Nordic Nuts-Home

11/9/06
A wonderful weekend of cross. Saturday's race was fast, flat, windy and exposed all of the weak points in my cross riding. I definitely have some stuff to work on. Like everything. Starts, transitions, hammering flat courses. I got a slow start, which was killer because it was definitely a pack riding race. It seemed like most of the guys I was catching during the race were going backwards after being shelled from packs, so not much help to ride with. I managed to pick my way through the race and get up to 18th, which wasn't half bad. Saturday night I had sushi for the first time, at the Mall of America of all places. It was pretty tasty. Then I slept for 10 hours, which was delightful. Sunday morning we got some coffee and a carmel roll and cruised down to Northfield for Back 2 School cross. They had a huge hill runup, much more my style. All in all they put together a really fun course with lots of tight turns, some rippin' fast downhills and a death spiral. Dennis threw down a nice ride (as he did on Saturday) in the Cs. Then I cruised a better warmup than on Saturday and was pretty ready for the B race. I got off to a marginal start and just ran past people every time up the hill. I moved up pretty consistently, but wasn't riding super smooth in the tight spots and people were pulling time back in those sections. I actually spun out a couple of times going around the off camber hairpin below the big hill. I was just getting a bit overly excited. So there was more learning going on. I ended up pulling off a 13th, which I was pretty happy with. Tons of pictures are up on skinnyski.com. This weekend its the Hayward ski swap and time for me to move. With any luck we're heading down to the WI state champs in a couple of weeks. Maybe we'll have snow by then? Out.

11/2/06
Sup. Nice riding lately. After BayCross I really wanted to get a solid training week in, which I managed. Riding the cross bike a bunch as of late. Last weekend we did a nice ride on the new singletrack down in Hayward, which is absolutely sweet. Fast and flowy would be the best way to describe it. Fast forward to this week. We rode rock lake with the lights last night. It was snowing on and off the whole time, mostly just light flurries, but towards the end it came down pretty hard for about 15 minutes which laid a nice dusting down on the trail. I managed to break my light mount trying to muscle it through a rock garden towards the end of the ride. No damage to me though. This weekend is a double weekend of cross down by the cities. I'll try to grab some pictures. Out.

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©2005 Paul Belknap All rights reserved.
Why do I do this? Check out About
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My disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this website are mine and mine alone and they do not reflect the position of Gonzaga University, if they did, you would be hearing as much about their nordic ski team as their men's basketball team. :)


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11/9/06 A wonderful weekend of cross. Saturday's race was fast, flat, windy and exposed all of the weak points in my cross riding. I definitely have some stuff to work on. Like everything. Starts, transitions, hammering flat courses. I got a slow start, which was killer because it was definitely a pack riding race. It seemed like most of the guys I was catching during the race were going backwards after being shelled from packs, so not much help to ride with. I managed to pick my way through the race and get up to 18th, which wasn't half bad. Saturday night I had sushi for the first time, at the Mall of America of all places. It was pretty tasty. Then I slept for 10 hours, which was delightful. Sunday morning we got some coffee and a carmel roll and cruised down to Northfield for Back 2 School cross. They had a huge hill runup, much more my style. All in all they put together a really fun course with lots of tight turns, some rippin' fast downhills and a death spiral. Dennis threw down a nice ride (as he did on Saturday) in the Cs. Then I cruised a better warmup than on Saturday and was pretty ready for the B race. I got off to a marginal start and just ran past people every time up the hill. I moved up pretty consistently, but wasn't riding super smooth in the tight spots and people were pulling time back in those sections. I actually spun out a couple of times going around the off camber hairpin below the big hill. I was just getting a bit overly excited. So there was more learning going on. I ended up pulling off a 13th, which I was pretty happy with. Tons of pictures are up on skinnyski.com. This weekend its the Hayward ski swap and time for me to move. With any luck we're heading down to the WI state champs in a couple of weeks. Maybe we'll have snow by then? Out.
11/2/06 Sup. Nice riding lately. After BayCross I really wanted to get a solid training week in, which I managed. Riding the cross bike a bunch as of late. Last weekend we did a nice ride on the new singletrack down in Hayward, which is absolutely sweet. Fast and flowy would be the best way to describe it. Fast forward to this week. We rode rock lake with the lights last night. It was snowing on and off the whole time, mostly just light flurries, but towards the end it came down pretty hard for about 15 minutes which laid a nice dusting down on the trail. I managed to break my light mount trying to muscle it through a rock garden towards the end of the ride. No damage to me though. This weekend is a double weekend of cross down by the cities. I'll try to grab some pictures. Out.
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©2005 Paul Belknap All rights reserved. Why do I do this? Check out About Contact Me My disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this website are mine and mine alone and they do not reflect the position of Gonzaga University, if they did, you would be hearing as much about their nordic ski team as their men's basketball team. :)