Lonely Road

Last week was pretty quiet. Some frigid northern air continued to hold Minnesota in it's frosty grasp, and after the City of Lakes super loppet I was in full recovery mode. Vakava practice was my only speed for the week. The workout was classic team relay, which Bonnie and I won handily, mostly because it's easy to win when Bonnie is the "slow" skier on the team. My ski speed is improving this year, but I still have to figure out pacing and group skiing a bit better. Other than that I've been trying harder to get to bed at a reasonable hour and give my body the best chance possible to recover as I taper for the big races ahead. I am in the thick of race season now, and it's an extra exciting year for winter sport fans as the Olympics is going on.  Also, my friend Dave just turned 30, and his fiancee threw a great surprise party for him; it was a lot of fun.

It was a big weekend for racing, we'll cover the most important ones first. The women's skiathlon kicked off the cross country ski program at the Olympics. The US had 4 skiers entered, and while none of them was realistically a medal threat they were all primed to have great races. Sadie Bjornsen had a great classic leg, getting some good camera time for the super looking US Olympic race suits. At the front of the race the leaders were turning the screws, and by the ski exchange had whittled the pack down to about 7 skiers, this is where the camera focus was during the remainder of the event. Too bad really, because the US staged a huge comeback in the second half of the race with Jessie Diggins fighting up to 8th place, and Liz right on her heels in 12th, amazing performances to kick off the next couple weeks. Jumping ahead briefly Sophie Caldwell skied out of her gourd to raise the bar even higher by making it to the sprint finals and ultimately ending up in 6th place in a race where all 4 US starters qualified for the rounds. At the front of the skiathlon race Norway reminded the world it is the true cross country powerhouse by taking 1st, 3rd, and 4th. Props to Charlotte Kalla from Sweden though who put in an incredible burst up the last climb to make her bid for the gold. It takes some real guts to drop Therese Johaug on a steep climb, and even Marit Bjorgen looked like she might not bridge the gap for a while. On the mens' side "Super" Dario Cologna showed that he hasn't lost his edge, making a big move at the same place as Kalla that nobody could respond to. Eric Olson housed Nate and I the night before the Vasaloppet, so we were able to watch the end of the skiathlon right before we headed off to our own race, talk about motivation!

On the domestic racing side Caitlin Gregg picked up where she left off, winning a supertour 5k skate race by nearly 45 seconds. A bit closer to home was the Mora Vasaloppet. After several years of doing the classic race I decided to go back to the headline event, the 58k skate. A couple pre-race notes before I dive into my race report. I didn't put a top coat on my skis, but people who had been out testing skis were saying topcoats were much faster, so I did a bit of panic waxing and threw some Solda HP-05 fairy dust on top of the Fastwax White that I had on. I had never used fluoro powder before, only blocks or pastes, so it was a bit unnerving to have only a bit of dust between my ski base and an extremely hot iron, but things worked out ok. I don't know how the skis would have run without the topcoat, Fastwax has been spot on with their recommendations all season, but I know they were fast with it on race day. The other note is that I forgot to pack gels for the race, so my race fuel was a granola bar that we got in our race pack that I pinned in my race pants to keep it warm enough to eat. This worked surprisingly well. Granola bars are tougher to get down while skiing, but there was so much no pole skate during the race that it didn't matter if my hands were tied up fiddling with the granola bar for a bit.

Mora is known for having a flat course that produces fast times, and this year was no exception. It was a cold morning, about 2F at race start, but the snow was rock hard and quite fast. I got out to a decent start and tagged on to the back of the lead pack. I was working to hold on, and in transitions around corners I was skiing stiff and would often lose a stride or two. After about 10km of this there was finally a bigger gap than I could close without a huge effort, so I resigned myself to skiing alone. A couple quick glances back didn't show anyone close behind me, but I tried to keep the mentality that I was sitting on the back of the pack to make sure my tempo stayed high on the climbs and I was squeezing all the speed I could out of my skis on the flats.

Start of Mora Vasaloppet - photo by Bruce Adelsman: Skinnyski.com

Once the race turned out of the headwind the conditions were gorgeous. The track was firm and fast, the kind of fast where even when you are skiing alone in the woods you can tell you are going FAST! I was surprised a couple times when I thought I had missed a km marker and suddenly find out that I had missed 4 or 5 km markers. Skiing alone for almost 40km gave me plenty of time to enjoy the scenery and just take in the day. There were not a lot of random thoughts as I tried to keep my focus on my technique and energy levels, and hoping to catch a glimpse of someone ahead while listening for skiers gaining from behind.

Almost to the Finish - photo by Bruce Adelsman: Skinnyski.com

 With about 11 km to go I caught sight of a pack of 3 or 4 skiers crossing a meadow behind me. I knew I was sitting in 8th and didn't want to have my chance at a top 10 come down to a sprint finish, so I decided to hit it hard for a few km to hopefully stay out of sight.  Chasing a skier down is much harder if you can't tell how far ahead of you they are.  Shortly after this our trail merged with the 35km skiers so I was able to lose myself in the crowd a bit and just focus on finding the fastest snow and moving through the skiers from the other race. I didn't catch sight of the guys behind me again, but kept pushing hard, since the end of the race was fast approaching. 

Ice beard, with extra blueberry soup coloring - photo by Bruce Adelsman: Skinnyski.com

When I got up the bell tower hill and turned onto the street into town I saw another 58km skier ahead of me. If I had known he was there a bit sooner I might have had time to chase him down, as it was I came in 5 seconds behind him. The next 3 guys came in about a minute after I finished, so I probably put some time on them in the last 10km. I was satisfied with 8th place, although kind of disappointed I didn't hold on to the lead pack longer. My best Mora finish, and probably one of my fastest paced races ever, but nothing special... until I finally got around to looking at the results sheet later in the day. That's when I noticed that I had taken 3rd in my age class, and was going to get a horse! This year was my 10th year skiing the Vasaloppet, and I had yet to win a horse, much to the amusement of pretty much every other skier I hang out with who all seem to have a stable full of the things. This really made my day, since I figured I would be way out of the running for a horse being in the most difficult age group in the most difficult race of the weekend. Here are full results from the weekend for anyone interested, and my Strava data for anyone really interested. Next up is the Minnesota Finlandia in Bemidji.

My first Dala Horse - Nikolai

Minne Tour

It's been a bit of dead air around here again lately, since my posts have been going up mostly on the Vakava Racing Blog. Now there are getting to be many Vakava skiers at all the races though, so I'll leave the super race stories to other folks and just bring my race reports back here for a bit.

This past weekend was the City of Lakes Loppet Ski Festival. All though several big ski races are working to rebrand themselves as "festivals" and are widening the scope of events they offer usually I'm just there for the headline event. This year at City that event was the Minne-Tour and it was a doosie. The tour is a three part series starting with sprint races Friday night, a classic marathon Saturday, and a skate marathon Sunday. The prize money for the this year was tied to the race, which meant that the very top skiers would all be in the tour. Until this year I would not have considered myself to be part of this group, and maybe my results from the weekend will confirm that I was correct in that assumption, but it was fun to pretend for a couple days anyway. I did finish 10th overall in the double marathon portion of the races though, so I feel that is good enough to justify my inclusion in this group. Here is a rundown of the three races.

At the start of the classic race - Picture By Bruce Adelsman, Skinnyski.com

I am a notoriously slow starter, and I don't have good form or power at top speed on skis, so I never figured sprint racing would be my forte, and it turns out I was right. It was a lot of fun however, and set the stage for the weekend to come. The course was a short out and back, about 800 meters total, and had one bump going up and over a pedestrian tunnel, a short steep uphill, the 180 degree turn, back down the steep hill and over the pedestrian tunnel, off the drop off they added on the downside of the ramp over the tunnel, and around the corner to the finish line. There were stadium lights set up at the finish line, but the far end of the course was rather dark. As predicted I was slow off the line, and as soon as the double pole section ended another skier cut over in front of me. We tangled a little bit and I ended up skiing over his pole and breaking it. Sorry Josh :(. After getting up to speed I got ahead of Josh and passed another skier on the steep climb, but the other 3 skiers in my heat were well away and my day ended with 4th in my heat since only the top 2 advance. Nate Porath and Andy Brown advanced out of my heat, and Nate ended up winning the B-Final to get 10 bonus seconds for the rest of the weekend.

Striding it out - Picture By Bruce Adelsman, Skinnyski.com

Saturday morning was the classic marathon. My classic skiing has improved greatly this year I think, and I had a good race at Seeley last weekend, so I was excited to see how I would fare on the very different City of Lakes course. I got off to a decent start and tucked on to the back of the lead pack for the hilly first 8k. I didn't hold on very closely and kind of bobbed on and off the back of the pack, doing all I could not to use too much energy too early. Crossing over to the "front 9" section the leaders had gapped me and after a couple km I finally gave up chasing them and tried to drop in behind a couple skiers who had been following me. I wasn't able to hold on very well though and they got away too. I caught back up to Travis Hinck just leaving the front 9 and then chased another skier in a Hoigaard's uniform for all of the Eloise Butler and Quaking Bog sections before dropping him heading on to the lake. Looking back I could see Travis and Dave Nelson close behind me, but I tried to keep up a gap since I wasn't having much luck working in a group. Finally Dave passed me and I was not able to hang on to him at all. I skied pretty much by myself after that, seeing only one skier ahead who I was not gaining on, and keeping about a minute gap on Travis and a couple others behind. I ended up 17th on the day in 2:29:36, about 4 minutes behind Nate and 15 minutes behind the winner. I had hoped to be a bit closer, but was still satisfied with how I did.

Saturday evening Nate, Nichole, and I went out to participate in a candlelight ski at the Carleton Arb. that served as a nice shakeout to loosen up the muscles for the next morning. There were a lot of familiar faces out, at least as many as you could recognize in the low light.

Chilly skate race - - Picture By Bruce Adelsman, Skinnyski.com

Sunday morning was chilly, but calm and sunny, so it didn't feel cold compared to some of the weather we've been having in the past couple weeks. I got a good start and once again tucked on the back of the lead pack. This has been 3 races where I have really felt like I belong in this pack, now I just need to figure out how to stay there for a full race. It was obvious that many racers were tired, because the pace would amp up and quickly drop back down to what almost seemed like a leisurely pace at times. The first few km felt good, but I could tell that yesterdays racing would be catching up with me, so I let the leaders get away on the front 9 and skied with Derek, another Vakava skier, for a while before he finally got away on Cedar Lake. From there things kind of went downhill.  My energy reserves were getting pretty low, and my gels were frozen and I couldn't get anything out of them, so I finally gave up on that plan after a couple km. Note to self, chocolate gels are too thick for single digit days. The lakes offer no real rest, and chasers can see you from a long way off, not ideal for someone who is bonking. I was in 9th place going on to the lakes, but lost count of the number of people who went by me. I kept my technique together alright, but I just couldn't put any power into my skiing, and consequently wasn't getting much glide out of my skis. The golf course at the end was a welcome relief from the lakes, but my legs didn't like the idea of going around corners or up hills, so I'm glad there weren't many people back there cheering, because I looked pretty terrible. I made it to the finish though, and actually had a great time for most of the race once I realized that it wasn't going to be a great result for me. I maybe should have pushed a bit harder to stay with some of the packs that went by me, but too late for that now. I finished 32nd in 2:16:19, a little over 15 minutes behind the winner. I have a pattern going of a good year at City followed by a bad year, and I was due for the bad year after last year's good race. Both my good and bad years are getting better however, so I am improving. I also held off the lead women (by about a minute only) so at least my goal of not getting girled remains intact. Vakava skier Mary Beth Tuttle won the womens' race, great skiing by her!

I ended up 10th in the Loppet Challenge (2 marathon event) and 7th in the Minne-Tour. Not bad considering how rough Sunday's race was. I beat Dave Nelson on Sunday, but wasn't able to make up the gap that he put on me Saturday, so ended up 2 minutes behind him in the standings. My total time for the two races was 4:45:53, not a bad weekend's work. Now I just need to learn to better keep my focus and keep with the changes of pace when I start to get tired, to remind myself that things will settle back down if I can just hold on.

Next up is the Mora Vasaloppet 58k skate, where I'm sure Matt, Andy, and several other familiar faces will once again be leading the train I hope to ride as long as possible.