An early Christmas gift

I had a blog post started at the end of last week, but all memories of what I was intending to write about were eradicated beneath a pile of Thanksgiving deliciousness and wonderful, beautiful snow. Nate and I headed up to Hyland on Wednesday for some classic intervals with actual classic tracks, and Luke Strauss joined in as well. The man made snow loop was wonderful as far as it was open, which unfortunately did not include any of the bigger hills yet. Or maybe not so unfortunate considering Nate and I both had Thanksgiving morning races on tap the next day. After skiing I met up with a lovely gal for a slice of pie and headed to Jeff's house to sleep.

Thursday morning was chilly, barely above 0F with a steady breeze. I'm pretty sure this was the coldest weather I have done a running race in. As a skier however I was prepared to handle the cold and excited to see how my trail shoes would handle the loose, powdery snow. I was perhaps a bit overconfident for the Turkey Day Trail Trot at Battle Creek, considering I have pretty handily won the last two races I did there. My hubris would turn out to be my demise. Molly showed up to race as well, so we got in our warmup jogging the 1/2 mile or so from where registration was to where the race started. I kept on my layers as long as possible so I would have some hope of starting the race warm.

"Warming Up" is a relative term in this cold

Any hopes I had of working my way into the race were quickly shattered as the pace went out fast. There were 3 of us in the lead group and I settled into second place and tried to run relaxed with fast turnover since the 3" of snow underfoot robbed a lot of power from each stride. The guy leading the race was having traction trouble on the climbs, so I figured he would wear out eventually. We came through the mile at 6:15, and I would hold almost that exact pace for the rest of the race.

Off to a fast start

 About mile 2 the guy in the lead started to lose steam and the third person in the group hit it hard on one of the down hills, the only place where it was possible to gain speed, to get a gap on the other two of us. I gave chase and held the gap steady, but wasn't able to close it up. At the 5k lap mark the guy in front let me close back up while he took off his jacket and sat on my shoulder for the next mile and a half. I kept the pace high, but was feeling the fatigue from the intervals the night before and the power sucking snow, so when he took off on a downhill I had no response. He got about 10 seconds on me and I was once again able to hold the gap steady but not close it. I ended up 2nd in 40:08.

Age group win!

At the awards ceremony I had a slight blow to my ego when I found out that the guy who beat me was in the 15-19 year old age class. Darn those speedy highschoolers. I felt a bit better when I did some internet stalking and found out that he had taken 7th at the state cross country meet a few weeks before, and with a faster time than I ran at state in my highschool days.

After that I headed off to join my family for a Thanksgiving meal or two, then joined the Porath family for a weekend at the cabin that included much more good food, some quality Greta time, and a healthy dose of skiing as well. It is hunting season in Wisconsin, so orange was a popular color on the ski trails. The conditions on the Birkie trail were wonderful around OO. I usually don't get to ski the Birkie trail until after Christmas, so to be out skiing there in late November was like an early Christmas present.

Saturday Morning Ski Crew

Nate and I skied South Friday evening where the trail had been rolled but not groomed. On Saturday we had a chance meeting with several of the Batdorf boys and decided to ski North. There was about 10k groomed heading North on the skate or classic trail so we made a few loops as we traded stories and took in the beautiful scenery. Bjorn pushed the pace on many of the uphills and I was glad to give chase. Saturday afternoon we talked Jim and Nichole into coming for a ski with us (after she ran 9 miles that morning) and we met Rob out on the trails as well, so we had quite the crew for that ski. Rob joined us at the cabin that evening and for skiing and running the next day.

Over the course of the weekend Nate and I put in just shy of 90km of skiing and got in a bit of running as well. It was a really great way to dive into the ski season and start to prepare the ski muscles for the hard training and racing to come. I owe a huge thank you to the Porath family for adopting me for the weekend.