A weekend "off"

No racing this weekend, but still plenty of goings on. I had been planning to head up to my Parent's this weekend for the Balsam Vinterfest and to meet up with my friends Garrison and Kristen who were out visiting from Ohio. The warm weather and marginal snow conditions led to the race getting cancelled, but getting to see friends and family still made it worth while to make the trip home.

My parents have a wonderful supportive community around them, so there wasn't a lot they needed, even with my dad having pretty strict lifting and movement restrictions. I took a stab at fixing their internet/routing problems and did some baking with my mom before heading back to Northfield.

Sunday was an exciting day, Gretchen Margret Porath was baptized, and I got to become a Godparent! It was an extra fun service since we also installed a new pastor at church, so lots of new people were welcomed in to our community of faith.

Greta's Baptism

I don't usually expose others to my more creative culinary excursions, but this one has a bit of a story behind it. When we were headed up to the Seeley Hills Classic last weekend Nate, Nichole, and I stopped at my parents for supper. My mom said there was some Carrot Cake soup that we should eat, and the whole trip out there Nichole was trying to figure out what carrot cake soup was. She even did some google research and the results were not promising. When we got to my parents we found out we would actually be eating carrot LEEK soup, and it was very tasty. When I got assigned to bring a dessert for the baptism party I figured carrot cake soup sounded dessert-like.

I looked around for soups that would go good with carrot cake (the recipes Nichole found on the car ride used milk broth and didn't sound appealing) and settled on a creamy carrot and sweet potato bisque with cinnamon and nutmeg as seasoning, very similar taste profile to the cake. My mom and I baked the carrot cake while I was home. I brought both components separately, but combined mine to test how the carrot cake soup would work out.

Carrot Cake Soup!

It was actually rather tasty, although I prefer both components more individually, so I wouldn't go as far at to call it a win.

This weekend brings an abbreviated but still busy weekend of racing. The City of Lakes Loppet is suffering from a lack of snow, so the races have been cut down from 42k each day to about 15k each day. A much more manageable weekend, but the loop the races will be held on is quite hilly, so there will be plenty of pain to be found.

Be Careful Out There Folks

There was some ski racing to talk about last weekend, and we'll get to that in a minute, but there was a much more important event in the last week that I wanted to talk about first. I got a phone call on Thursday from my mom that my dad had fallen off the roof while he was up cleaning the chimney. My mom got him onto a sled and pulled him down to the car, and he managed to pull himself up into the trunk of the car so my mom could drive him to the hospital. (Why they didn't call an ambulance is still beyond me). He was in for scans until late Thursday night and in surgery most of Friday. He broke 5 vertebrae in his back and broke a couple of ribs.

The roof in question.

The good news was he didn't appear to have a concussion and he still had full movement and sensation in his limbs. Surgery went well, they removed a lot of bone chips and fused the damaged vertebrae to stabilize his back. Nate, Nichole, and I tried to stop and see him on the way up to Seeley Friday but he wasn't out of observation yet. We stopped Sunday on our way back home and he was already able to move around with help from the nurses. He was released to go home Monday, but still has some pretty significant movement and lifting restrictions for the next several months.

It was hard to find a picture of my dad. Here he is dancing with my sister at a wedding.

I thank God that he came out of this as well as he did. He didn't hit his head at all during the fall. Despite being moved, pulling himself into a car, and being driven over an hour to the hospital with a broken back and no stabilization he suffered no spinal or internal organ damage. There was enough snow on the ground to help cushion some of his fall, but it wasn't cold enough to be dangerous for the time he was laying out there before my mom found him. He was very blessed to come out of this so well. Recovery will still be a long road though, especially since he is used to being active.

On to racing news. Last weekend was the Seeley Hills Classic. This years race field was incredibly deep. Several Olympians and Birkie winners toed the line in the 38k race. Race morning temperatures were hovering just below freezing and there was a light mist, making kick waxing a tricky business. I tried several different temperatures of wax before finding one I was confident would kick.

I got off to a good start, stayed out of trouble on the first couple big downhills, and tucked on the lead pack as the race started to sort itself out. It was only a couple more km in before I started to see a problem however. I was sitting on the back of the lead pack and not working too hard, but they were pulling away significantly on the downhill sections. I could easily stride back up to them for a couple of climbs, but soon decided it would be too tiring to yo-yo off the back so I let them go and skied by myself for about 20km after that.

At the 3/4 mark turn around I could tell the pack ahead was at least a couple minutes up on me, and there were two skiers not too far behind, one by less than a minute. This skier turned out to be Doug Debold, and he caught me with about 7km to go. He had worked hard to catch up and wasn't going to take any turns pulling. I didn't want anyone else to catch us, but I relaxed and tried not to do any more work than necessary with him sitting right on my heels.

I put in a hard surge up the final big hill and tried to push it in with about 1.5 km to go. Doug is a good skier and a fast closer and he managed to get around me and hold me off for the finish. I ended up in 14th, about 11 minutes back from the winners and about 4 minutes ahead of the lead women. Not exactly the race I was hoping for, but considering how tough the field was I'm not too disappointed with it.

As soon as my stomach would take food I gobbled down a few cookies, got in a cooldown ski, and headed to the Sawmill saloon for some post race soup. Then I ventured back out into the mist to find Nichole and join her for the last 5 miles of her 12 mile long run. She was nice enough to keep the pace slow for me, and the weather was great for being out in. My body handled the running very well considering I had just finished racing a couple hours before.

We stayed at the Porath's cabin Saturday night, Bjorn stayed with us as well. I won a game of "Hey! That's my fish" and lost every other game, although I gave Nate a run for his money in the train game. Sunday morning we met a bunch of other skiers and got in a nice 2 hour skate ski from OO up to the 9k feed station and back. The Birkie tour was going on and there were a lot of people out enjoying the beautiful weather.

Next weekend is the Balsam Vinterfest as long as snow conditions hold. Things continue to be quite warm here, so we'll see what happens. It already sounds like the City of Lakes Loppet in 2 weeks may be a lake race, and I wouldn't be surprised if Mora the weekend after is as well.

Have a great week readers, and stay safe!

Ready Steady Go

The cold temperatures and returning to work after a couple weeks of vacation made last week a good candidate for scaling back the training and getting some real recovery in. I ran the CROCT trails with Mike on Monday, they are really fun when the snow is crunchy and abrasive. Traction was good and I stayed pretty warm in the woods. Wednesday was the coldest, with the temp hitting -4F and the windchill at -23. It was sunny though, so it really didn't feel bad at all. Nichole, Greta, and I got a few easy miles in that day. I'm holding steady at about 20 miles a week running, hopefully that is enough to make the transition to marathon training in the spring a smooth one.

Friday I met up with Andy Brown and Rob Edman and we carpooled up to Ironwood, MI for the Sisu Ski Fest. All three of us were planning on racing the 42k Classic race. The cold weather modified those plans a bit, the race was shortened to only 30k, and happily the start time was pushed back from 8:30 to 10:00am. This made a world of difference, and the -1F air temp at race start didn't feel cold at all since there was bright sunshine and very light wind. Ironwood was gorgeous with tons of natural snow, so I was really excited to get out and race.

It's easy to get excited about skiing when the trails look like this.

Andy set a fast pace from the start, and I took a pull up the big hills early in the race. I pushed harder than I should have for 5k into the race, but wanted to stride as far up the hills as I could, and I chose to kick wax for speed instead of grip, so I needed to work hard to get kick on some of the steeper pitches. By the time I rotated off the front the lead pack was down to 5 skiers. Unfortunately for me just as I was dropping back in the pack a group took off the front and I wasn't able to cover their break. I settled in to 4th and skied the rest of the race pretty much by myself, although I occasionally caught sight of the racers ahead and behind when the course had tight loops. 

37km in to a 31km race. Probably not accurate.

I felt like we were making very good time until I realized that the course markings were still for the original 42k race, and were therefore not accurate for the modified race course. From then on I did mental math whenever I saw a km marker to keep track of how much racing was left. It didn't occur to me until almost the end of the race to check my GPS watch, which would give me the race distance, not math required. We repeated a section of trail as part of the course, and when we got to that section the snow was noticeably faster where it had been skied in. I wasn't able to stride nearly as far up the hills the second time around, probably a combination of increased fatigue and kick wax wearing off on the abrasive snow. I was also weaving through the slower skate racers who were on their first lap. I had it in my mind that the repeated section of trail was short, so I started to get worried when the turnoff was not appearing. Then We came up to an intersection where a man on a snowmobile was watching the racers. I figured this had to be the turnoff and he confirmed it after asking if I was on my second lap. I made the turn and was back to slow, coarse snow. 

I quickly noticed that there didn't seem to be enough pole plants in the fresh snow or ski tracks around the tight corners to account for there being 3 skiers ahead of me. My suspicions were confirmed a few km later when an aid station worker told me I was in 2nd place.

One skiers worth of tracks

Based on the tracks I had a pretty good idea of who the skier ahead of me was. I didn't know how large of a gap he had, and I never caught sight of him, but I thought if I pushed hard I might be able to pull him back in. My pole plants were just a little bit longer than his and I was able to stride a couple of the hills that he had to run, so I figured I was gaining ground. I was also worried that the two other skiers, who I assumed had missed the turnoff, would quickly realize their mistake and work together to chase me down, further motivation to keep the effort high.

I finished and quickly confirmed that I was second. The two CXC skiers in first and second had missed the turnoff. They ended up doing an entire extra lap so had logged 43km by the time they made it to the finish (or Finnish, as the race sign says) in Ironwood. I got changed quickly and got back to the finish area for awards. It is very seldom that I get to stand on a podium in a ski race, so I was enjoying every minute of it. Here are more pictures of the race here

We made the trek back to Minnesota that evening and when I got home I quickly waxed up a pair of skate skis for the Pre-Loppet Sunday morning. Nate and I went to do a bit of cheering at the Zoom Ya Ya indoor marathon before heading up to Theodore Wirth Park for the race, which would be 2x7.5km loops. My legs felt decent on the warmup and I was kind of excited to see how back to back racing would go. Conditions were still thin on much of the course, so I wasn't on my fastest skis, but it still seemed quite speedy compared to the slow conditions the day before.

Start of the Pre-Loppet. I'm in the middle with the yellow hat.

I got off to a good start and settled in around 5th place. The early pace was fast though, so I pretty quickly let a small gap form to the group ahead of me. Two more skiers went by, and I tagged on with them for a little while, trying to stay calm and conserve energy. The course had a lot of good climbs, and I knew I would need to save something for the second lap. I pushed hard going into the long downhill on the back of the course and pulled in Jon, the U of M skier who beat me at the Ahvo Klassic a couple weeks before. I passed him at the top of the next big climb and went chasing after Nate, who had fallen off the lead pack. I reeled in Nate and got a bit of a gap, but him and Jon worked to reel me back in just as we were hitting the snowmaking loop on the second lap. I tried to stay relaxed in the front of the group, but it is easier to follow than to lead, so I was happy to swap out and settle on to the back after a bit.

Jon made an attack at the bottom of the sledding hill, the last big climb on the course, and Nate gave chase and pulled ahead of him at the top of the hill. Nate built a gap pretty quickly, and I was able to catch back up to Jon and draft him in to the finishing straight. I dug deep for the sprint and was pulling even with Jon, but ran out of time. I ended up 7th on the day, 5 seconds away from Nate in 5th, so I was pretty happy with that result after all the racing and driving of the previous day.

This weekend it's back to the Birkie trail for the Seeley Hills Classic, with an incredibly talented field this year and temps just below freezing it should be fun to get out and see how long I stay in the mix.

Racing ahead

Ski racing season didn't wait long into 2015 before getting back going. On new years day I mad emy way up to Theodore Wirth park for the Ahvo Klassic. Since the race was only a 12k I figured it wouldn't hurt to work out a couple more times along the way, so I went and joined the Band of Ten Thousand Aches, Northfield's most prestigious running group, for their annual new years day run and brunch. I have been to a couple of events put on by the band and knew many of the runners, but this was the first time I had actually joined the group for a run. It was a great way to start out the morning. Nate and I took turns pushing Greta during the run.

After the run I headed up to Hyland to meet Jeff for a ski. Unfortunately he decided to sleep in and didn't make it out, but when I had finished up my first lap I ran into Craig Stolen. He pulled me over to give me a case of Fulton "Worthy Adversary" and some hats to distribute to the Vakava skiers who were part of the winning team at the Fulton team relay race earlier in the week. I skied with him for a bit before continuing North to the race.

This beer is true to it's name. Nate and I shared a bottle and it almost got the better of us both.

There is only a 1.5km loop of man made snow at Theodore Wirth, but the race organizers decided to use a few km of natural snow trails as well. They warned racers to use B skis, which for me meant skis that I hadn't waxed since ?? and that had a pretty heavy accumulation of kick wax as well. They weren't fast, but I threw a little VR50 on and they kicked quite well. Andy Brown and Tyler Gilbert got away right from the gun and I settled into 3rd all by myself. I could hear a pack of about 4 skiers not too far behind me, but decided I would rather ski by myself so I could pick my line through the thin natural snow sections.

I paced things well, but was tracked down and passed by a hard charging U of M skier in the last km or so. I didn't quite have the herringbone speed to keep with him over the last couple steep hills, so I ended up in 4th. One advantage of being an old fella though is that I still handily won my age class. I won a pair of U of M ski pants, that were unfortunately too small for me, so they will be a late Christmas present for Jeff instead.

This week has been quite cold, and I've been taking things pretty easy so I'm at least a little rested up for my first ski marathon of the season this weekend. I'm racing the classic race at the Sisu Ski Fest, a race I haven't tried before, so I'm excited to see how the course is. There has been enough snow for the groomers to get out in the Arb; it has been really convenient to have skiing right in town, especially just to get out for easy skis. Otherwise I've mostly been running during the week still, trying to keep the weekly mileage up for as long as I can. Last year once I started ski racing regularly I wasn't recovering well if I ran during the week, but this year I have a much bigger running base, so I'm hoping to keep some miles up all the way through the winter.