh until I rounded the corner and saw the stream.  I tried to jump the gap in the crust and didn't make it, so I also crashed.  The crust was rather hard and sharp when I cut through it, but I came out better than Nate, who ended up with a few blood spots.  We then went to the gym to cheer on the rest of Team Nichole Training, Nichole and Brian, as they finished up a pretty intense treadmill workout.

A week later the snow was still holding, so I loaded up the skis and headed North.  This time my goal was to get one more ski in at Murphy Hanrehan, the hilliest trail system in the Metro area.  The snow was still a bit icy in spots, and I had seen trail reports that said there was exposed dirt on one part of the trail, so I was unsure what to expect.  The climbing was good, although the ungroomed trail made for difficult balance, and I played it pretty safe.  Then I started to hit the downhills, and I was very surprised.  Whether by chance or design the uphills are mostly south facing and the downhills mostly north facing, so the snow on the downhills was soft and deep, easy to corner on and really fun.  I did a second loop and was much more ambitious on the descents since I knew they were good.  It was a great day out, I was skiing in race bottoms and short sleeves, but things were getting pretty soft by the end of the second loop and those hills take their toll.  I wasn't ready to be done yet though, so I headed over to Cleary Lake to get in a few more km.  Trail reports said there was still grooming, and I was amazed at how good the trails were.  I did several loops and conditions were just really amazing, good corduroy, fast snow for the most part, and a very flat deck, I could easily V2 everything and really cruise.  Cleary is one of my frequent skiing locations most years because it is the closest system with lighted trails, but it had been almost 2 years since I had skied there, and since it is pretty flat I chose Hyland over Cleary most weekends this year, but it was fun to get on nice trails and just ski fast.  The next day I headed back up to the cities to get a long run in with Ms. Molly Watkins.  She is in a marathon class and passing the class depends on finishing the Eau Claire Marathon.  She has been hard at it often doing a ski marathon on Saturday and long run on Sunday throughout the winter.  We explored around the U a bit before heading south on the river road.  I finally achieved a goal of mine since I started at the U, that I never officially achieved while I was a student there, of running from campus across the Ford Dam and back.  It isn't really that long of a run, but I was not the runner in college that I am now.  Molly kept up no problem, even when I made her run up the hill from the east river flats to finish the day.  She was even nice enough to feed me afterwards.  Then I went to Finn Sisu to demo some new classic skis and got a good 10k in at the U of M golf course.

This is the sad part of the tale where the ongoing winter starts to have unintended side effects.  I got in a long run the day before Easter on the roads out by my parents.  I ended up a hair short of 19 miles, and the last mile was getting to be a struggle.  I don't know why, but the 18 mile long run is never a good one for me.  I explored some really fun roads though and in general it wasn't a bad day.  I must have picked up a bug from a family member or someone at the Easter pancake breakfast though, because my lungs and sinus were not happy with me the next week.  At first I was worried it was maybe due to my adorable new roommate Mozzarella.  She is a rabbit I adopted from my friends Erik and Karin who are moving and didn't really have a good way to move her with them.  She is just my kind of pet, soft, quiet, and I can leave food and water out and be gone for several days at a time with no ill effect.  Luckily time has shown she was not the cause of my stuffy nose, but the week I was sick no long run happened, so my last long run ended up being the Easter 18 miler, which didn't go well and is over a month ahead of the Ultramarathon that I will tell you about below.  Snow kept falling, and I kept skiing.  I'm a big advocate of making the best of what mother nature sends my way (ok maybe not really.  I'm not at all a fan of wind or rain in general) so many additional km were skied in the arb, the golf course, and even in to work and back one day.  All in preparation for the zero more ski races I have coming up this year.

I will include my first running race in this post, because there was more snow than anything else on the course.  Trail mix was one of the first races over 5k I have ever done.  When I started running it my freshman year of college 12.5k seemed almost too long to race over, especially considering the terrain.  I have progressed as a long distance runner since then, and now 12.5k is one of the shortest races I do.  The last couple years I have felt a bit guilty for doing the "short" race now that I know I could handle the 25k or 50k, but the relay has a strong history for me, and it doesn't hurt that my team, the Nordic Ninjas, has won 8 of the last 9 years.  This is also the 11th time I have run this race, so I'm pretty invested.  I wasn't sure what to expect this year since we lost our top runner, Matt Liebsch.  This meant for the first time since the Nordic Ninjas formed I would be our top guy.  This worried me a bit until everyone was lining up near the starting line and I didn't see anyone too dangerous milling around near the front.  This was quickly confirmed when the race started and I got pretty quickly off the front, and so did Jeff, Travis, and Kevin Johnson, our new addition to the team.  In fact, at the 1km mark our entire team was the top 4 runners.  At this point I started to worry less about winning and just relaxed into running a good hard effort.  The conditions were a bit tricky, but as long as I watched my footing I didn't have much trouble.  I had to adjust my stride some to get grip in the snow, but nothing too crazy.  I won pretty handily, Jeff was second, and our team ended up winning by well over 10 minutes in total.  It was nice to be back on top after being upset by the Gear West running team last year.

Now the snow is almost entirely gone and Northfield is looking at it's 3rd day in a row in the 70's, so the winter post finally comes to an end (although there is still a chance of snow in the forecast for next week).

More than one way to skin a bear

Post Birkie is usually a good time to hang up the skis for a bit and relax before spring running season starts, but this year there was much more skiing to be done, and after a rainy January I was still itchy to get out and glide.  Since Seeley Hills was cancelled I signed up for the 50k classic race at the Pepsi challenge to get one solid classic race in on the season.  I had the perfect plan to get myself classic ready too, a week of skiing at Bearskin lodge up on the Gunflint Trail.
This is my second year winning a ski week at Bearskin lodge from the Hoigaards challenge, and I cannot say enough good things about the place.  The cabins are cozy, warm, and right on the ski trails.  The staff is out grooming pretty much every day and knows the snow conditions up there well.  The trails are fun and there is a great variety of terrain with beautiful forests and lakes everywhere.  The cabin was nice and cozy, and we had a good stockpile of food, ski magazines, and board games to fill the time when we weren't skiing.  I borrowed a game called Pandemic, and we played at least a game or two every night of the trip I think.
Last year I skied mostly on my own and put in a lot of km.  This year my friends Erik, Elspeth, and Emily all came up and stayed the whole week, so Erik and I skied together the whole week.  The first day we skied the whole Banadad trail, which cuts through the boundary waters and intersects the Gunflint trail at a couple points.  Erik and I started from the cabin, and the girls took a car to the far end and started skiing back towards us.  We met somewhere in the middle, stopped for a granola bar snack, and kept going our separate ways.  Over the course of the week we covered the entire trail system, with only a bit of planning required to make sure we caught everything.  There are moose in the area, but I didn't see any.  There was plenty of evidence of them on the trails though, the groomed ski trails also make for easy walking if you're a moose.  Over the course of the week I skied some 250km or so, a nice relaxing week before the last ski race of the season, the Pepsi Challenge.
Pepsi is a race I've had on my calendar to do for several years.  It always used to overlap with the Vinterfest race in Amery, but due to being cancelled a few years in a row due to bad weather in January they moved the race to March, where snow is much more reliable the last few years.  This year it seems like it was a good call.  Many January races got cancelled, but the March snow for Pepsi was plentiful and great skiing.  With temps hovering just below freezing and fresh snow falling as the race got ready to go there was a mix of hard wax and hairies in use.  The fresh snow made for a slow start.  Everyone realized this so there was nobody really anxious to get on the front line.  I lined up between Dave Nelson and Josh Doebbert, and the other competitors finally cajoled Jennie Bender into moving up to the front line.  I figured these three would be my main competition for the race, so I was happy to find out that Jennie was only in for the 25k.  This meant Molly Watkins would be the biggest threat to me finishing my season without getting beat by any women, a goal of mine ever since the first time I passed Sarah Hunter in a Birkie.  My first year skiing the Birkie from wave 2, also my first year skiing in the U of M bumblebee suit, Sarah passed me from wave 3 just before OO, and for many years after that I judged how well I did in a race by my finish in comparison to hers.  I remember the first time I beat her at Mora, and the year I qualified into the Elite wave I knew I was having a great race when I caught up the eight minute gap to Sarah.
Anyway, back to Pepsi.  I started the race at a reasonable pace to get a feel for things.  I ended up in the lead so stayed relaxed and tried to take the best line available since it was much faster to ski out of the tracks except on climbs where the tracks helped hold my technique together.  After a while Jennie took a pull.  She is much more liberal on taking skating steps around corners than I am, and much more smooth at it as well, so I tucked in behind and tried to mirror her technique.  When we hit the steeper hills of the Silver loop I did a bit of work to break things up just to get a feel for things.  Jennie followed me and a kid named Tamer Mische-Richter also came along.  The three of us traded off pulls, I tried to get them to do more of the work, but Tamer didn't have the most consistent pacing, and the pace slowed until a couple more 25k skiers caught back on, then Dave, Josh, and Erik caught back on as well.  I tried to keep a smooth tempo on my pulls and keep the pace high enough that things didn't come back together any more.  After the last food stop on the loop at 21k or so Jennie, Bjorn Adelsman, and Tamer started racing in earnest.  I tucked in behind them and tried to keep contact while doing as little work as possible.  They started to get away on a couple of the climbs, but being behind on the downhills let me ride in their tracks and catch back up.  They pulled me away from the rest of the group and when I came around the lap lane and they all went in to finish I was on my own.
I had maybe 25-30 seconds on Erik and Dave at that point, Josh was on a slow pair of hairies and didn't make the gap.  The snow had stopped a bit in to the first lap, so the track was well skied in for the second time around.  I put in some strong double poling and really worked to get the speed up on the striding climbs to get out of sight of the two guys following me.  I knew if I could get out of visual contact I would be a harder mark to chase down.  After parting ways with the 10k skiers I had been passing it was a lonely trek for me for quite a while.  This made it really easy to just focus on technique and skiing by feel.  I pushed hard without letting my heart rate get out of control and stayed relaxed on my recovery.  The first skaters, a pack of 3, passed me at about 18k into the second lap, far later than I expected.  The third guy was falling off the back when they went by me, and I reeled him in on the next up hill.  Striding actually looked more efficient than slogging up the hill in the soft skate lane, and on the flats he tucked in behind me and double poled, something many of the top skaters were doing on and off I later learned.  I was able to ski with him for several km before the trail flattened out and he got away from me.  At this point it was starting to snow again some and my hard wax was icing just a bit.  It was mostly downhill for me at this point though, so I focused on cleaning the snow off the ski bases over the tops of hills and forcing the double pole whenever possible to keep the bottoms of the skis clean.  I had a good run in to the finish where the top skaters were just exiting the finish area.  I had held off Nate, who was skating, and all the other classic skiers.  I ended up winning by a little 10 minutes.  Dave was 2nd skiing on hairies, and Erik 3rd.  Josh ended up dropping out due to his slow skis.  Molly won the womens race and was 4th overall, an impressive finish.
Byron Lubenkov was waiting at the finish line with a shot of peppermint schnapps, a welcome treat after a long race.  The post race food was good, although I did not partake in the Pepsi products.  It was fun hanging out in a warm building within sight of the finish line.  I had a good chat with Jennie Bender and Molly before getting back on the road to the rainy twin cities with Erik and Elspeth.  We got back to St. Paul, ate some of the leftover food from the bearskin trip, and played one last game of Pandemic before I headed back to Northfield.

Six Months, a Birkie post

Ok, so a bit more has happened in the last six months than just the Birkie, but that is the reason I decided to dust this blog off, so here is a quick recap of everything leading up to the Birkie, then we'll get to the good stuff.

• DESNE Machine up and running.  This and other work issues are the reason the blog fell by the wayside, since I usually outlined the posts at work (I know, not really the best employee all the time).  Now between having a lot of actual work to do at work and making myself a resolution to work more at work blog posts will have to be laid out and written from home, competing with exercise, video games, cleaning, sleeping, and making delicious food.  Work is more fun though with a new machine to play with, at least when it works right.
• I ran a couple marathons last fall.  I paced Brooke Beskau at the twin cities marathon, her first marathon.  She ran an impressive 3:13:00 over ten minutes faster than my first marathon, also twin cities.  I also ran the rails to trails marathon in Norwalk, WI.  I set a new PR of 2:51:49, but could have run faster if I were more patient and didn't try to keep up with the race winner.
• I went up to Canmore to watch world cup racing and did some great skiing at Canmore, Banff, and Lake Louise.  Emily and I skied over the continental divide from Alberta into British Columbia, and it was great fun getting to see world cup racing up close and personal.
• The early ski season was a struggle with a lot of rain in January, so my first big race was City of Lakes.  I raced hard at the beginning, sat in a good pack for butler bog, and ended up with my highest place ever.  I then really struggled with the double pole heavy shortened Mora course and just barely held off Audrey Weber.  I tried the 50k at Finlandia and finished 3rd behind Wyn Roberts and John Munger.

On to the Birkie.  It was lucky number 13 for me.  Even after a good race at City I wasn't really sure where my fitness was after a rough January.  I got to the line a bit late and lined up next to Blake Hillerson near the back.  There was a lot of fresh snow so lanes formed quickly, making it pretty easy for me to move up in the first couple flat km.  I continued to push a bit to move up through the powerlines, I was feeling pretty relaxed still so I wasn't worried.  I passed Bjorn and gave him a wave as I went by.  After the big 7km climb I tucked into a pack and settled down.

I tried to stay near the front of the pack, but most of their skis were running a bit faster than mine, so I would lose a few spots each downhill.  On the gradual uphills though many of them broke into V1 pretty quickly so I could easily skip over, take a couple strong V2 strokes and move back up near the front.  I took a couple turns pulling but didn't push the pace, knowing I couldn't easily get away with my slower skis and not willing to try getting away on my own.  My running partner Nichole was at OO cheering, so it was great to see her, and my folks were working the gravel pit aid station at 31km, and I actually saw them this year and said hi as I went through.

Shortly after the gravel pit I decided I was still feeling good and I should probably try to make something happen, so I went to the front and racheted up the pace with a strong V2 up a gradual climb.  I pushed on for a couple km.  This section of trail was somewhat fresh in my mind because Jeff and I skied this as our boxing day ski this year.  I was bonking that day, but I felt great today, so I kept pushing a bit even though I heard skiers behind me and assumed most of my pack was still there.  I finally hit a good downhill and went in to a tuck, when the guy behind me yelled "Mr. Craiggerton, hop in the tracks".  I recognized Bjorn's voice right away, and a quick glance back showed that he was the only one of the pack who had hung on with me.

I let Bjorn take a pull and tucked in behind him.  I asked him about his recent engagement and got a very enthusiastic affirmation, followed by an admonition not to distract him while he was racing.  We traded off pulls a few times over the next several km and passed a few solo skiers and small groups here and there.  We started passing some of the elite women, who had started 20 minutes ahead of the men this year.  Bjorn's skis were running a bit faster than mine, so I got a couple good pole pushes from him on a couple of the downhills, and when I gapped him a bit on a couple of the climbs he was able to get back in contact pretty easily.  He took over for a bit when we hit the lake, but I could see another skier up ahead that I though we could catch, so I made it my goal to get us up to him.  I took a good long pull, but when  I looked back Bjorn was out of contact.  I decided to push on and caught the skier ahead just as we were going by the torch on the finishing stretch.

It was a gorgeous day for being outside, so after we changed and I got a more detailed account of Bjorn's proposal and engagement we grabbed some food and headed out to cheer.  We went looking for Travis, but he had finished already, and when we were on our way back Jeffy was sitting by the bank with his stuff.  He was wearing jeans and just sitting around, and I thought there was no way he had finished the race already, so I was a bit worried something happened to him.  I asked him and he just gave a sigh and said "I skied fast, I'm really tired".  He had a great race and only missed making elite wave by 3 minutes or something.

One of the things I love about the Birkie is how many people I know there.  After the race it's just a matter of wandering around, eating as much as possible, and talking to everyone I recognize.  Mary Beth Liebsch said Matt was the first American in but just missed out on the money.  Molly Watkins was 4th in the classic race, just missing a podium in a sprint to the line.  Travis was top 20 in the classic race as well, good for him since he was skiing most of the race by himself.  I eventually got around to checking my results and found out I had finished 57th, my best ever finish, even if the time was slow because of the fresh snow.

I think next year I'm jumping ship to the Birkie classic race, so this was a very good way to go out with a bang on my skating run.  There is more ski season left to come, so another blog post will be along soon.