A dizzying array of races

This last week really flew by, I feel like I barely saw my house. I was home Monday night, then Tuesday I went up to the cities to go running and check out the Dayblock taproom. Wednesday was ski practice, and Thursday I was home but spent most of the evening waxing skis. Then Friday it was back to the cities for the first of three days of racing for the City of Lakes Loppet Ski Festival.

Last year the Loppet introduced a new race called the Minne-Tour, which includes sprints on Friday night, a classic ski marathon on Saturday, and a skate ski marathon on Sunday. Last year I really struggled at these races. This year the lack of snow shortened the two marathons to 15k and 12k, making for a less exhausting weekend.

The weather Friday was great for being outside, upper 20's and light wind. Sprinting is not my forte, but I went out hard and settled in to the middle of the pack. It was good practice skiing fast and cornering in close proximity to other skiers, skills that would come in handy later in the weekend. I did not advance out of my quarter final, but they added a consolation round this year, so I got to race twice, which was fun. Vakava was well represented at the sprints, but none of us made it to the semi finals. Sprints are not really the type of events Vakava is geared towards.

Saturday was the Hoigaard's Classic. The race format was 5 laps of a 3k loop. The temperature was right around freezing, and the snow was icy transformed corn snow, not very good conditions for getting kick. Nate and I opted for purple klister. For those who don't know klister has a similar consistency and stickyness to superglue, but it doesn't dry. It is a painful mess to work with because the way to apply it is to put dabs of it on your kick zone, soften it up to a liquid using a heat gun, then use your thumb to spread this hot, sticky mess into a hopefully thin and uniform layer on your ski base. It also can be tricky to make fast skis in klister conditions because if you choose too cold of a wax it doesn't grip the snow at all, and if you choose too warm of a wax it doesn't release the snow and ice chunks build up on the bottom of your ski. I had only skied on klister once before and had never used it in a race, so I was a bit apprehensive. I was also racing on my new Madshus classic skis for the first time, so a lot of unknowns. During warmups everything seemed fantastic though, and my skis were awesome the whole race.

I got off to a decent start and got in a track right behind Nate heading up the first hill. I was content to relax there for a bit, there was not much room to move around anyway, and I didn't want to go out too hard, because the course is very hilly with very little rest. When we got to the long climb on the course however there was a lane open so I moved over and had open snow to stride my way up into about 5th place. When I reached the top of the hill I could tell this may have been a bit too ambitious of a move and I settled in a bit. The leaders absolutely exploded when we hit the timed "enduro" section of the course and the race blew apart pretty quickly. I found myself skiing with Chris Harvey, and the two of us worked off each other the rest of the race. The pace slowed a bit each lap as the tracks were broken down, the snow on the downhills became deeper, and we started having to weave through skiers we were lapping. I wasn't able to hold on to Chris the last lap and ended up in 13th place. This is my best ever loppet finish, so I was pretty pleased.

Nate and I stopped at Hyland on the way home Saturday to loosen up the legs and get used to skating a bit, since we wouldn't have a chance to warm up on the course the next morning because of other races going on. The snow was ankle deep mashed potatoes, really slow and hard to ski through. If this was what was in store the next day it would be a tough race.

The next day it was back to the same 3k loop, this time only 4 laps and skate skiing, so I expected it to be very fast. In addition there were a few speedy skiers who had not raced the day before, so they would be coming in to the race fresh. I was expecting the course to be in bad shape from all the skiers ahead of me (the elite wave was the last to start) and I expected a lot of traffic and fighting for position, and I was excited to find that neither was the case. The course was in decent shape, the snow actually set up well, and the elite wave spread out quickly so I could move pretty freely on the course.

I started a bit further back and slowly moved my way up through the pack for the first lap. I had Nate and Bjorn in sight in front of me, but just couldn't muster the effort to pull them in, so I chased them for the next couple laps. By the time we got out on the second lap and had a feeling for what the course held in store things settled down just a bit.

I managed to catch Nate and Bjorn on the sledding hill climb on the 3rd lap, and got pulled across the windy stadium. I couldn't quite hold on to them over the next couple short, steep climbs however and the gap opened back up. Every lap on the first climb Ahvo was there yelling at me to catch up to Nate, and every lap I worked to close the gap going uphill, but on the last lap I was just running out of steam. Nate and Bjorn were only a few seconds ahead, but I didn't have the energy to close the gap back down. Then up one of the steep hills right before the finish I made a bad lane selection and got stuck behind some skiers I was lapping. It slowed me only a few seconds, but made catching the group in front of me too large of a task. I ended up in 15th for the day, my best Loppet skate finish ever. It is strange to think that in a way, because I felt like I could have skied better and placed higher, but it is a good sign when a mediocre race is still my best ever finish.

I did end up beating Nate in the overall series by about 45 seconds, but lost to Bjorn by 1 second. Any number of decisions over the two races could have made that second of difference, but it was fun to finish so close. As a fun added bonus I got to ski with a celebrity! The other guy in the picture with Nate and I is Henry Reich who is the creator of awesome Youtube channels MinutePhyics and MinuteEarth. I wish I had realized this at the time, instead of after the race while I was looking at race pictures and watching a Youtube video he was on. It did make for a great double take moment though.

Despite the races being short I was plenty tired by the end of the weekend, short races just mean the pressure is on to go that much harder. Now I'm looking forward to another double race weekend of going around in circle at the Mora Vasaloppet.