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.