Still On The Chase

I haven’t been posting much in the past couple years. Partly this is because I’ve already written a lot of my thoughts about being an endurance athlete. But mostly, it’s because I’ve become obsessed with a new hobby – weeding the lawn. I know some people like clover, but I prefer a manicured lawn without using chemicals. I’ve still been ski training, that does take priority, as well as cooking and baking, but just about everything else has gone out the window. After spending like 100 hours weeding the lawn, I’m maybe 10% done cleaning out the clover.

Perhaps my meticulous lawn weeding should not be part of a ski blog, but I’d argue it says a lot about my personality. Both Erik and I are fairly opposed to lawn chemicals but the former owner of our house left some lawn herbicide. We’ve lived in our house for 12 years, so this stuff isn’t new. Anyway, Erik sprayed some on the boulevard (which was so weed infested I simply refused to mow it) and most of the front yard. Well, that old herbicide is some good stuff because it made a drastic difference.

And that’s when panic set in. What if I didn’t have this seemingly endless hobby anymore? Then what would I do? Because I’m clearly not going to chill out and watch more TV or movies.

I had a former colleague who said she learned a lot about herself in her 30s. I used to have this idea that I was eventually going to get everything in my life perfect and then I could just sit back and read and play and enjoy what I’ve created but the reality is that I need things to do. I need impossible goals. And I like an excuse to be outside. This is why I continue gardening and why I continue skiing. 

 

Front garden!

Yard work aside, my ski training has been fairly consistent this year. I came off the ski season feeling really strong so went right into doing running intervals and wrote all about this in my last post. It turns out my running wasn’t as fast as I had hoped this year. Teammate Ben held his Backyard Ultra again at the end of July and I had a goal of running 20 miles. We arrived late but I was determined to get the full 4 miles in on that hour and so ran fast-ish. The pace shouldn’t have killed me (mid-8’s) BUT it was the hottest day of the summer and by the last couple hours I struggled to run 12-minute miles. I made my 20 mile goal but that heat was rough.

Ben racing at the 2025 Hiito Relays

This year my attitude towards skiing and my physical potential has shifted a bit, perhaps because I’m 39 and the likelihood of me actually getting faster is dwindling. While I don’t expect a steep decline, my cardiovascular stamina is unlikely to further improve so I will have to rely more on technique and strength. I’ve also found myself more stiff first thing in the morning, although this seemed to correlate with the hours spent hunched over weeding the lawn. That and some of my jumping workouts. I have to remind myself that half of what I do would make the average 39 year old sore for days (if they could even complete the workout) and that I need to appreciate my fitness.

Like usual, I spent a good chunk of my training hours this summer and fall rollerskiing. I tried to keep up with some of my teammates during our rollerski intervals and was impressed with myself when I could do so, although found I’d fall off the pace quicker if I was striding or V-1ing but could keep up double poling or V-2ing. Hmmmmm….

Every year Vakava does three 5 km skate and classic rollerski time trials with about 30 minutes between efforts. I’m always able to push super hard on that skate time trial, trying to V-2 the entire course because as mentioned above, my V-1 is relatively slow, and it’s a great workout, although rarely am I able to go as hard in the classic time trial. The classic always feels more like 30 km pace. Usually we do one in July, a second in September, and a third either in late October or early November.

Coach Dave Christopherson looks at the forecast and cherry picks the day we do these. But this year for our July time trials the forecast didn’t align with the downpour that actually happened. I don’t see well without my prescription glasses but there was no way I could see through them in the heavy rain and was surprised how comfortable I still felt. Times were super slow, especially our fastest guys who did the classic during the heaviest rain. It turns out plowing through standing water on the pavement isn’t very fast. We had better weather for the September and October time trials.

My strength has been progressing. I keep up with the abs and push ups and pull ups and made my greatest gains in leg strength. I was able to increase my squat weight to 40 pounds (holding two 20 pound dumbbells) for much of the fall and then right before Christmas managed to increase to 60 pounds (two 30 pound dumbbells). This pales in comparison to my upper body strength but it’s marked improvement. I have to be careful squatting with this weight because I often have back pain. I’ve also been trying to do a weekly jumping and plyo workout when my posterior tibial tendonitis cooperates.

And so just like that the ski racing season is upon us. The Tour de Finn inspired me to do Skadi’s Ski Chase again. I have a habit of scraping off my storage wax for the first race of the season. Usually my skis are at least mediocre but this year the manufactured snow was quite new and it was warm and my skis were slow. I heard from a few others that their skis were also slow. I got off to a bad start in the last row and never made up for it but was glad to put in a hard effort.

Eva and I racing at Skadi's Ski Chase. They had some pretty cool bibs this year!

Ian racing at Skadi's Ski Chase.

The next week was the Hoigaard’s Relays. Given there was no natural snow, we decided to do these to keep the manufactured snow more interesting and we figured we ought to take any opportunity to race after last season. I didn’t feel the best in warmup but once out on course I felt amazing. It was one of those days when I almost couldn’t get tired. I surged effortlessly, marathon skating, around that south donut every time, and The Wall didn’t make my quads burn. The results didn’t show this but after all these years I’ve learned to trust the process and the feelings in my body. 

Me climbing The Wall during the Hoigaard's Relays

 

My Hoigaard's Relay partner )-

Laura showing good V-2 form at Hoigaard's Relays

 

This brings us to 2025 and after a warm spell, some rain, and then below freezing temps, the Hiito Relays on a fairly icy course. I was glad to have skied the day previous at Wirth under similar conditions, navigating the icy downhills with some confidence but still checking my speed. I was determined to V-2 as much of the Battle Creek course as possible and the fast conditions made this a bit easier but I’m not strong enough to V-2 the A climbs. Erik, who almost never falls, lost control on La Squadra at Wirth and the next day on Cowabunga during the Hiito Relays to fall twice in two days. Perhaps this best sums up the conditions.

 

Alex racing at Hoigaard's Relays

Now we are into January. The natural snow is abysmal again and it’s hard to keep up the motivation. I’ve now skied on natural snow in Minnesota four days so far this season with another two independent days of sledding. This already beats last year. But after a couple days of fighting rough conditions on manufactured snow, I’ll take to running, saving the “novelty” of Hyland for the weekend.