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| 3/19 ABR Spring Race | |||||||||
| The racing season may be winding down, but
it ain't over 'til its over. This race uses a neat format which gives time
handicaps based on age and gender so that the 70 year old women start first
and the 19-24 year old guys start last. Classic skiers also get a 5 minute
head start from their given start group. First one across the finish line
wins. Being a young lad, I was part of the last start group. We went off
one minute behind the 25-29 age group, which was composed of Chris Cook.
Yeah, not much chance of catching him... Three guys from my start group
got ahead of me and pretty much straight up just skied away from me, so
I settled in by myself. We cruised a few hills and then headed out on the
flats before I started picking up earlier starters. I pulled through some
classic skiers and a few skaters and then hit a bit of a gap where there
really wasn't anyone. Coming through the stadium for the first time, I totally
missed the water hand-off, which would have been nice as it was a warm day
out there. The second loop was a bit shorter and flatter than the first,
but still had a few nice hills. I moved through a couple of women and a
guy or two before looping through the stadium one final time for a finishing
lap. I skied it in home with a time just under an hour for 19k. Karen (mom)
Cook took the win over Wynn Roberts ahead of Chris Cook. The snow was wicked
fast and I had some Solda F-31 violet with Powerjet 2 and it seemed to run
just fine. I felt really good today. Maybe skiing by myself, I was skiing
too slow, but I really felt like I could push the hills and recover well
on the flats. The sprint relay cranked up a couple of hours later, and despite a valiant effort, we were unable to locate a real female willing to make our team coed. After some minor arm twisting, Eric agreed that I could count as a girl if I skied in my skirt, which worked out well since I was planning on wearing it anyway. I was leading off followed by Borg Isaksen on the classic leg and Scott Chapin bringing us home. There were a couple of other teams including a team of 80's rockers (Tom (Meyer) VanHalen, Terry Tansey and Heidi Hittner) and a team from MN Biathlon, as well as a local team from Ironwood. Apparently I got a good start, because I ended up in the lead and stayed there for my entire lap shadowed pretty closely by Terry Tansey with the girl from MN Biathlon in third and the Ironwood team in fourth. After the second leg, Borg had held on to our lead, while MN Biathlon had closed the gap (on a pair of rental waxless skis) and the 80's rockers had dropped back. Chapin managed to edge out the MN Biathlon folks for the win followed home by Tom VanHalen. Word has it that a protest may be filed with FIS as the winning team may have had a skier of questionable gender. Expect a lengthy court battle that will put the Tyler Hamilton saga to shame. After a quick awards ceremony at which I scored plenty o' swag, including the prize for best costume, I headed home to the land of Ash. There should be pictures and results and possibly video up at some point from today at Skinnyski.com. |
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| 3/12 Great Bear Chase-Picture by Renee Callaway | |||||||||
After completing my first week of working
"real" job, I took off Saturday morning for Houghton Michigan.
There were a couple of miscues, but I got out of dodge around 9:30 a.m.
As I drove up, I saw some pretty toasty readings on bank thermometers.
I figured they were wrong, but when I got out of the car, it definitely
felt like the balmy 50 degrees that I'd been seeing. I rolled into Houghton
and stopped at the gas station to phone home to get the directions to
Adam's house that I had brilliantly left on my computer at home. Once
I got the directions, I didn't have any trouble finding the place. None
of the guys were home, so I changed real quick and headed out to try to
find the Michigan Tech trail system. After only a few minutes of cruising
about, I hit the jackpot with a nice piece of timing as the final races
were just wrapping up, so I wasn't going to get yelled at for going for
a little ski. I ran into Adam and said hey, and then went out for a ski.
It was wicked warm, wet and slow. I cruised around for about an hour and
threw in a few accelerations, which actually felt pretty good considering
how slow the snow was. After a quick shower, I made a quick run up to
Calumet to pick up my bib. Upon my return, Adam threw down a mean pot
of spaghetti. It was some rockin stuff. Apparently my stomach didn't think
so, because twice during the evening I found myself standing over the
toilet "just in case." Disaster was averted, and we headed over
to the other Tech ski house for a bit of a party. There were loads of
good skiers there including a big crew from MTU and a nice contigent from
Green Bay. I was introduced to folks, and then spent most of the evening
chatting it up about living Europe, school, and the like with a nice young
lady named Cindy. We cruised home around 12:30, and I crashed pretty hard
on Adam's very comfortable living room floor. The next morning came way
too early, but I threw down some oatmeal and got suited up and headed
up to Calumet. I tested skis, but the snow was so icy, that I couldn't
really feel much difference. I went with the warm pair of RS-11s which
had Solda F-31 yeller and Powerjet 1 on them, figuring it would probably
warm up a bit, and if it didn't, the wax probably wouldn't matter much.
I had a nice warmup and then got myself a start spot in the second row.
I had a bit of a slow start, but nothing that put me too far back and
I quickly pulled in with Corey Coogan and Ben Cogger. After the first
couple of quick hills, some packs started forming, and I sat in as we
were cranking into one heck of a headwind. First Corey moved through and
I snuck around on her tails. Then Tom Meyer came blowing past, and I grabbed
onto his draft. Pretty soon, we were cranking back around onto the uphills
and I was having trouble sticking with Tom, so I let him go, figuring
I didn't want to bury myself that early. Ben moved around pretty quickly
to catch onto him, and I never saw either one of them again. Meanwhile,
I started reeling in some guys who had started a bit faster and were fading
a bit including Terry Tansey and Tom Tedlund and a couple of other folks.
We skied together for a while and I took a nice pull towards the end of
the gradual downhill at the beginning of the second lap. Turns out it
was a bit too nice of a pull as I got shelled off the back of the pack
going up the hill. Around this time my skis really seemed to slow down
a bit, but I kept cranking, and actually felt pretty good skiing by myself.
Around the last food stop, Corey Coogan and a few people went past me
as I took down a gel. I worked hard to try to pull them back in, but other
than one guy trailing off the back, didn't seem to be making much progress.
Going into the last few hills, I finally manged to pull him back. I stuck
on him until we hit the final straight, at which point I threw down with
a nice push which netted me five seconds on him by the finish line or
a time of 2:18 (good for 45th place), or about 23 minutes of the winner
Andre Watt. After having a doughnut with Adam's roommate Dave, I did a
quick warm down and headed down to the school for pastys. MMMMM, pastys.
Except as often happens, I wasn't really feeling hungry. I think I've
got it boiled down to dehydration. Before the awards, I caught a couple
winks, which got me out of the zombie like state that I ended the race
in. Overall, I was really happy with my race. It would have been nice
to stick with at least the last group that passed me, but at least at
this race, I felt like I gave it 100% and was worked at the end. I skied
hard and had a blast, and the weather was great. |
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| 3/4 River View Loppet-Pictures | |||||||||
| After a cold and a couple of weeks of minimal skiing, I wasn't real sure how I was going to feel for this race. I got out and skied on Friday afternoon after finally kicking the cold, and felt great, but wasn't sure how much intensity I would have. I've been doing this race classic since I started racing it back in middle school, so I went for the 12k classic. I ran into a bunch of the Riverbrook crew at registration and said hi. After that I buzzed out to the trailhead to test skis and wax. I talked a bit with Mark Howard who was also doing the classic, and he was thinking Toko violet under a bit of toko blue. I tried that and it seemed to be working pretty well, but the interesting part of this race is how much it can warm up with the high sun. The surprise of the day was that the RC-11s were running much warmer than the ARCs. I think the RC-11s are starting to really pick up speed and it was warmer than the temps when the ARCs are a no-brainer. I was running Solda F-31 violet with Powerjet 2 and the skis felt great. I finished up my warmup and headed to the start. Out of the start, I pushed pretty hard, and didn't feel like I had great kick on the real sunny hills, but in the shade it was fine. The beginning of the course is pretty flat, and my double pole felt about the best it has all year, probably a result of being rested. I was picking off the earlier starters at a pretty brisk pace through this section. As I was skiing, I couldn't get a handle on my pace. It felt good, but maybe a bit too good, and I was a bit worried I wasn't pushing hard enough. That worry ended quickly as we headed into the hills and I was on the limit pretty quickly. My kick was pretty marginal and I could see that Brent Oja, the only person still ahead of me, had been kicking a lot further up the hills than I was. The flip side of this was that even in the herringbone, I felt pretty strong. About 9k in Mark Howard went by (for 2 minutes) just after an uphill with great kick. I managed to stick with him for about half a k, but then we hit some good uphills, and didn't have what it took to stick with him. Part of it was technique, part of it was wax, and part of it was that Mark was an animal out there. With the last couple uphills in the bag, I concentrated on minimizing my losses and double poled in hard to the finish. My effort turned in a 44:53, about 2:30 down on Mark, who took the win in 42:18 ahead of Brent at 43:14. The three of us went out for a short warm down, and threw in a glide test. Mark had slightly better skis with F-31 violet and HP05, but we were all pretty close. I snapped a few shots, which are posted here, went out for a 30 minute skate ski and headed into town for lunch. I had some tasty wild rice soup with the Riverbrook boys, picked up my first place age class award, and headed out to a pig roast at Tyler Lulich's of 24T fame. A bunch of the boys from the MSOE cross country team were there, and we hung out, ate some great pork, attempted to shoot clay pigeons, and had a rip roaring good time. That's all for now folks. | |||||||||
| 2/24/06 American Birkebeiner | |||||||||
| "All dressed up and nowhere to go" That phrase pretty much sums up my Birkie this year. I got a second wave start spot. The brothers Liphart and Troy and John picked me up at 6 a.m. and we busted down to Cable and caught a bus to the start line. We arrived at the start line with about 30 minutes to go and I still needed to use the porta-potty. By the time I lined up, I was pretty much in the back of the wave as were Doug and Ian Meeker. After the start gate came up we were off! For about 100 meters. Then we stopped. Then we went. I pulled in behind a couple of girls that seemed to be at least attempting to move up in the pack. With Doug and Ian in tow we passed a fair number of people, but by the time we left the powerline for the woods, there were still tons of wave 2 people in front of us. Shortly thereafter a couple of wave 3 guys came cruising by, but with the exception of a guy in a Gustavus suit, they were all skiing like jerks and didn't look to me like they were going far, so I didn't bother hooking on. I kept moving up whenever there was a gap, but there really wasn't much room to move. I could pass a few people on the transition into each downhill, but then would lose all of my momentum running into people on the next hill. It was a bit frustrating. I could have made more passes, but I would have wasted insane energy and been a total jerk to all involved. And so we came to OO and I really doubt that my heart rate had topped 160. To make my enjoyment of the day even more complete, I hadn't been drinking from my bottle enough and it had frozen shut. After OO, things cleared out enough that I could make more passes and start move up, but I was still running into a lot of traffic on the uphills. Finally with about 10k to go, I ran into Tyler Lulich and said hi. After roughly that point, things really opened up and I started to be able to ski hard most of the time, but I think I'd lost my mental game. My heart just really wasn't in it. I'd lost the aggressive edge to really crank through people. I was pushing pretty hard and passing a fair number of people including Cindy Swift and Grant from Riverbrook, but not with a vengeance. One nice thing was that I pulled back in all of the guys who had been rude coming through the 2nd wave (not the guy from Gustavus because he wasn't rude). They all looked like they were hurting. When we finally hit the lake in Hayward, I was pumped. I sat in for a bit on a guy hiding from the headwind while we picked a few people off, but then realized that it was time to motor for real. I took off and probably passed at least 20 people on the lake and picked off another 5ish on mainstreet. I threw down hard up mainstreet and just sprinted past another guy in my wave for a finish time of 3:03. In about 5 minutes I was ready for another Birkie. I'm not blaming anyone but myself, but that's probably the best I've felt after a race this year, which just isn't right. I was like 20 minutes slower than people I've been beating in races all year. Shoot, I've beaten a good 10 people in the elite wave. Live and learn. As long as I manage to sneak into the first wave, I guess I'll call it a success. If this sounds really bitter, I don't mean it that way. It was a bit dissapointing, but a good learning experience. Plus I feel great today! :) Update 2/28/06 I forgot to include my ski/wax choices, which some people find interesting. I was on my old school Peltonen Zeniths, which pretty much serve as my "cold" skis and happen to be pretty good soft snow skis as well. They were waxed up with Toko Nordlite (old school Toko LF blue) with a touch of cold powder in the second coat. Oh and I had a base layer of Toko blue, just to make sure the bases were hard. A major concern since I never wax those skis with anything warmer than blue. ;-) My skis seemed as good as anyone near me, probably better than most for most of the race. Towards the end they seemed to fall off a bit as the snow got warmer, but they were still close enough. Frankly, most of the people I was skiing near were so lazy about working transtions that it was hard to draw conclusions about ski speed. This isn't trying to mean, its just a fact. My skis did feel really good though. |
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| 2/11-12/06 Pre-Birkie and North End Classic | |||||||||
After getting my skis prepped up Friday
evening, I got the weekend off to a proper start by getting a solid 4
hours of sleep on Friday night. I dragged myself out of bed around 6 a.m.
and got rolling. Bumping some Youngblood Brass Band, I rolled into Telemark
a bit after 8 and got registered. After registering, I went to check out
the course and check on skis. I ended up skiing the last 6 k or so, which
was pretty nice late in the race. After finishing that loop, I finished
testing skis, and went and set my skis in the second row by the start
line and picked up my timing chip. With my start spot secured, I went
out for a solid warmup. Feeling ready to go, I cruised over to the start
line about 10 minutes before the start, only to find out that the classic
skiers were going off first, and we had an extra 10 minutes. No, worries,
I wanted to hit the porta-potty anyway. When I strolled over to the start
line with still about 15 minutes to go until my race, I had been squeezed
out of my spot. There were two guys standing shoulders about 6 inches
apart on both sides of my skis. I may have really narrow shoulders for
a skier, but there's no way I'm going to fit there. Maybe I should have
been a jerk and squeezed in, but I'm not all about being a jerk. Funny
that I recognized most of the skiers in the first couple rows though.
I looked up and down the second row and there were no gaps at all. Same
with the third row. I finally found a bit of a gap between the 3rd and
4th rows. Sweet start spot! Not real thrilled, I clipped into my skis.
When the gun went off, I got as good a start as I could and tried to ski
relatively relaxed, knowing that in a few k we would hit the powerline
and I would have plenty of room to pass. I made a couple bad moves, mainly
because my skis were rocking those of people around me and I didn't want
to waste ALL of my momentum. Once on the powerline, I pushed it a bit
and tried to make up some ground. I passed a ton of people on the powerline
and picked off a few more after we turned into the woods. At this point
I could see a group of about a half dozen with Steve Tilford trailing
off the back so I settled into my V2 and worked on brining them back on
the nice flatish section we were on. I was feeling the effort a bit, but
overall felt good. Then out of nowhere, I got this incredible urge to
check on the snow conditions up close and personal. That's right race
fans, I got my eagle on but good via a sweet pole inside the ski. I scrambled
back up and resumed the chase. With rockin' skis and a nice section of
the course where I could really work the transitions, I had Tilford pulled
in pretty quickly. By then, he'd dropped off the group pretty significantly,
and I set to work on the next guy, who'd also been shelled. After pulling
him in, I felt like I could get the group of four in short order. We headed
onto gentle downhill portion of the 24T course, and I went to work and
almost had things pulled back by the last feed station. Then, as we moved
into the last 6k things started to hurt a bit, and after a little bobble,
I let the last guy I'd passed (Ray Niemi?) lead for a bit, while I re-evaluated
a bit. Some people reported slow skis in that section. I dunno, my skis
felt ok, I think I was just feeling it. I also hadn't done a great job
with hydration, and that may have kicked in. We headed downhill again,
and with some more aggressive skiing on the downhills, I pulled ahead
again and tried to pull the quartet in again. I seemed to be pulling some
ground back, but then we hit some hills, and I just didn't have the pop
to really attack them and the gap seemed to stay about the same. Going
up the last rise before dropping into the Telemark bowl, one guy had popped
off the group of four. With some pretty fast skis, I pulled some more
ground back on him dropping into the bowl and kicked hard on the finishing
straight, but in the end, he (Paul Gabriel it turns out) got me by about
1 second. I felt good, and definitely gave 100%. I think my hydration/nutrition
definitely could have been better, and of course my start wasn't real
hot. But its all good experience and training. My skis definitely rocked.
I used my cold RS11s with Toko Nordlite and a bit of cold powder and my
skis were faster than anyone around me. I ended up 55th. Not shabby. After
the race, I ran into Hans Wildebush who threw down a great 16th. We tried
to help a guy push his car out after he got it stuck and I think succeeded
in making it worse. The paramedic lady told us to give up and told the
guy to go find some with a big truck... Then we went for a nice cool down
with Hans and some other guys from UW-Madison. I polished off a great
day with a sweet day with a burger from Baby King Haakon's. MMMMM. Note:I
totally admit that I stole the "got my eagle on" thing from
ZSI. What can I say, its a money phrase. |
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| 2/4/06 Lap the Lake for the Library | |||||||||
| Since this was an evening race, I really didn't have anything to do with myself until mid-afternoon. What to do? Well, I decided that a nice 5k time trial at Valhalla would be appropriate. We went out classic style on the B loop. Scott Nesvold was nice enough to break trail the whole way, and that allowed me to keep up with him for the whole race, though he managed to get a tiny gap on me at the end. On to the main event, I left Ashland around 2:45 and stopped in at Riverbrook in Seeley to pick up some waxing stuff and have a little chit chat with Grant and Tim. I got out of there a bit after four and headed down to Nelson Lake. As I walked down to registration, I noticed a pretty stiff (and cold) wind coming in off the lake. After dressing, I went out for a preview of the course and testing skis. The first pair I tried out was the cold RS11s with Solda F31 violet and some toko cold powder. They were really, really slow. About half way through my ski, Tom Meyer and Rob (I think) caught up with me and shortly after that we turned around and headed in to try other skis. I was really hoping that my other pair would be better, because the idea of racing on the first pair was not real appealing. As it turned out, my Zeniths with some Toko Nordlite were at least respectable. Talking with other people both before and after the race, the snow was a lot colder and drier than most had expected. After skiing with the guys for a bit longer, and previewing the end of the course I got in a bit more of a warm up and went to the start line. Lets just say that this race was a bit of a contrast to last weekend. Here I lined up in the front row and knew most of the folks around me. At the gun, we double poled like maniacs, and I pulled in right behind Mike Haag. The start was wicked fast, and going around the first turn a group of three containing Tim Swift started to put some ground on Mike and I with Tom Meyer stuck in no mans land. Mike lead for a while, and then I took a pull and for a while, it looked like we might be pulling in the lead group, but no dice. After I'd been on the front for a while, Mike cruised by and I pulled onto his tails. The wind had died down a fair bit, but there was still a pretty nice advantage to holding onto the draft. About halfway into the race, I took another pull for a kilometer or so, but by this point it had become obvious that we were skiing more to keep people from gaining on us from behind than to catch the group that was gradually pulling away in front. After Mike pulled through again, I finally checked to see what other company we had, and it turned out Deno Mense was the only other guy in the group. Going through the last k or so any wind that was left was behind us and Mike seemed to be happy to be on the front, so I let him stay there. Going into the last turn about 500 meters out, Mike turned it up a notch on the inside and I hung tight slightly to the outside. Then Deno pushed hard on the far outside about 300 meters out. I decided that I had a good position and went for it. About 200 meters into the sprint, I was in the lead, but wondering what the heck I was thinking. I managed to hold off Deno for 5th place, with Mike crossing the line about 5 seconds back. After I regained conciousness, I threw on the warm ups and went out for a nice cool down. The skiing was beautiful on the clear night and I could see my shadow from the moon! After a nice easy ski, I headed back and got a full change of very warm clothes on and hit the tent. To my surprise, I'd walked away with a nice package of Toko wax from Outdoor Ventures. I hung out, had a couple of brats and some hot chocolate, and talked vintage bicycles with Jerry Wright. It was a fun race, and a nice change of pace to be skiing at the front of the race instead of the back. And hey, I like flat courses, and they don't get much flatter than this. | |||||||||
| 1/28-29/06 NorAm Supertour-Telemark-Classic Pictures-Skate Pictures | |||||||||
This was the big one ladies and gentlemen.
The race where the really big boys and girls come out and play. We played,
and it was pretty fun. I skied the NorAm races both days 10k on Saturday
and 15k on Sunday. The day started bright and early for me at 5:30 on
Saturday morning and I enjoyed a nice bowl of oatmeal and a couple hard
boiled eggs before heading out. I stopped in Washburn to pick up CANSKIers
Catie Cogger and Zach Beeksma. We made good time down ot Telemark and
did the usual check in routine and went out for a ski. I had some Swix
KR70 on from the day before and put KR60 on Zach and Catie's skis. We
got a bit of ski in, but neither wax seemed to be kicking wonderfully,
so we headed back in. It was pretty obvious that the race course had been
skied in a lot more, and the track was a lot different than what we had
been out skiing on, so I decided to give the KR60 a shot. I waxed up my
good skis with a bit of KR20 as a binder and the KR60 and went out for
a warmup once the women's race was over. The KR60 was actually bordering
on sticking and icining up! So I decided to go with it, figuring the course
would probably only get warmer. After figuring out the wax, I had an hour
or so to wait before my start came up. Just as I was about to head out
for my warm up, I ran into Adam Airoldi, an old mate from the high school
days. We had a quick chat and then I got in a nice warm up and was ready
to go for my race. I was almost the last starter in the field, right in
front of Chris Ransom. The game plan was to ski a slower first lap and
then try to turn it up the second lap. Ransom passed me less than 1k in,
not super good for morale, but despite a bobble on a pretty easy downhill,
I kept him within sight for the next couple k. The middle section of the
5k course was stacked with monster hills that basically no one was kicking.
We climbed up pretty hard and then got to fly down the "rollercoaster"
which is always a fun time. Following that ripping descent there were
a couple more pretty stiff climbs followed by a couple of more moderate
ones. Not a whole lot of double poling. One more quick descent and it
was back through the stadium for lap two. At this point, I'd passed a
couple of J1s who were on their second lap, but no one who had started
near me. On lap two I skied the first couple of uphills nice and hard
and then totally bailed on the same downhill that I'd skied poorly the
first lap. After nearly taking out 24T head honch Harry Spehar, I got
back on my feet and took off up the hills. Towards the top I was reeling
in a skier, but was pretty much blown as well, and couldn't bring back
that little bit more I needed. I was getting seriously worked to the point
that my technique was starting to go south, so I tried to pull the throttle
back just a bit. After my sweet crash, I was a bit tentative on the rollercoaster
and lost some ground, but managed to pull the skier (Ray Lang I believe)
in all the way and pass him. After that, I took off after the next skier
up the tracks, Toko Tech Teamer Frank Lundeen. I was gaining on him slightly
on the uphills, but he was putting time on me on the downhills with some
sweet skis, imagine that! With the last bit of the race headed downhill,
I wasn't quite able to pull Frank in, but pushed up the last hill and
down the finishing straight for a time of 39:55. All in all, I was pretty
happy with my effort, which was good for 129th place out of 159 starters.
Saturday evening, I enjoyed some great lasagna with some friends of Adam's
and got the skis prepped for Sunday. |
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| 1/22/06 Copper Island Classic | |||||||||
| This was a first time trip for me up to the Copper Island Classic, held in Chassell, MI. I'd originally planned to take this weekend off and do some quality training, but as the weekend got closer, I started feeling the urge to race. I didn't want to hit anything as intense (or expensive) as the SuperTour over at Mt. Itasca. CANSKI was taking a van up and with an entry fee of $10, this event definitely fit the bill. I got up Sunday morning to thermometer reading 29 degrees outside our kitchen window. Not cool for 7 am. The van pulled up to my house a bit before 8 and we were on the road for the lengthy drive through the UP. Things were mostly pretty quiet as people were still working on waking up. I was feeling pretty chipper after a tasty breakfast of oatmeal and bacon and eggs. I was also working on a nice mug of homebrewed chai. MMMMM. Anyway, we rolled into Chassell and got registered in the basement of their historical center, which was a rad old building and their former school. After grabbing numbers, we suited up, grabbed wax and skis and began the process of trying to find a suitable kick wax. The race started right in the yard behind the community center. We had about 30-45 minutes until the 5k race began for the high school kids. Doug started out with toko yellow, rode multigrade purple while I tried some Swix VF 50. Doug was getting kick, but nothing spectacular. We quickly went through about every other hard wax we had. The all seemed ok, but nothing was spectacular. We'd gotten intel that the top part of the course was much less glazed than the bottom tracks, which had already been used for a 2k high school relay. So we decided to stick with hard wax. VR55 seemed to be as good as anything else, so we waxed up the skis, finishing about 1 minute before the 5k race started. After the 5k started, I had about 15 minutes, so I headed out for something of a warmup. The VR55 was pretty much useless. Doug tried out some klister and found it to be sticking, but I decided to stick with my guns and hope that the course would be colder/not glazed further out. With a few minutes to go, I started taking off my warmups, only to realize that I didn't have on my number. Luckily, Jim Zifko, who had come up with us had decided not to race since we really didn't have much of a kick wax sorted out, so I borrowed his number so that I would have something on. Somehow, I got pushed into the front line at the start. After a quick loop, we headed up a stiff little hill and off into the woods. I knew that I would have zero kick for sure on this part of the course, so I didn't even bother, I just put my head down and double poled until I hit hills that required me to herringbone. Things sorted themselves out pretty quickly as we headed gradually up. As we headed out further, it became obvious that my kick wax wasn't going to be working on any part of the course. About 4k in, I was passed by a guy from Superiorland Ski Club but managed to hold him pretty close. From the rough feel of the race, it seemed like we would be heading back down eventually, and that I might be able to pull him back. That turned out to be the case, and within a k or so, we seemed to be headed more or less downhill again and I was back on his tails. He let me by without me even asking and I double poled it in strong. In the far reaches of the course, there were a couple of spots that felt like the held a suggestion of kick. Just enough to make me commit to trying to kick a few hills, which of course didn't happen. Back in the race, the last couple of k included some fun, fast winding downhill S-curves followed by a nice wall back up to the yard behind the community center. I clocked in with a time of 33:45 more or less for 10k. Considering the massive amount of double poling, I was happy. I checked in with the results folks to let them know about the number snafu and then headed out for a warmdown with the other folks. Everyone seemed pretty happy considering their lack of kick. I threw on some VF70 for the warm down, and it was kicking pretty nicely... Live and learn. After the warm down, we headed in for awards. CANSKI cleaned up in the 5k race with everyone taking some award. Things are a bit fuzzy, but I think Wes Zifko won his age class ahead of Brandon Little. Cam Wilcox and Caite Cogger each won their age class, and the overall for the 5k, earning homemade apple pies for their efforts. And I think Zach Beeksma came in right behind Cam in their age class. I didn't fair quite as well winning my age group, and taking roughly 7th place. Former MTU coach Joe Bettendorf won the race in a time of 30 and some change. They also gave out some sweet door prizes. Jim Zifko made his day worthwhile taking home a stay at a hotel up that way. I got sweet yellow frisbee! After grabbing some hot pockets at the local convenience store, we hit the road home to Ashland. We rolled in just before dinner time, which was great timing. I was pretty impressed with the race. Super friendly volunteers, which everyone says about every race, but these folks really stood out. Awesome. The course was a real fun ski, was well groomed, and I think it would be a blast to ski on a decent kick day. I'll definitely be back someday. | |||||||||
| 1/14/06 Seeley Hills Classic-Pictures by Catie Cogger | |||||||||
| Saturday dawned bright and early at 6 a.m. as I got up to eat my oatmeal and some yogurt. Catie showed up around 6:45 and a bit after seven Dennis and Troy pulled into the driveway. After getting all the stuff stowed away, we got on the road. We met Wes Zifko and his dad down at the Sawmill in Seeley and got registered. Wes and Catie were doing the 5k high school race, while Dennis, Troy and myself were all doing the 42k. I was pretty excited about this race because it was a longtime favorite in high school, but I hadn't had the chance to do it while I was out at college. After registration, we headed up to OO and I started trying to figure out the kick wax. I had pre-waxed my trusty ARCs with Swix KR40 (violet) klister and tried that. I ran into Matt Aro who claimed to be pretty recovered from his race at 24T last weekend. The KR40 wasn't kicking too hot, and Matt had mentioned probably trying a klister covered combo, so I figured I would give that a shot. The hardwax over the klister was kicking like a mule so I figured that was the way to go. Toko blue over the klister was kicking pretty well, but Red wasn't icing and I figured things would warm up, so we called Red over the KR40 the wax of the day. We managed to get everyone's skis more or less waxed up with a couple of minutes to spare before the race started. I was running pretty late, so I was pretty far back in the pack. At the start, things went pretty smoothly and I managed to avoid the crashes going down the first big downhill and at the same time not scrape off all of my wax snowplowing. I passed a ton of people on the first few climbs before settling in with a skier from U of M and Greg Greene. We skied more or less together to the high point turn around. Right after the turn around, the skier from U of M took off and I grabbed a drink from the bottle and settled in with Greg. I skied with him through the next 15 k or so. My skis seemed to be running really well with Solda Violet, but I was feeling pretty uncoordinated coming out of my herrinbone at the tops of the big hills. We were gradually pulling back Matt Harrison. After crossing OO my technique seemed like it was coming around, but my skis seemed to slow down, at least in relation to Greg's and he started to gradually pull away and eventually hook up with Matt. I grabbed a clif shot and a drink from the bottle and kept chasing. I had the gap almost pulled back when I crossed my skis on an uphill and went down. With the slightly bigger gap I wasn't having as much luck pulling them back in. By the southern turn around, Greg had gapped Matt and pulled up to a big pack including Dave Landgraf, Jey Carlson and a few others. I managed to pull up even with Matt and grabbed another clif shot after the turn around. We skied together for a K or so and then I started to pull ahead. Jey Carlson had been dropped from the pack ahead and I set to work reeling him in. I was feeling about as well as could be expected at this point in the race and just kept the pace as high as I could. After I passed Jey, I downed the rest of my Accelerade and ran into Tom Meyer, who told me I was about 30 seconds down on the pack ahead. I kicked it up a notch for the rest of the race but after heading up the monster hill with a little over a K to go, the group ahead still had a pretty nice gap and I knew it wasn't happening. I cruised home with a time of 2:30:35, which was good for 28th overall and 10th in my age group. I felt pretty good about the race because my form seemed to come together some in the second half of the race, and I kept from bonking. After I regained conciousness, I got some dry clothes, slammed some Endurox and headed back out on the course for a cool down. Catie and I camped out at the top of the big hill and snapped a few pictures and cheered people on for a while. Once Dennis came through we moseyed back on in to OO and got packed up and changed while we waited for Troy to finish. Once Troy came in we got in the car and headed down to the Sawmill in pretty short order and picked up some soup, which was quite delicious. Still feeling hungry, I enjoyed a nice Turkey sandwich from Mooselips. Highly reccomended. Following the awards ceremony we cruised on home to Ashland. Considering what they had to work with, the course conditions were pretty much awesome. They had brought up a fair amount of dirt, but they also had rock solid, but not icy classic tracks. Thanks to everyone who made it happen. Ciao. | |||||||||
| 1/7-8/06-24 Hours of Telemark-Such an awesome event, it gets its own page. | |||||||||
| Valhalla Vasa 12/31/2005-Pictures by Scott Nesvold | |||||||||
| After the cancellation of the Double Pole Derby down in Hayward, I decided that we needed a race so we put the word on the street for an informal time trial on Saturday at Valhalla. The participants ended up being mostly CANSKI people, but it was a good racing opportunity. After a short delay to make sure that the temperature was above the FIS legal limit (or maybe to give the technical director (me) enough time to finish kick waxing my skis), we started two laps of the "A" loop. There were roughly five people skating and myself and Scott Nesvold classic skiing. Toko Yellow was kicking pretty well, and I ran the RS-11s. Hans pulled away pretty quickly, while Tom Steckling, Scott and I were pretty close together. We skied most of the first lap more or less together. I was feeling really comfortable on the uphills but losing some time to Scott on the downhills. At the beginning of the second lap the trail got a bit narrow and Tom ended up on Scott's pole and fell down, and lost a bit of time. About halfway through the second lap Scott jumped out of the track on an uphill and I pulled through and got a little gap on the remaining uphills, but lost my form a bit, floundered, and didn't really make the move as well as I would have liked. I knew that I needed a good amount of time since I would lose a bunch on the downhills. I held the gap for a while but once we hit the downhills, he caught up to me rapidly and flew past me as most of the rest of the course was downhill. I pushed hard on the final flat bit, but he still got me by about 20 seconds. My time was 25:30 for roughly 7 k. So not great, but I felt pretty good being able to more or less hang on to Scott, even if he is coming off a cold. If memory serves me correctly, Hans took the skate race ahead of Tom, Catie and Zach in that order. Tommy Cogger called it after one lap. After a quick break, we did a sprint relay, pairing people by order of finish. (First and last, etc.) We did quick 5 minute laps Hans and Zach pulled out the win with Tom and me in second followed by Scott and Catie. Hans was pretty strong, pulling back ~10 second gaps on me both laps. Follwing the race, we had a quick warm down and sweet awards ceremony where everyone went home a winner. Scott managed to grab a few sweet pictures of the sprint start and awards. Good racing, great price and fun times! | |||||||||
| Big Snow Country Pursuit Day 2- Results on Skinnyski-12k Pictures-by Catie Cogger 5k Pictures by me | |||||||||
| Sunday morning
I awoke to a beautiful sight: snow! Ashland had picked up an inch or two
overnight, which was nice. The roads were pretty snowy, but the drive
over went fine. After checking in at registration I boogied out on the
course on my rock skis just to see the course before the 5k race got started.
People say that ABR is flat. I beg to differ. The climbs there are much
steeper than most of the climbs at Wolverine, especially on the trails
they used for the races today. I got done with my ski in time to stop
and take some pictures of some of the later 5k racers starting and most
of them finishing. by the time I stopped taking pictures, I was plenty
cold, so I went back out to test skis. It wasn't a tough choice. With
the cold, soft snow, the Peltonen Zeniths were a no-brainer over my RS11s.
Those are pretty much the only conditions that those skis are good in,
but on a day like today, they're a great ski, especially on the chewed
up climbs. With the skis picked, I headed out for more warmup, still being
a bit chilled from sitting around taking pictures. By race time I was
suitably warm. Out of the start, I pushed hard and started pulling a couple
guys in who started in front of me, but in short order had a skier from
Gustavus breathing down my neck. He went by pretty quickly, and I tried
to hang, but no dice. Knowing that there was a beastly climb coming on
Popple Plunge, I decided to hold just a bit in reserve. I managed to hold
of most of the rest of my pursuers until a ways later in the lap when
Jesrin Gaier came flying past me. I lost another spot in the last kilometer
of the first lap on meadow ridge due to poor skiing on the downhill. After
that, I pulled up on Kyle Demerath and got past him about midway through
the second of two laps. After passing Kyle, I started pulling in another
skier from Gustavus, Andrew Hedberg, but had Terry Tansey and Jukka Lyly-Yrjanainen
come right by me. I managed to get past Andrew and put the hammer down
on the last couple hills to the finish, but didn't quite have enough room
to pull in Terry and Jukka. It seems that the shorter the race, the less
I remember. It must have something to do with oxygen debt. All in all,
it was a great race. I managed to only lose a couple of spots, and was
really happy with how I skied the hills. After the race, I went out for
an easy ski with with a bunch of the bay area crew. I was worked over!
We skied for maybe 45 minutes, and headed back for awards where I scored
some ski ties. After awards, I headed home to shovel some snow, which
was a sweet upper body workout in itself! |
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| Big Snow Country Pursuit Day 1-Results on Skinnyski-10k Pictures by Catie Cogger | |||||||||
| First Race of the year ladies and gentlemen! I got over to Wolverine around 8:30 and got registered. I suited up and went out to test skis. The good old ARCs won it easily over the RC11s. Better kick, better glide, end of story. Along the way I ran into Hans, Cam, Scott Chapin and some other folks. I ended up kicking on some Toko dark blue, which worked pretty well for me. Once I got the skis squared away, I got in a good solid warm-up, and grabbed my stuff for the start. I was pretty excited for this race because I really like this course. Lots of good climbs, but most are pretty kickable. On the way up I ran into Catie Cogger and talked her into taking pictures. I got up the hill to the start, got out of my warmups and was off in short order. My start partner hammered pretty hard out of the start, but once things turned uphill, I pulled away some and started reeling in some people who had started before me. Somewhere around the 3k mark, Bryan Fish blew by me like I was standing still and pulled away from me in short order. On this long, gradual, uphill, I pulled in a couple people, and got passed by a person or so including a guy from Hayward high school. One more hill and we were headed out for lap two. I stuck with the guy from Hayward for a while, but lost him when I bobbled the kick a bit on one of the climbs. I definitely felt the strength workouts I did this week on the second lap. Things started getting a little shakey towards the end of the second lap, but held it together and finished hard. After a little break to change into some fresh clothes, Scott Nesvold and I went out for a nice ski around the whole powderhorn loop. I pulled out the RS11s just to get some K on them, and they were slow. After our loop, we headed back to the warming hut for a quick bite to eat. Results were posted, and they said that I'd beaten Scott by like 5 seconds. When final results were posted, this turned out not to be the case... As we resumed skiing we met up with Matt Aro and Borg Isakson and headed out for a ski with them. We skied another easy loop of Powderhorn and called it a day. Driving home, there were two cars in the ditch between Ironwood and Ashland. One of them had a ton of emergency services people there. No good. The roads didn't seem too bad. We'll check in again after the race tomorrow and get some pictures up. | |||||||||
| RESULTS | |||||||||
National/international Regional |
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| Race News | |||||||||
| 2/12/06 Weekend Racing
Wrap-up In the Olympics, my pics were a bit off. Actually, they were horrible. Kristina Smigun won the women's race ahead of Katerina Neumannova and Evgenia Medvedeva. Beckie Scott couldn't quite hold the pace and ended up 6th. The American women struggled a bit with Rebecca Dussault leading the charge in 48th place. Lindsey Weier narrowly beat Abby Larson (55th and 56th) and Lindsay Williams brought it home in 62nd. On the men's side Eugeni Dementiev and Frode Estil charged past a train of Italians and Anders Sodergren to with Dementiev taking the win. Third place went to Pietro Piller Cottrer. Othere notables included old man and former Birkie winner (39 years old) Mikhail Botvinov in 7th and my boy Markus Hasler of Liechtenstein in 11th. Ivan Babikov was 13th. Carl Swenson lead the charge for the American men in 40th right behind Canada's Dan Roycroft. Andrew Johnson and James Southam were 43rd and 44th, repsectively and Lars Flora was 49th. Don't lose the faith. The Americans will rock it before this Olympics is out. Switching gears, the Wisconsin State HS Championships wrapped up Saturday. CANSKI again had a great showing. Cam Wilcox turned in a solid 28th which was good to put him 18th in the pursuit. Zach Beeksma was 69th for 57th overall. And Wes Zifko, who I spaced on on Friday pulled down a 66th with 70th and 60th in the skate and classic races. The boy's high school race was Dominated by Hayward with Kyle Fredrickson, Matt Pierce and Jesrin Gaier making up the top 3. Catie Cogger backed up here 12th place in the skate with a 13th place skate to take 13th in the pursuit. The girls race was won by Heather Bassett ahead of a trio from Hayward consisting of Maria Grossi, Molly Burger and Corrine Malcolm. In the boy's junior high race, Scott Johanik skied to a strong 2nd place behind Kevin Bolger and ahead of Dylan McGarthwaite. In the girls middle school race it was Dana Roach ahead of Elizabeth Simak and Brook Adams. On the citizen racing front there were three different major events with the Pre-Birkie, North End Classic and Mora Vasaloppet. In the 58k freestyle, Chad Giese edged out Matt Weier for the hometown win. They were followed by Adam Swank, Matt Liebsch, Vilhelm Hampusson and Andre Watt. For the women it was Diane Tremblay, Kate Underwood, and Jan Guenther with the top 3 spots. In the Pre-Birkie it was Nikolai Anikin, Bruce Bauer and Casey Krueger. For the women it was Paulette Niemi, Jena Ogston and Joan Rundman. A number of top skiers did the Pre-Birkie/Vasaloppet double, which is just hardcore. For the North End Classic, Santi Ocariz took the win ahead of Shane Hoelz and Nicolas Reichenbach. On the women's side it was Katie Anderson, Julie Meyer and Cindy Storm. That's a wrap. |
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1/25/06 Telemark NorAm
Supertour Sprints |
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1/3/06 US Nationals
Women's Mass Start Freestyle |
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12/15 Canmore World
Cup Freestyle |
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