Vakava Race Team

2011 Fossavatn

2012-01-24T09:17:00.017-06:00

In April Dave and I skied the Fossavatn 50k race in Iceland. Minnesota Trails Magazine asked us to write articles and submit photos for the winter edition featuring the Skinny Ski Series. We dutifully sent in our stuff but since the Series is not happening this year they didn't get published. Dave's article focused on the race and the editor asked me to focus more on the experience around the race so here's my article. I would highly recommend this race experience to all ski adventurers out there. Check out this video of the race: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWVIci3PdRE

Dave and I were joined by Dave's wife, Paula, and my dear, longtime friend from our Austin, Texas years, Martha FitzSimon. Thank you, Paula and Martha for the awesome race support!!!

The Fossavatn Ski Marathon began in 1935 as a 20K race and has since added 7K, 10K and 50K distances, all classic. It is a small race in terms of number of participants (approximately 300) yet it attracts an international field and occasionally some of the best skiers in the world (past winners have included Oskar Svärd and Suzanne Nyström, both Swedish Vasaloppet champions and World and Olympic champion, Thomas Alsgaard).

The intimacy of the race is further bolstered by its setting in a small fjord town. Ísafjörður is tucked in the remote West Fjords region, an 8,500 square mile peninsula in the north we

st corner of Iceland with a population density of less than 1 person/square mile!
If you arrive in Ísafjörður by noon on Thursday

you can attend the master class lead by one of the international guests. Imagine getting a personal critique by a former world champion!
On Friday a bus takes visitors to the venue to preview the course. I was struck by the unique beauty of this sparse land. There is no vegetation but plenty of hills and mountain plateaus. Imagine the moon with snow. From a single vantage point we could see much of the 50k course.Despite being literally a few miles

from the Arctic Circle the temperature never gets very cold, but that doesn’t mean weather can’t be severe. The winds can be brutal although, mercifully, we had almost no wind this year but we did have a heavy fog. Because it’s nearly always above freezing for the race the locals are good at selecting and applying klister (whereas we cold weather racers from the Midwest US are hard wax experts). Knowing that getting good kick could be tricky we brought lots of klister but to cover our bases Atomic Ski rep Henry Wisnewski also sent ‘zero’ waxless skis for Dave and I. Since it snowed several inches the night before the race and we weren’t sure what to expect at the higher elevations on the course, we elected to go with the zeros.

The locals successfully opted for klister so I think both were working that day.
Towards the end of the first half is the first of two long climbs in the race. Checking my heart rate monitor altimeter after wards I learned that it was 45 minutes of continuous up. About 20K later is the second big climb. This one is shorter but steeper and unlike the first climb there is a reward at the top: a 7K downhill run to the finish line! So even though my thighs and triceps were protesting with spasms, I enthusiastically ‘ran’ up the hill and thoroughly enjoyed the ride down to the finish line.
After crossing the line each skier is given the traditional post-race treat: A little blue bag with a bun and a hunk of chocolate. We lingered a bit to pose for pictures and talk to fellow skiers but we needed to hustle down mountain because there were celebrations waiting in Ísafjörður.
The cake feed and awards ceremony at the high school gym is amazing. I think nearly every family and bakery in town brings a Scandinavian treat. Hungary skiers and their friends and family load up plates with more pastries than I could count, most of which I’d never tried before! I took small portions because the servers kept replacing empty trays with something brand new and I wanted to make sure I left room for seconds………OK, thirds.

After a couple of hours to digest we dressed up and headed to the cultural center for a late night of food, drinks, entertainment and dancing with fellow skiers from Iceland, the US and Europe. Local talent included a magician, a jazz band and a rock band.
The Fossavatn marked the end of a long but fun ski season that included the Skinny Ski Series, Birkie and Masters World Cup. Now, on April 30 I completed my last and longest race of the year and I could not think of any better way to mark the occasion than to celebrate with friends in a beautiful, remote, vibrant village in Iceland.

Even Rougher Week

2012-01-22T23:42:00.002-06:00

After meeting with the radiation oncologist about starting radiation, I started having serious second thoughts. Some radiation to my ribs and lungs, and even a small amount to my heart, is unavoidable. The lungs in particular are very sensitive to radiation. Radiation is recommended after a lumpectomy because if you don’t have it the recurrence rate is 30% which is why I assumed I’d have to have it. After asking more questions and getting more information, it turns out that women like me with my kind of cancer only have a 14% chance of recurrence and a 4% of recurrence with it. That means there’s a 90% chance it doesn’t matter either way and a 10% chance it does. That made me think twice if I really wanted to take the risks of radiation which aren’t well quantified and will continue to rise as I age. Radiation can cause cancer decades later as well as cure it in the short term. The thought of lung cancer 30 years from now, which is much harder to detect and treat than breast cancer, scares me. If my odds of recurrence were below 10% or above 20%, it would be an easy decision but I’m in a gray area. After many sleepless nights and many discussions with various people and lots of reading, I’ve decided not to do it. I guess I’d rather go with the devil I know rather than the devil I don’t. Interestingly, the death rates between radiation and not are only a couple percentage points, so I don’t feel like I’m risking my life so much as risking another surgery and more treatment later. My husband said that since I’m in a gray area of benefit, there is no right or wrong answer, I just need to find the answer that I can be at peace with. Early in the week I didn’t know if I could find that answer and I kept going back and forth, but finally started coming to not doing it more than doing it. I tend to be a minimalist when it comes to a lot of things, including medical interventions, so I’m more comfortable with less if there is uncertainty.

Skiing has been a lot of comfort to me this week. I made a concerted effort to get out since I knew I needed it mentally as well as physically. It helped a lot. I’ve been anxiously waiting to get decent enough snow to get the kids out on the U of M golf course so my daughter could try out her new skis and today I just couldn’t wait any longer and took them out. There was grass all over, but it was still kind of skiable and we had some fun anyway. My son didn’t put his wool socks on and had one short ankle sock on which filled with snow when he fell. So in order to salvage the outing I took one for the team and gave him my sock out there on the course. It wasn’t real cold so I was ok going sockless and he was much happier. I was just happy to be out skiing with my kids.

Rough Week

2012-01-13T20:54:00.001-06:00

Last weekend I was exhausted, slept most of it, and had trouble getting myself motivated all week. I was not looking forward to an appointment I had today to get my radiation treatments set up. I’ll have to have treatments 5 days a week for 7 weeks. They’ll probably take 45 minutes round trip daily and then weekly checkups with the Dr. will be another 30-40 minutes. I still have family duties to attend to, like getting the kids on the bus, and plan to keep working. With the snow situation the way it is, I just don’t see how I’ll get much skiing in when it takes 40-45 minutes drive time to ski. Last year I skied at the U of M golf course a lot which is just minutes from home and work and if I could do that this year it would be no problem. But it doesn’t look like that will be possible. I just don’t see me having the mental fortitude, let alone the time, to put that much effort into skiing while under going treatment. So I’ve been in the dumps about it all week. The thing is that it’s really important for me to keep my exercise up, both physically and mentally. Moderate exercise seems to help stave off radiation induced fatigue and is important for my mental state when under stress. So I need to figure out what I’m going to do if I can’t ski. I can try running, but my knees are out of running shape and I need to be careful with tendonitis. My mom swims regularly at the community center pool, which is just minutes away, so I may try to meet up with her some time. I can keep doing my weekly strength stuff at home as well. So hopefully I’ll be able to figure out enough things to keep me going and in good spirits.

So next week the doctors do all the calculations to figure out exactly how to radiate me the right amount to kill any stray cancer cells without hurting too many healthy cells and only hit the tissues they want while avoiding things like my heart and lungs. Then I start treatments the following week. So I have just over a week to prepare myself mentally for this next phase of treatment. Hopefully once I get into a routine it won’t be so bad.

Back in Business!

2012-01-04T23:10:00.001-06:00

I was finally able to ski fairly normally at practice tonight. It’s been at least a month since I’ve tried to go fast and I felt awkward and my lungs burned, but it was so nice to ski with the group instead of watch from the sidelines. I had to cut my intervals a little short but I’m very pleased with my progress. I did a little strength at home in the morning and skied classic for the first time in a month yesterday and thought I’d be tender today but felt pretty good. My muscles are very sore today since they weren’t used to that, but I was pleased that my arm and chest muscle felt fine. Now all we need is some snow!

Rest => Recovery

2012-01-01T20:01:00.001-06:00

Once again, my body proves that recovery requires rest. I’ve been recovering from my surgeries all month and it gets pretty old after a while. It’s hard to be patient sometimes. Recovery seems to come in spurts where some days I don’t feel any better and then suddenly one day I feel much better. The days I feel better are always after I’ve had a lot of sleep. The days I’m busy and don’t get a nap or to bed early enough then I don’t feel that great the next day. I’ve been busy with the holidays so the recovery seemed to stall a bit. I think I’m back on track now. My lab report came back clear after the last surgery so thankfully I’m done with that and should be ready to start radiation soon, hopefully in a week. I’ve been able to do some training, but not a lot, and mostly legs only. I’m really looking forward to a more normal training regimen with some upper body work and even a few intervals. I’ve enjoyed having less pressure to train, but everything has its limits and I’ve reached mine. At least I’ve been able to ski with friends and that helps keep me from feeling sorry for myself or getting bored. What will lift my spirits the most will be some decent snowfall and cooler weather.

Gifts

2011-12-21T20:10:00.001-06:00

I was so happy that I was finally healing up and was to be able to ski fairly normally last Friday and Saturday. The ugly suit time trial was a lot of fun and lots of people came out to show off their ugly suits. It was so nice to see so many friends and enjoy the day.

I was pretty bummed that I needed more surgery and would be starting over with recovery. Recovery from the first surgery was harder than I expected and I had more swelling and discomfort than expected. Plus I had fears of permanent problems that can happen when you have lymph nodes removed, which have not occurred. I really didn’t want to go through that again, but I knew that it had to be done so I just grit my teeth and bared it. It wasn’t nearly as bad this time, thankfully, since much less was removed than the first time. I’m sore and have some swelling for sure, but not nearly as much and I know more of what to expect so it’s less distressing. I feel like I’ve only regressed about a week in recovery instead of the full 17 days. I still need to wait for the lab results and make sure they got it all, but I’m hopeful that I’m done with surgery. The surgeon told be that 10-20% of his patients need a second surgery but he’s only had a few in 23 yrs. that he couldn’t get a clean margin with so that’s reassuring. I’m going to be more patient with healing and not try to do too much too soon this time. Having no snow and the holidays to keep me busy should help. I’m trying to think of this time as an opportunity to do some other things around the house rather than a time that I can’t exercise. Feeling like you can’t do something just makes me want to do it more. So I’m trying to get caught up with some stuff and hopefully do some sewing projects. Heck, maybe I’ll even get some skis prepped!

This season of giving has me reflecting on the many gifts I’ve received, mainly the gift of community and particularly the ski community. The support of all my friends has meant so much and helped me get through this stressful time. Feeling a part of the ski community was one of my objectives when I started training and racing again and this experience has shown me just how much a part of it I am. I hope that I contribute as much as I have received.

Peace to all and pray for snow!

Low Flying Hamster

2011-12-20T16:40:00.004-06:00

Dear winter,
I miss you. Please come back.
Love,
Nate

Since the snow is not cooperating this year (dang did we get spoiled last year!), and all the races for citizen racers were cancelled, I figured that we needed to take things into our own hands and organize our own opportunity to go fast. So last Wednesday while sitting in my car in the pouring rain I called up Dave and proposed a time trial on the man-made snow of Elm Creek. Dave started spreading the word at practice that evening, an event was made on the Vakava facebook page (feel free to "like" us), and by Saturday morning we had a group of 40 to 50 skiers ready to knock the cobwebs off their racing muscles. This was made even more entertaining by Cheryl's idea to make the time trial an "ugly race suit" contest too.

When the start time rolled around everyone lined up and the race was on. I was lucky enough to have Bjorn Batdorf and Jon Miller show up, and the three of us soon formed a lead pack,and we traded off the lead every couple of kilometers. With about 1.5k to go in our 10k race I went to the lead to push the pace. The conditions were pretty soft and granular, and I figured if I could be in the lead going into the last uphill it would be hard to pass. This, in addition to a pretty ill-defined finish line, allowed me to just stay in front of a hard charging Bjorn. Jon came across another 5 or 10 seconds back.

The sprint to the finish

My dad was kind enough to stand around freezing while we raced. While were were doing our laps he did have the park police come up to him.

"You holding a race here?"

"Of course not."

"Did everyone line up and start at the same time and is it timed?"

"Yes"

"Did you charge money?"

"No, and anyone was welcome to join in"

I guess that was good enough for them, because they said ok and did not give us any more trouble, and my dad was able to write down a number of the finishers as they came across the line. As this was a self-timed event, many people also were able to find my dad or Dave after the race and get their results recorded, but the final "official" results found on skinnyski are still a bit thin - especially with finishers who were near the back of the race.

Most importantly, Cheryl and Dave Nelson were declared the winners of the ugly/retro suit contest by the crowd of people cheering on the race at the big uphill (led by Jon Millers mom). I think Cheryl knew that she had a "winning" ugly suit when she proposed the idea, but Angie's old FinnSisu race team warm ups could have given her a run for her money.

Angie

Cheryl

Dave

Vakava Racing results:
1st Nate
4th Anthony
6th Ryan
7th Dave C
15th Dave B
2nd Bonnie
4th Cheryl
5th Katy

Change of Plans

2011-12-15T23:23:00.001-06:00

I had planned on taking it a little easier this race season and do fewer races. I raced almost every weekend last winter and extended my season longer than usual with World Masters in March, and I felt like I needed a break. I did not anticipate how much of a break I'll likely need, however. In early November I was diagnosed with breast cancer, which pretty much changes everything. Needless to say, my training focus changed completely from racing to simply staying strong and healthy to help me get through treatment. I continued to train, but took things much easier. If I felt a bit tired, I backed off. There seemed no sense in tiring myself out needlessly. The original biopsy showed that I had caught it very early. The tumor was small, about 8mm, not aggressive, and a common more easily treatable variety which meant it was unlikely I'd need chemo. So that was all reassuring, but I had to wait 3.5 weeks for surgery when we would truly know the extent of disease and confirm the course of treatment. The waiting was brutal.

I found out the morning of our weekly team practice. I knew I had to go since exercise is my best stress reliever. I was very teary when I told my teammates, but they were incredibly supportive. (One of the many benefits of team membership. :-) I only told them, my husband, my mother, and my boss at work. I didn't tell my extended family, children, or other friends because I wanted to maintain a sense of normalcy and not have everyone on pins and needles around me. My teammates were great. I could talk about it to them, but it was never dwelled on and I was able to enjoy practice and talk about other important things like life and skiing.

I was a wreck the days before surgery. The morning of I was pretty calm. In many ways it was like ski racing. I get terribly nervous right before the race but that all goes away the second the gun goes off. Same with surgery. Plus you feel like you have to pee constantly even though you just went and you get a plastic bag with your name on it to put your clothes in. The day was very long because of a surgery backup at the hospital and the various procedures I had to do before surgery. The surgery was a lumpectomy and included what is called a sentinel node biopsy. Cancer in lymph nodes is a good indicator that it may have spread and so requires more treatment. To find that out, they remove a couple nodes and look at them. You have lots of nodes in your armpit and they try to figure out which nodes cancer would travel to first and only check those instead of taking them all. To do that they inject you with a radioactive fluid and then get an x-ray to see which nodes suck it up first. They also inject you with a blue dye and see where that goes. The nodes it goes to first are the ones any cancer cells floating around would also go to. So if those are clear, you're clear. All that took several hours getting wheeled around to various departments for the various things. The worst part was that I couldn't eat and my stomach was so empty I almost felt nauseous. It's hard for someone who eats like a hobbit (as my husband likes to say) to go that long without food. Then it was time to get the IV and prep for surgery. I spoke to the anesthesiologist and made sure he knew that I normally had low heart rates since I'm an athlete so he wouldn't freak out. (Low 50's is not uncommon and I've even seen it in the upper 40's.) He said as long as it was stable he didn't care what it was. He also knew that athletes don't need as much to put them out because of high metabolism. (Most athletes I know are light-weights with alcohol for that reason.) The surgery itself went fine and they sent me on my way. The fun thing about the blue dye is that it turns your boob bright Smurf blue and you get to pee like a Smurf for several hours.

Recovery from surgery was more difficult than the surgery itself. I'm not good at being laid up. I had a fair amount of swelling that was very uncomfortable, especially around the incisions, which were tight and the swelling made it feel like I had a rope around my armpit. I’d never had surgery before and had no idea what to expect, plus I had fears of long term problems that can happen when you take lymph nodes out. Was told that I should be able to resume normal activities a few days after surgery, but I’m not sure what is normal for me is what they had in mind. I tried skiing 4 and 5 days after surgery and probably did too much, but I was so anxious to get out and do something. I felt fine at the time but had a lot of swelling and discomfort afterwards. I was told that it was probably due to the exercise because it increases circulation and the fluid can’t leave that area as fast as it enters yet. I didn’t know when I’d be able to comfortably ski again and I was distraught at this because it’s really hard to go without my best stress reliever during this stressful time. After seeing the doctor about it he said that the swelling wasn’t a problem in itself and I should do whatever I comfortably can. That reassured me at least and I tried to be patient and waited another week. I went easier this time and seemed to feel ok the next day. So I’m back out, if not working as hard as I’d like to be. The doctor commented that the women like me that complained the most of slow recovery were all athletes and he thought they had higher expectations than most. I’m sure that’s true. I’ll bet there are plenty of people out there that are happy to have an excuse to lie around for a couple weeks and wouldn’t notice or care if they didn’t regain 100% function, but I am not one of them.

I got the lab report back from surgery and there was good news and bad news. The good news was that the nodes were completely clear of cancer so no chemo will be needed and we won’t need to radiate the nodes in my armpit which can cause additional side effects. The bad news was that there is still a little cancer left and I need another surgery to get it out. So I go in on Monday to do it. It’ll be a quicker procedure using the same incision and local anesthesia, but I’ll be starting over with recovering from surgery and swelling and whatnot. Plus that means that I can’t start radiation treatments until January. Not great, but it is what it is and I’m better prepared this time.

All this started just before Thanksgiving and I kept thinking how grateful I was that I had good insurance and could afford the co-pays because there are so many that are not so fortunate. Radiation treatment alone can cost $20,000. A woman I grew up with had breast cancer several years ago and started a non-profit to help women pay for it. Check it out http://www.payitforwardfund.net/.

When I grow up…

2011-11-29T22:25:00.001-06:00

The other day I was roller skiing on E River Rd. when a woman passed me on a bike and said, “We need some of the real stuff!” and I replied, “Yeah, we do!” As she went by I saw that she was this little old lady with fuzzy gray hair sticking out from under her helmet. She was on a nice road bike, wearing black tights, looking very fit and riding at a decent clip. I thought to myself that that was what I wanted to be when I grow up, that little old lady with fuzzy gray hair cranking out a good workout. Some day I will be...

Fall Training Camp

2011-10-15T20:32:00.003-05:00

Friday late afternoon we started our 3 days of training in the Hayward/Cable Area. Those of us who got up to 00 by 4:30pm that day did a 2 1/2 hour pole hike on the Birkie trail, mostly north of 00. It was warm and the trail was full of leaves making a lot of noise as we hiked through them. We finished our pole hike in the dark, hungry and thirsty. Next stop, the Sawmill Saloon in Seeley for dinner. The rest of the team met us there, giving us a total of 17 members for the camp. The food was great, although they ran out of Dark Beer on Tap. A bar in Wisconsin on a Friday night running out of any kind of tap beer? What is the world coming to?! But the Spotted Cow on tap was still a very good alternative.

Pole Hiking on the Birkie Trail

Saturday morning was classic rollerskiing near Hayward. We started with a warm up and video taped striding and double pole kick. We then moved on to some specific strength, single stick poling up a slight hill, and double pole starts up a larger hill. We finished with a cool down, then it was time for lunch. We ate lunch and watched our videos while Dave and Mark critiqued our technique. That afternoon, it was up to Cable to do some classic intervals. After warming up on the interval course, it was time for some hard work! We did 4 intervals of 2.25 K on a hilly section of road. Our team had an average time of about 7 1/2 minutes per interval. We cooled down then went for a dip in a local lake before heading to The Rivers Eatery in Downtown Cable. We enjoyed some of their pizza and micro brews on the outdoor patio to finish off the beautiful day.

Sunday morning we donned our new safety orange Vakava Racing shirts and did a 50k+ skate rollerski on the rolling hills of Cable. This was a hard workout because many of us were tired from the amount of training we did on Friday and Saturday. After a little over 3 hours, we finished our rollerski, packed up and headed home.

Sunday Rollerski

In her spare time

2011-09-08T06:04:00.002-05:00

Vakava has always had individuals from many different professions on our team. Here is a nice little profile on what 2006 Olympian and Vakava skier Carolyn does in her spare time (when she is not skiing with us). And I complain that I have a hard time finding time to train!

A new season has begun

2011-05-10T22:45:00.002-05:00

Dang, I can't believe that we are already a week into the 2011-2012 Vakava season!

Last season was another good one for the skiers of Vakava Racing. I am sure I will get around to a recap post of the season with numbers and such (I still have a half-written post recapping my Birkie that I need to finish). Sounds like projects for another day.

The upcoming season promises to be another great one for the team. I am pretty sure that we will be returning our full roster from last year, and will no doubt add a couple of skiers too. Can't wait to see what everyone will do with another year of training together (I am looking over my shoulder waiting for the Russian Rocket to blow by me - with another year of technique I think he might!). We are going to try better to keep the skiing community up to date on our team's adventures and exploits this next year - we are a pretty unique group of skiers considering the nearly 40 year age range of skiers in our group all working together and skiing fast, and I think our stories need to be told better. To start with, we will try to keep this blog updated!

As for the latest in my life: Nichole keeps rocking along on her marathon training, and I just try to keep up on her easy days. Working full time keeps cutting into my training, but I do love my job (and being done with school!). We lost a training partner about a month ago when our awesome dog Ellie was hit and killed by a car, and things have been a bit boring around our house since. Solution: we are adopting a new dog this weekend - a 5 year old Vizsla named Mesa! I don't know if that poor dog knows what she is up for and the miles she will put on. I can't wait to pound the trails in the Carleton arb with a dog again. Fun times!

A Crazy Idea...

2011-04-05T14:53:00.004-05:00

So, I've got a crazy idea. I'd like to do an informal
Ironman TT this summer and am looking for people to do
it with. You could do the whole thing, one leg, part
of each leg or set up a relay.If you are going to be
around this summer and are interested, or know someone
else who might be interested, let me know.

Right now my vision for this would be to do it sometime
in August or early September around Square Lake, but
nothing is set at this point. If there are a couple of
people interest, Robb Lageson (St. Paul Central coach)
has offered to be race director and run the transition
area.

To give a little background, I've competed in a couple
of triathlons per summer for the past couple of years.
Last year I did my first half-Iron distance tri and had
a blast. Afterward I started looking at doing a full
Ironman. Unfortunately, Ironmans are expensive. I could
buy a new pair of skis for the registration fee, and
quite frankly, I'd rather have money to pay my rent and
buy food than do an official Ironman at this point. So,
that's where I'm at.

Anyways, I'm planning on doing this and would really
like some company, both for training and for the actual
event.

Questions, comments, rude remarks?

PS. Ironman distances: 2.4mi swim, 112mi bike, 26.1mi run

The Tuesday night WC update:

2011-03-08T22:43:00.005-06:00

ANGIE = WORLD CHAMP!
Monday's 10k freestyle results from the Master's World Cup are in, and Angie is now a world champ in her age group (F3). Cheryl finished 2nd in the F4 category too. Nice job ladies!
Rounding out the Vakava crew was Dave, finishing 11th in the M7 category. I'd say Vakava was well represented.

They have been putting in a full schedule of racing in Brittish Columbia. Check out all the results here. I am sure we will get race recaps and some good stories once the celebrating calms down ;)

Side note #1: Still snowing in Minnesota. Go ski.

Side note #2: JOs at Wirth. Go cheer.

Side note #3: Vakava Racing supports the SJU/CSB Nordic Teams! Join the FB group here. Sign the petition here.

Masters World Championships - the sweet life

2011-03-06T23:21:00.004-06:00

It was a grueling day Friday getting to the Masters World Championships at Sovereign Lake, BC Canada. Three flights (two delayed) and an hour long van ride. My skis didn't arrive when I did and I developed a nasty sore throat. I didn't race the skate race on Saturday when everyone else did and spent the day napping since I was absolutely wiped out and my throat was quite sore. That evening I had to get my skis waxed for my race on Sunday and get to bed and was feeling a little sorry for myself. I didn't get to watch any races or drink wine and soak in the hot tub with my friends. What was I thinking in coming here? Sunday morning I was feeling a bit better, throat less sore and less tired. I was a little nervous because it was a 15k classic and I was unsure of waxing in these mountain conditions which include lots of fresh, very humid snow, very different than the cold dry stuff I'm used to. But the day turned out great despite feeling tired and under the weather. I realized that I was living the sweet life.

I got chauffeured to the race, had an awesome support team helping me wax, and my skis worked great. The start area was extremely well run and organized. Start position is assigned so there are no crowds or jockeying for position and the clothes bags are taken from you right before you step up to the start line. I got off the line well and exited the start area in first, but was quickly passed by several women. The first 5k were a gentle climb, but I felt like I wanted to lay down and die in the altitude the first few k. I was wondering how I was possibly going to finish 15k, especially since the last 5 are much hillier. I started to feel a little better k's 4 and 5 and made it to the top of the 5k climb in 5th place. Then there were rolling downhills for about 2k and I was able to recover well and my skis were running nicely. I was skiing with another woman most of this time and was just trying to relax and enjoy the race with her. I started running up her skis but I tried to just relax and rest and sit behind her. But I couldn't keep behind her and decided I needed to get around her. So I made my break about 9k or so and she couldn't hang on. I looked back a couple times but she was soon out of sight and I knew I was solidly in 4th. I was really able to get my rhythm and felt pretty good on the last hilly 5k. I felt good as long as I wasn't climbing too much. There was a big hill at 14k and I had to struggle to get up it without feeling like I wanted to keel over. I just kept telling myself that all I had to do was get to the top and then I'd be fine, and I was. I was able to push hard into the stadium to finish in 4th. I was just under one minute behind third and just over a minute in front of 5th. A fine finish for being sick and at altitude. Then home for more pampering the rest of the day which included napping, an incredible home cooked meal, ski waxing for the 10k skate tomorrow, and relaxing. This truly is the sweet life. No long work days, laundry, getting dinner, or other family chores. No wonder those young single pups (and retired old guys :-) can ski so fast! I'm hoping to continue to recover from my cold and enjoy the rest of the week. We'll keep you posted on everyone's results as we find time between naps and waxing sessions.

Best Birkie Ever!

2011-02-27T12:09:00.002-06:00

I was nervous coming into Birkie week. I think everyone was wondering what the weather was going to do, with having a big warm up the week prior. To add to this, I snapped one of my good race skis a week before the Birkie! But after a last minute trip to Finnsisu and fitting with Devin I had a new pair of skis, complete with a famous Finnsisu Fine grind and Devin's spectacular wax prep. The scary thing was that I picked up the skis on Friday on my way up to Hayward and Saturday morning would be my first time trying them out. But skiing around the warmup loop 20 minutes before the start I knew Devin had worked his magic, I had some rockets on. Now I just needed to have a conservative start and not blow up on the north half hills. I quickly found myself in the middle of a huge 30 plus pack, which stuck together for nearly the whole race. I've never felt so fresh at 00. I was just conserving and waiting for someone to make a break and split the pack. The Ks kept clicking away until we were less than 5K from the finish and about to hit Lake Hayward, which is a 3K stretch before Main Street. I thought about my Mora 35K race from a few years ago when I jumped ahead of Andy Schakel on the lake and ended up pulling him across only to have him out sprint me to the finish. But I also knew that I didn't want it come down to a huge sprint on Main Street. So I made the decision just before the lake to ski to the front and take a gamble on opening a gap across the lake. I thought I could either try to put the "hurt" on these guys and make a break or end up pulling them all across (with a head wind). Two guys from the pack followed me about half way across, but I was able to keep a strong v2 up and hold about a 6 second gap into Main Street and right across the finish line. I actually got really close to catching Dave Chamberlain just before the end. My goal for the past few years has been to break into the top 50 (I've been 51st prior), so I was totally pumped to end up in 39th. Woohoo!! Catch the Birkie Fever!

Birkie week!

2011-02-21T11:43:00.005-06:00

Does Birkie fever got you eager as a beaver? Listen here to get in the mood (feel free to put these on a continuous audio loop at work all week).

For most of us citizen skiers and master blasters, the season comes down to the Birkie. It is a crazy race that is unlike any other. It is big and important enough to get a story in the Washington Post - with one of the more perfect profiles of Ahvo that I have ever read :) It has an entire library of aforementioned Birkie songs (available on CD with your donation to the local public radio station).

Ari put a nice guide to the Birkie on his blog. He also has some good course profile info (in comparison to the Birkie office's profile).

The weather reports are starting to come out for race day. Sounds like the waxing should be pretty straight forward and conditions should be excellent! Birkie trail reports say that Hayward received 5-7" in this latest system. Don't know if it will be as fast as last year (which was course-record fast), but I am optimistic that it won't be a 50k grinder.

Anyone else still really confused as to why the official results go off of "chip time", which does not start until you cross the 300m mark from the start? So unless you think you will finish in the top 6, let that be one more reason why starting on the front line does not matter - and may even be a negative (since last year I out-sprinted people on main street, but they "beat" me in the official results). Makes for a weird race strategy. Not sure why they don't just put the timing wire at the start line. As I said, the Birkie is a race unlike any other!

FYI: Make sure you pick up your bib at the Middle School this year.

Oh, and Vakava Racing did wrap up our Minnesota Skinnyski Series Team Championship again this past weekend, even with Kathleen being our loan representative at the Finlandia - although she did win the race for good measure! (video evidence) Atta girl!

Mora classic race

2011-02-18T18:28:00.008-06:00

I knew this should be a good race for me. The flat course is mostly double poling and does not require much technique: just keep the legs in the tracks and swing the arms as fast as you can! But it happened that my preparation for the race did not go so well and I even considered not doing it. First I had a really hard City of Lakes Loppet trying my best to stay ahead of Caitlin Compton. I ended up having the average heart rate higher than in any other race this season, including the Pre-Loppet which is just the first half of the course!

I should probably get some stiffer poles

Then I went for a workout on Tuesday morning. Usually there are a number of other skiers at these hours at Wirth. However I have not met a single skier during my 1.5 hour workout. That day I only had a mild frostbite on a finger but the next day after vakava’s intervals I got sick. I was not feeling well next day but did a half an hour ski Friday night. It seemed like the sickness did not impact my speed but I was still worried that I would not have enough gas for 42K. I still decided to do the race. And now I know that I was right!

Getting forward on the poles

After the start I was in the end of the leading pack. I was not sure how I would feel so I only took a pull once and just for 1K. Luckily for me the pace was relatively slow, nobody tried to break away and we skied a large pack of about a dozen skiers.

However, at the “big” hill many of us got stuck in the soft snow and 4 skiers made a gap on others. It took me a few K’s to catch up, but then the pace settled down again, and eventually other two skiers caught us up as well. So we continued this slow skiing in a pack of 7 skiers now. People were talking to each other and it seemed like we were just having a fun long Sunday ski and the race would only start somewhere on the Mora lake. However, after the last water stop Piotr Bednarski made a small gap on others. The gap did not decrease for a few K, so I decided to step out and catch him. I did not plan to break away at that point, I only wanted to see how I would feel at higher speeds. But when I caught Piotr and looked back I was surprised to see that nobody followed me. At that time I also figured that I would probably be able to maintain the pace for the 5K left to go. So I passed Piotr and went ahead. I turned back a few times, at the Vasaloppet center I could still see the chasing group but once we reached the lake nobody was in the visibility. In fact over the last 5K we made 40 sec on the 3rd place!
Unlike me Piotr had a kick and was faster on the Church hill. I poled as hard as possible and at the top of the hill in its most steep part my poles somehow went through without touching the ground. I fell down and Piotr passed me. I got up quickly and Piotr was so tired that it only took me a few strokes get him.
The last 200m proceeded smoothly without any additional falls.

What a difference a month makes!

2011-02-17T22:43:00.003-06:00

The race season started pretty slow for me. I didn’t do any races in December because I didn’t feel ready and still didn’t feel all that ready by mid-January for Boulder Lake. The following races were a bit better, but progress felt pretty slow. I was starting to feel decent at COLL and had a good race, but I had to work pretty hard to do it. I had a pack of three women on my tail and had to hold them off all across the lakes mostly by myself. I was pleased that I had managed to keep ahead of them and was tired but not baked at the finish.

Then came Mora. I really fretted before the race not knowing what to expect with the weather. A long slow slog through the mush was not appealing and after racing most races around 0 degrees I had no idea what to wear. After some last minute clothes changes I got in a little warm up and found a spot on the line in the third row. The start went very smoothly with no mishaps and I was off with the crowd. I looked around and didn’t see any yellow (women’s) bibs. I always get off the line fast and then ease up and settle in. People started passing me and a bunch of yellow bibs from the 58k went by. Then Elaine Nelson and Sarah Kylander-Johnson from the 35k went by. They were at the end of a very long train. They were going just a bit faster than I wanted to go so I didn’t latch on. But then I looked behind and realized that there was no one close behind me and I’d be skiing alone if I didn’t hang with the train ahead. I thought I should probably try to catch up but after a short bit decided to just let them go. I’m going to World Masters in a couple weeks and didn’t want to bake myself now so I figured I wouldn’t fight for it. So I skied alone for at least half the race. I was grateful for all the classic skiers along the trail. Many of them cheered as I went by and I didn’t feel so lonely. About 1/3 of the way I passed Bruce Adelsman taking pictures and he said I was about 40 sec. back. At the feed station before the big hill I started passing a guy here and there and thought, “Now that’s interesting.” I didn’t know if they were really falling back or I was reeling in the back of the train. When I hit the bottom of the big hill I looked up and could see Elaine and Sarah near the top. I thought, “Now that’s really interesting. But don’t get too excited and go too hard up the hill and put yourself under.” So I just skied the hill strong and smooth and not too hard. I passed a few more guys and then caught Elaine and Sarah’s pack at about 10 or 11 K to go. Things just kept getting more and more interesting every few K’s. I hung there a minute to rest and see what they were up to. They weren’t up to much and I felt good so I figured I’d just keep going. You just never know what will happen in a situation like this. They could pour it on once they realize you’re there and drop you again, or jump in and hang with you, or let you go. I figured the only way to know what would happen was to try it and see, so I made my way past. Elaine said hi and asked how I was. I said good and asked her the same. She said, “Oh, you know…” I chuckled and said, “Yeah, I know…” (See my entry about Boulder Lake. Elaine smoked me by 5 min.) So I kept my pace and they didn’t follow, the most interesting development yet! But you can never count on anything and I kept looking back now and then to see if they were catching up, but they just kept getting slowly further and further back, and then they were gone. At one of the road crossings a man called out, “You’re the first girl, way to go little lady!” Little did he know that this “little lady” was 43, “little old lady” more like it. About 5k to go I found a pack of men and skied with them the rest of the way in. I finished in first a minute ahead of Elaine and Sarah, skiing a comfortable pace the entire way. It felt so good and what a fun race to win with all the hoopla at the finish! Afterwards Dave asked my why I skied so well and I’m not sure, I just felt good. So here are the top 10 possible reasons…

10. good wax (FastWax tan with a healthy top coat of pure fluoro, same skis I always race on)
9. caffeine laced gel before the start (I’d never tried caffeine before)
8. fast snow (I do better in faster conditions)
7. drank my own homemade sport drink for feeds with lots of electrolytes (another first, I have troubles with low electrolytes so I figured I’d try wearing a bottle, which I never do)
6. decent sleep the few days before (rare)
5. good nutrition in the days before (dropped a few pounds so I’ve been on a see-food diet, see food and eat it)
4. good recovery after races and intervals (easy days are EASY)
3. skied my own race at my own pace (funny how that works)
2. finally raced myself into shape

And the top possible reason…
1. all the stars and planets were perfectly aligned!

More on Mora

2011-02-16T08:55:00.009-06:00

Dave writes:

What a day! The Vasaloppet does seem to be our race. We’ve accumulated a huge herd of horses and a good number of wreaths over the years, and Sunday saw some significant additions. It’s great to see everyone skiing so well and having all that hard work pay off.

35k skate men's and women's champs and 42k classic men's champ

You’ve already read Nate’s account; I’ll just add a note of my own. I’ve always loved doing the Vasaloppet. Aside from getting some pretty good results in 30+ years, there’s something about the friendliness of the small-town atmosphere, the chiming of the bell pulling you across the lake, the mainstreet finish, the shower and the lunch afterwards (except maybe for that baloney sandwich).

I’ve also been involved in running enough races to really appreciate all the hard work that goes into something like the Vasaloppet. I especially appreciate all the volunteers who actually make the race possible and whose efforts often aren’t given enough recognition.

So it’s with a certain amount of dismay that I recount this aspect of my race. I had skipped the first food stop, so I wanted to make sure that I got a good feed at the second. We came into it fast, however, and, as sometimes does happen, the cup of liquid that was pushed out to me, instead of ending up in my mouth, explodes all over my face and my glasses.

When I open my eyes a split second later, I realize that another of the volunteers has accidentally backed straight ahead of me into my path. I’m still going at a good clip, she realizes I’m coming straight at her, I lurch to the left, she moves in the same direction, we both shift to the opposite direction, and then BAM. I reach forward to grab her and hold her up, but just end up flattening her. Right over her I go, one ski on each side of her body. Amazingly enough, I don’t end up on top of her. In fact, the whole thing doesn’t even slow me down (which is a good thing because I’m doing my damnedest to hold on to Ahlers and the pack ahead of me).

So, to the volunteer, whoever you are, I do apologize, and I really do appreciate your being out there for us. I’ll be back again next year, and, if I do encounter you, I promise it’ll be in a much more friendly manner.

(My wife keeps wanting me to bring home one of the pretty blue ones. Sorry, Paula.)

Mora Vasaloppet 2011

2011-02-14T12:56:00.018-06:00

Mora Vasaloppet 2011: 3 overall wins, 10 age group wins, and 16 total dalahorses. Not a bad day for Vakava Racing.

In fact is was a great day for Vakava Racing, highlighted by awesome wins by Angie in the 35k skate (coming from behind, catching the leaders and pulling away for the win), and Eugene in the 42k classic. In his first year training with Vakava Eugene has made HUGE improvements. Last year in the 42k classic race Eugene finished in 23rd place (6th in his age group), and over 9 minutes off the winning pace in 2:07:37. This year, in much slower snow conditions he was 45 seconds faster than last year, and won the race. All the top guys from last year were there again too - including COLL classic champ and defending Mora classic champ Evan Pengally.

My own race also went very well, as I defended my win in the 35k skate race. Last year standing at the starting line I knew I should be able to win, and early in the race while testing the field I pulled away and soloed in for a relatively easy win. This year the field was much stronger, including two skiers who had soundly beaten me last weekend at COLL (Derek and Andy Brown), and Gustavus college skier Andrew Tilman who had outsprinted me the weekend before that at the St. Olaf invite. Plus Mora's own Chad Giese was in the field. A multiple time 58k champ (and former National champ), he has retired to the family and working world, but I couldn't be sure about how much training he has been getting in down at his new home in Illinois, and I sure was not going to take him lightly. I had my work cut out for me.

The race started cleanly from the new location, which featured a much narrower starting line. My goal was to (unlike last weekend at COLL) ski easy and relaxed from the beginning. The 58k field had most of the top skiers, so I made a point not to concern myself with their starting pace. Andy Brown had started fast and was up in the top 5 guys, so I kept an eye on him and made sure he would not get too far ahead, but I also knew he would not be skiing all 35k by himself. Once the course split and the 35k field was alone, Andy was leading a long train of skiers with myself in 2nd. He pulled us along for a few kilometers, and eventually pulled off to the side and I took the lead, with Andy jumping back into 2nd. I pulled for a while, making sure to stay relaxed. My skis felt great (2 coats Fast Wax tan with Rex 244 powder on a FinnSisu fine grind), but unlike last year I could tell the field was having no trouble keeping up with my pace. After a kilometer or two I pulled off to the side and Andy was left to lead again. I pulled into the 5th or 6th position, since I had put in my work and did not feel like simply trading the lead with Andy for the whole race. This must not have occurred to Andy and Andrew Tilman, since the two of them pretty much traded the lead for the next 10 kilometers - one would lead and the other would pull into the second position (putting them in line to take the next lead). They both were keeping the pace relatively honest, but because the course is almost entirely flat, and there was a headwind of 10-15mph, everyone in the draft was able to ski much easier than the leaders.

The 35k course only has one significant hill, and it is at about the 15k point. The Birkie probably has a dozen hills that are bigger, but for this race it is a significant climb. Andrew was leading with Andy in second and myself in third going up the hill. At the top I looked back and noticed that a gap had formed back to the 4th skier. I yelled up to Andrew that we should put a little juice in the pace to see if we could widen the gap. Andrew moved to the side and I jumped to the lead and floored it. I didn't really intend to completely break away and have to ski the second half of the race by myself, but I did want to see who had the legs to come with. When nobody came right away I just kept my foot on the gas (Derek had been conserving his energy back in 6th or 7th place, and had to get around too many people from too far back to respond very quickly). By the time I let off the pace and turned around there was no one in sight. I was a little concerned with having to ski the last half alone, but I actually had broken away sooner last year, and although I had to fight through the headwind (last year was a nice tail wind), I was counting on my move having splintered the pack and all the other skiers would have to fight the wind too.

By the time the sun came out and the snow really started to slow down (and my legs started to really feel the extended time pushing the pace on my own) I only had 7k to go and people cheering along the course were telling me I had a big lead. I let my pace slow a bit to save my legs and make sure I wouldn't run out of energy before the finish. I got to the finish on main street and was ready to be done (I sure didn't envy the 58k skiers - once things warmed up they really got slow) but I felt great. After finishing I got to watch all the other Vakava skiers come across the line in great positions (Derek finished 2nd). Vakava had won 3 of the first 4 races that had finished and then Carolyn finished 2nd in the 58k skate! There was lots of celebrating to do at the finish, and many dalahorses to pick up at the awards.

35k winners (Angie and me)

Vakava at the Vasaloppet:
58k Skate:
11th Andrew K
21st Ryan

2nd Carolyn

8th Bonnie (age group win)
42k Classic:
1st Eugene (age group win)
12th Andy S
21st Brent (age group win)
80th Kevin
5th Michele (age group win)
35k Skate:
1st Nate (age group win)
2nd Derek (age group win)
6th Paul
11th Mark (age group win)
13th Dave C (age group win)
20th Dave B
1st Angie (age group win)
6th Kathleen
7th Cheryl (age group win)
8th Katy

Notes:

1.) Skinnyski.com has video coverage of the 35k skate race.

2.) Eugene working on his interview skills after winning the 42k.

3.) This should give Vakava a skinnyski series team score for the Vasaloppet (the 35k was the series race) of 595 - again just 5 points short of a perfect score. This should put us very close to the 600 point lead that would guarantee Vakava will have repeated as series champs before the last race (Finlandia) has even happened. Update: the team standings have been updated, and with a commanding and insurmountable lead of 877 points, Vakava has successfully defended our team championship!
4.) Long time Finn Sisu racer (from the early days of Finn Sisu racing) Roy "Gramps" Carlstad is still skiing strong at 87 years young, finishing the 42k classic in 4:08:40.

It Keeps Getting Better

2011-02-08T08:30:00.022-06:00

I love that the City Of Lakes Loppet ski race continues to get bigger and better. The Twin Cities is a tough market to promote sports in - physically pulling off a point to point urban race, getting people to show up for all of the many events, and getting media coverage... Good job, John Munger and your 1000 volunteers!!!!

A year ago right after the Nordic Spirit I was feeling pretty burned out. I actually considered skipping COL, Mora and the Birkie but knew I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't finish the season so I did them. This year, I've definitely had some emotional (and physical) highs and

lows but for some reason I'm having more fun the more races I do. The best yet was City of Lakes on Sunday. I did the classic course which I really like - fits like a glove.

Sat. night I put on VR40, as recommended by Swix but driving to the race early Sun

day morning it was 29 degrees (22 had been predicted at that time)!!! I knew it could be a tough kick day. I ran into Kevin Ivens (racing with 2 broken ribs!) on the shuttle bus so we tested our skis along with everyone else. VR 50 seemed to be the consensus of the Swix users so I put some on. My kick was not great but my glide was good and I knew a lot of the hills were either gradual enough for the kick I had or steep enough that I'd be running anyway so I called it good and went to the start line. But I still

had a lot of angst so right before I entered the start area I added one more short layer of V50 - the 'panic wax' - and did not even test it. I started next to Hilary Patzer on the right side but never saw her once the race started. My start was not the greatest so I passed quite a few folks and finally settled in with Brent and just behind Katherine Himes. Brent has not been getting a lot of training in (too much work-related travel) so I jumped ahead of him and tried to stay with Katherine. On the second leg of Wirth Lake I

noticed she was kick double poling. I thought that was a bad sign for her but a good one for me so at the aid station just off the lake as she slowed for a drink, I skipped the drink and took off, hoping I could put a little distance between us.

This year the course took us through part of the flower gardens which are fun. Soon we were on the overpass above I-394 and I knew my favorite part - the lakes - were just ahead. The course was very fast and my kick was perfectly inadequate (Not enough for great kick but as much as I wanted for this race), allowing nice glide. Throughout the race I could see Josi and

everytime the course did a 180 turn, I could hear her cheering for me so I knew she was aware of where I was. I thought it would be nice to catch her but she felt out of my reach so I decided not to blow myself out trying to catch her but just kept the pressure on. As we 180'd onto Brownie Lake, Brent called out to me that I was safe - meaning that neither Katherine nor any

other women were close. Thank you, Brent! Coming up the boulevard to the finish was fun because my daughter, Claire, and her friend, Emily, were there to watch the finish. I had given them cow bells to cheer with and it was so nice to have Claire there as I was announced as the third woman, 49 seconds behind Josi. Then the race organizers pulled me to the side with Hilary and Josi and they did an awards ceremony on the podium with flowers. It was pretty cool for an old lady like me to experience the illusion that I'm a young hot shot skier. I doubt I'll ever share a podium with the likes of Hilary and Josi again so I'll tuck the good memories away and get ready for Mora.

I'd like to add a couple more Vakava results from the weekend. We had a few sprinters on Saturday:

Kathleen: 5th, Open Division

Paul: 8th, Open Division

Andy: 3rd, Masters Division

Pics on Lake all taken by Tom Stuart - Thank you, Tom. And woods pics of Cheryl and Andy & Dave from Skinnyski.com

Slow going at the City of Lakes Loppet

2011-02-07T12:06:00.013-06:00

Ever have one of those races where every time you get into a tuck on a downhill you can do nothing but slowly watch the skiers you are with pull away from you on that downhill? That was my race on Sunday the City of Lakes Loppet. Granted, I didn't have the legs to keep up with people very well on the uphills either. I started between Adam Swank and Andre Watt, and told them that I was going to let them pull ahead of me at the gun and just tuck in behind them, and that is what I did. This worked great, and got me out in around 10th place - which is probably about where I would hope to place at the Loppet if I had a great race and fantastic skis (I was seeded 17th if my bib is any indication). If nothing else it set me up to get in with a good group of skiers and hang with people as they went by.

Unfortunately as skiers would come up around me, all I could do was watch them pull away. This wasn't for lack of trying. After all, I know just about every skier in the top 50, and I know which ones I can normally ski with. So when skiers who I am usually skiing with or even ahead of at most races were gliding past me, I was pushing hard to keep up with them. This left me with pretty trashed legs by the 7 or 8k point, as I was working harder than I should have been that early in a 33k race.

By the 10 or 15k point of the race I was skiing in no-man's-land by myself. As the trail wound through the woods I could see the group a minute or two in front of me, and also a group of 5 skiers about a minute behind me. I knew that skiing by myself for the last 15 to 20k of the race was not ideal, but skiing alone did allow me to relax and focus on skiing smooth and just trying to get my legs to recover.

With 10k to go in the race I had put a bit more distance on the group behind me, and my legs were starting to perk up again. My skis were still feeling slow, but I felt like I could begin to look ahead to a couple of skiers who had fallen off the group in front of me and slowly reel them in. After catching 3 skiers on the last lake, I was able to muster enough of a surge to separate myself from them early enough so as to not have it come down to a sprint on the home stretch.

The race was good, the weather was great (i.e not sub-zero), and it is awesome to see so many people that are apart of the COLL festival. Kudos to everyone involved in putting this event on. Next year I just need to talk to Devin about my waxing first (and maybe put in a few more hours training over the summer too!)

Vakava results from COLL:
33k Skate:
15th Derek
26th Eugene
27th Nate
32nd Paul
33rd Andrew K
36th Ryan
47th Dave C (age group win)
89th Mark
99th Jason
4th Carolyn
7th Angie (age group win)
11th Bonnie
12th Kathleen
21st Katy
25k Classic:
6th Dave B (age group win)
13th Andy S
29th Brent
71st Kevin
3rd Cheryl (age group win)
7th Michele

Next weekend: Mora 35k, and a flat course that suits my racing style better. I know of at least 2 skiers who beat me at COLL who will be in that race, so I will have to pick up my game to defend my title.

Pics taken from skinnyski.com (thanks for the continued great coverage Bruce!)

The Deal

2011-02-03T22:19:00.001-06:00

Brent Oja is funny. Really funny. He’s usually got some good one liner at the ready and is fun to joke around with. Earlier this week Brent emailed me to ask if I could do him a favor and pick up some wax for him at FinnSisu and bring it our team practice the next day. The Oja’s live in River Falls and I live in Roseville, less than a mile from the handy new FinnSisu location off Hwy 280 and Larpenteur Ave. I was planning on stopping in anyway, and seeing as I’d like to ensure they have room me at their cabin outside Hayward on Birkie weekend, I agreed. I thought I’d share with you the email thread concerning “the deal”.

From: Brent Oja
To: Angie Robinson
Sent: Mon, January 31, 2011 10:52:11 PM
Subject: Wax Fix
Angie - Help! I need some wax from FinnSisu and was wondering if you could "mule" some over to Battle Creek on Wednesday? This is not an internet scam where I'm asking you to forward money to cover the cost of shipping Rex wax to Nigeria. Although, I won't reject cash if you should happen to wire it on over. I need a Rex PowerGrip Green and a Rex Binder kick wax. Let me know if you are going to BC and/if you could swing by FinnSisu and I'll give Greg a heads-up. I mentioned this to him at the Marine O'brien race so he won't be surprised. If you can pick it up I will pay him later. If you can't...no worries. Thanks, Brent

From: Brent Oja
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 10:54:11 PM
To: Angela Robinson
Subject: RE: Wax Fix
Oh...I also need a bottle of Hydrex. Thanks.

From: Angela Robinson
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2011 10:13 AM
To: 'Brent Oja'
Subject: RE: Wax Fix
Brent, I was going to swing by there today anyway so it'll be no problem. Angie

From: Angie Robinson
To: Brent Oja
Sent: Wed, February 2, 2011 2:29:39 PM
Subject: the drop
I got the stuff. I'll make the drop tonight.

From: Brent Oja
To: Angie Robinson; Michele Oja
Sent: Wed, February 2, 2011 3:12:52 PM
Subject: RE: the drop
Thanks Angie. I'll make sure my contact is there for the exchange.
Codeword for the deal is "Rex" and if the deal goes bad I will disavow knowledge of either of you.

The deal went down without a hitch. I’m sure Brent will have more “transactions” for me in the future.

The Return of the King

2011-02-02T13:54:00.004-06:00

The King Boreas race returned to St. Paul after a lengthy absence. It is really nice to add another local race to the ski calendar. Being able to leave home at 9, race at 10 and be home by 11:15 is a huge plus. When you throw in the fact that the highly efficient Ben Popp was the race director, you have the makings for a great day on the snow. Throw in temperatures close to 30 degrees and wow, what a fun event.
The weather was much warmer than expected overnight and many racers were left scrambling in the minutes leading up to the start looking for warmer wax and structure tools. I got lucky here, and through no skill or planning on my part, had absolute rockets under my feet. From the start the pace was high, and Jacob Beste was flying. A lead group of about 6 formed with Jacob doing almost all of the work. After the first of 2 laps were complete, the elastic broke. At one time or another each of us in the lead group tried to latch on to Jacob's Rossi orange suit, but alas, it was not be. He won solo, smoothly skating away, completing 15k in about 37 minutes.
I was able to ski in with the lead pack of 4 and had might sights on trying my sprinting legs for a chance at second place. It did not go so well. I ended up 5th, last in the sprint. Hats off to the 3 others skier who absolutely torched me, you deserve it. Check the video clip found on Skinnyski.com and keep in mind that 2nd through 5th were all together with about 500 meters to go. Oh well, I will be looking for pointers from the team on sprinting at the next practice.
Overall, a very nice race for me considering I am attempting to come back from arm surgery performed in November. Thanks to the Vakava coaches for their patience as I slowly come around to race fitness. A sincere apology to my teammate Paul Olson. I step on his pole on the 1st lap and pulled his strap right off his hand. He had to turn around, ski back to his pole and then attempt to catch back up. I felt terrible about it, and it's made worse by the fact that Paul is probably the nicest guy on the team.

King Boreas, the Ski Race

2011-02-01T21:38:00.008-06:00

Boreas was famed to have described Minnesota as a winter paradise. After racing the King Boreas 15km skate race at Phalen park, I believe there is no better descriptor than "winter paradise". The course was fun, well groomed, and gently rolling. Two laps around the twisting course was just enough to keep the racers in close proximity for spectators. Follow this link for a sneak peak at the race highlights.

The men started in mass, followed by the women one minute later. This format made for some interesting maneuvering by the lead women. I have to admit, it was really fun passing so many skiers! Because everyone was in the same situation, it didn't bother me much that our speed was compromised by this format. Hats off to the men! They were very well behaved. We just had to mention our presence and the word relayed up stream for the men to move to their right so we could easily pass. We even received cheers and words of encouragement from many of those we passed. This made a very good impression on the ladies of the race. Thank You!

Like most Midwest races, the post-race cool down was like a reunion of old friends. I was fortunate enough to have made some new friends as well. Fun fun times.

With all our new snow, Minnesota's winter wonderland doesn't seem to be in jeopardy. Sometime in July I'll think back to January and how beautifully white the St. Paul area was, and like King Boreas I'll look "forward to the time when summer's warmth would once again relinquish its hold on the realm and the frosty atmosphere of winter would prevail."

For more information on the legend of King Boreas see http://www.stpaulwintercarnival.com/legend.html

Skinnyski Series Update

2011-02-01T14:30:00.004-06:00

We are 4 races into the 7 race Minnesota Skinnyski Series, so I thought I would give an update on where Vakava Racing stands at this point.

Team Competition:
Where did all the teams go!?! Do Vakava and Peter's Cheaters have such a dominant rivalry that we scared off all other competitors? I know that Muven-Gruven has been taking this year easy, but I expected them to at least enter a team. Gear West had also expressed interest in entering a team at the beginning of the year, but they are also absent. Even skinnyski.com didn't bother entering a team in the skinnyski series! And so we are left with only 3 teams, and with 3 races to go each team seems to have separated itself pretty decisively, almost to the point where it may not even matter how many skiers from each team show up to the Finlandia (like it usually does). This is supposed to be the most exciting category of the skinnyski series (see this recap from November, or this story from the series website). Heck, the skinnyski series trophy even has its own facebook page - and it currently has more friends than there are people competing for the teams in the competition! Boo to everyone who didn't even try to field a team.

Team standings after 4 races:
Vakava/FinnSisu 2331
Peter's Cheaters 1841
Hoigaards/Breadsmith 1254

Overall competition:
Men: Vakava coach Dave Christopherson is eligible to win the overall title again, and since he is probably the fastest 60 year old in the country, this competition is not even a fair fight for the rest of the field. After age adjusting his times Dave has been the fastest skier in each race by 4:25, 3:18, 1:56 (by far the closest anyone has been this year - fellow Vakava skier Dave Bridges), and 4:04. This competition is over assuming Dave skis any of the other races in the series. Other Vakava skiers: Eugene in 5th.
Women: The women's overall competition is a Vakava party at the top. Vakava skiers currently hold 3 of the top 4 places, and Cheryl's lead looks almost as safe as Dave's, since she has been the age-graded champion at 3 of 4 races. Fellow Vakava skier Angie is within striking distance, but she will probably come up agonizing short. Kathleen is 4th, Katy is 11th.

Skier of the year:
This is the "most improved" competition. Vakava is doing well here too: Dave is in 2nd, Cheryl is in 3rd, Kathleen is in 7th, Angie is in 13th. So far nobody is pulling ahead in this competition, and it is more a representation of who has skied the most races. This category will shake out quite a bit more in the next 3 races. Non-Vakava skier Jason Delebroux is looking good with 3 races completed, and Elaine Nelson and Sam Oftedahl are looking good with 2 races completed. If these skiers compete in more races they could pull ahead of current leader Richard Anderson, who will get bonus points if he completes all the races, but his lead is more about quantity than quality so far.

Age group competitions:
Vakava skiers currently leading their age groups: Kathleen, Angie, Cheryl, Eugene, Dave C.
Vakava skiers in 2nd: Katy, Mary Beth, Nate, Mark.
Vakava skiers in 3rd: Carolyn, Dave B.

Go team!

A good weekend of racing

2011-01-31T11:57:00.004-06:00

Wow the skiing is good in Minnesota right now. I hope I didn't just jinx things, but considering that we are supposed to get another 6 inches of snow today, I am feeling pretty good about the skiing for the next month (still should probably knock on wood).

On Saturday I dropped my wife Nichole off at the airport, and found that I had enough time to swing over to Theodore Wirth to jump into the St. Olaf invite. It was a 10k skate race that went twice around the 5k JO course. It is a tough course, but it skis really well. Kudos to all the work that they have put in over there. They have a really nice, championship quality course to show for it. The race had the St. Olaf and Gustavus college teams (minus a couple skiers who were at the Supertour/CCSA races in Michigan) and also some alumni from the two schools facing off for supremacy. My goal was to find the happy medium of not embarrasing myself and to try to keep up with the college kids as best I could, while at the same time not frying my legs for the next day's Nordic Spirit 25k classic race. I think I accomplished both these goals. I finished 5th, not very far from the top 3, and as the top Alumni. After the race I had a chance to chat with Mark, the St. Olaf coach (who I skied in high school with) about skiing in Northfield (where I now live, as of a week ago). It sounds like Olaf may start grooming some hillier terrain on their campus next winter (which would be great!) and I may try to jump into some skis and rollerskis with the Olaf team in the future.

Sunday's race was the Nordic Spirit 25k classic. This was the latest stop for the Minnesota Skinnyski Series, and is the reason that Vakava had 7 skiers up in Duluth on a busy weekend full of good races. I personally have always considered myself a stronger skater than classic skier, and having done this race on skate skis last year (they switched the format to classic this year), and knowing how hilly the course is, I was a bit worried. Fortunately conditions were fantastic. The tracks were deep and firm, and conditions were easy to wax for: 10 degrees = great kick with VR40. I had decided to ski on my 8 year old classic skis, and they were rockets. Fast Wax green was flying again, and I was able to stick on the lead pack for 17k because I was able to make up distance on every downhill. By the 17k mark though I was pretty fried. I had lasted longer with the leaders than I had expected, but lost contact with them after going through a feed station (and not getting a feed), and I couldn't mentally or physically make up the gap. My goal from then on was to protect the distance we had put on the rest of the field and not get caught. Once I was on my own I also focused on just skiing as smooth and relaxed as I could (on legs and arms that were giving out). About 3k from the finish I did catch a glimpse of a pursuer coming around a corner, and was able to pick up the pace to hold him off. But as I had doubled my number of races done this entire winter in one weekend, my legs were feeling it. I got back to the cities after the race just in time to pick Nichole up from the airport (I had kept myself quite busy during the ~30 hours she was gone!). Overall I felt good about my races, and I considered Sunday to be a good classic result for me considering the amount of striding. I'm one weekend closer to racing myself into shape!

Other Vakava racers were also skiing well this weekend - highlighted by Kathleen winning the women's race at Nordic Spirit!

Vakava Skiers at Nordic Spirit:
4th Nate (age group win)
7th Eugene
11th Mark
12th Dave C (age group win)
1st Kathleen (age group win)
4th Angie (age group win)
5th Cheryl (age group win)

By my calculations that should net our team 595 points - just 5 shy of a perfect score, and only because Eugene and I are in the same age group (I finished 1st and he finished 2nd in the 25-29 category). At the time of this post we are still waiting to see how the team scores are stacking up 4 races into the 7 race series.

Renewed Confidence

2011-01-27T04:16:00.001-06:00

I was feeling really wiped after Boulder Lake. I trained very little the following week. I didn't train Monday because I was aching all over or Thursday because my daughter had some teeth pulled that day and I was taking care of her at home. I skied very little on Tuesday and didn't do the intervals with the team at practice on Wednesday. On Friday I met Dave, Cheryl, and Bridges at Wirth to check out the race course for Mayor's Challenge and I didn't feel too great, pretty tired and the hills felt big. I didn't train again on Saturday because I was too busy with family stuff and felt tired, like I was just dragging myself through the day. The thought of going up all those hills at Wirth three times with the way I felt was not pleasant. I didn't know if it was even wise to try. Maybe I'd just be digging myself a deeper hole. I was getting discouraged that I could still feel so tired after what little I did all week. Maybe I should just take a couple weeks off racing. I woke in the middle of the night on Saturday and lay there thinking that I couldn't really call Dave and tell him not to come pick me up in the morning. So instead I gave myself permission not to start the race if I didn't feel good warming up or to quit in the middle if I felt bad during the race. I talked to Dave about it in the morning and he convinced me that I needed a decent workout if nothing else because I hadn't had one in a while. So I started the race. I didn't go out real hard and seemed to feel fine. My kick was really good. I had decided to err on the side of good kick over glide because I didn't want to struggle up the hills and tire myself even more. My goal for the race was to ski smoothly, in control, concentrate on good technique, and not put myself under on the hills. To my pleasant surprise, I actually felt ok, not bad at all in fact. Sure, it would've been nice to hang with Kathleen, but I accomplished my goals and felt like I had a decent race. At the finish line an older man that I'd skied much of the race with told me how nice it was to ski with me and how relaxed and efficient I was, so that was a really nice confirmation and confidence booster. I guess I can do this after all. I'm even looking forward to Nordic Spirit next weekend.

One thing I need to remind myself of is that I need periods of rest from my daily life just like I need days of rest from training. I tend to push myself all the time, there's always so much that needs to be done. Sunday after the race, my husband insisted that I take a nap since I'd been complaining of being so tired. I slept for two hours and felt much better. I got a bunch of things done that afternoon and evening, and didn't feel like crap doing it like I did the day before. I probably got as much done, and felt better, than if I hadn't taken that nap. The hard part is finding that time for rest. Some things just can't wait, particularly things with the kids. Homework needs to be done, meals need to be made, and bedtime routines followed. As they get older they are starting to help with the chores, like folding and putting away their own laundry and picking up after themselves (albeit with constant reminders :-). My daughter, at 10 yr. old, is starting to take an interest in cooking. So hopefully responsibilities will shift and that elusive rest time will be easier to find. In the meantime I'm hanging in there, and I think I'll make it.

Seeley Hills Classic

2011-01-20T19:41:00.003-06:00

I was looking for this event since last year when I first tried classic skiing. Last year I was sick and did not do it. Maybe it was good that I did not, because at that time I was training on my own and was trying to figure out the technique also on my own. I remember I could not even do most of the hills in Wirth without slipping. With that the long race with so many hills could have turned into a nightmare. After a year with Vakava I am better in classic skiing, but I was still worryed as Seeley was going to be my first classical race with so many hills.
After the start I soon found myself in the end of the lead pack consisting of about a dozen skiers. Because of the snowfall the night before the tracks were soft, filled with new snow and slow. Although there were 4 tracks set everybody lined up in just one as it was much faster to go in the track packed by other skiers. I was able to stay with the lead pack until the steep hill at about 10K. At the top f the hill I found myself way behind and filled with lactate. After that I cooled down my ambitions and decided to ski at controlled pace and have fun. I already did the Birkie twice so it was my third time on the trail, however this time I enjoyed it much more without the crowds.
From about 15K I was skiing with 3 other skiers. They were much more efficient striders on uphills. I was not slipping, but they somehow managed to glide twice longer than me on each stride! So they were going away on uphills, however I was faster double poler and then was catching up with them on the flats. I guess if figure out the striding technique I would be much faster in classic races. We were going this way until OO where the course flattens and I went in the lead of our small group. There are still a number of hills there and one needs to stride so I could not get away from these guys, however I was staying ahead until about 36K. There was some long hill there and the 3 skiers passed me. At that point I was too tired to catch them up. Probably I started the race too hard. It seemed to me that I was still going fast, but I lost more than 2 minutes to the guys and when I looked up my heart rate after the race it appeared that I was going below 130 bpm for the last K!
Before the race I looked up last year’s results and thought it would be great to finish in top 20. I ended up being 12, and although there were not as many elite skiers this year, I am still very happy with this result.
22K: 1st Dave B
24 Kevin
42K: 12th Eugene
16 Andrew
23 Ryan
26 Mark

2.2 seconds

2011-01-19T15:24:00.005-06:00

Boulder Lake 2011:

The day was cold, and the snow was slow. I was just happy that it had warmed up to zero degrees by the 11am start, and with the sun it felt much warmer than that. The trails were also in great shape this year. I had switched to larger baskets on my poles in anticipation of soft trails (last year I punched through a lot), but the trails were firm and my skis felt good (I had Fast Wax Green with a layer of Rex TK-72 over the top. Thanks Devin!).

Before the race started I heard Nikolai Anikin say that Tyler Kjorstad (who had beaten both Nikolai and I last year) was going to take the pace out fast from the start. When the gun went off, he did. At the end of the lake I found myself in the 2nd position, about 10m behind Tyler, and leading a big pack of skiers. Behind me was Nikolai, and he was telling me to keep Tyler in sight. Boulder Lake is a flat course, with no significant uphills to put a significant move on the competition, but also no downhills to recover. I made the mistake of pulling my competition around the course only to have them all fly by me in the last 3k the first time I did this race 4 years ago, and since then I have learned how this course races - it is one of attrition. With this in mind I did not want to be pulling the field, but I also wanted to make sure that Tyler was not able to pull away from the start and put significant distance on the field. I decided to keep him in sight, but to ski as easily as I could while doing so. This also left him out off the front working by himself for the first 2 or 3 kilometers of the race. Eventually the gap did close (he probably did not like the idea of skiing 31k completely solo) and the pace slowed way down. I kept myself in 3rd or 4th position, completely satisfied to be skiing along at a pace that was certainly slower than most of the 3 hour rollerskis that Vakava does in Afton. Tyler was still the skier at the front most of the time, and every now and then would increase the pace a little, but we still had a pack of more than a dozen skiers going into the first water stop of the second lap (probably 13k into the race). Tyler was leading, Casey was second, a random skier was third, and I was sitting in fourth. At the end of the water stop, Tyler took off with Casey close behind. I quickly surged around the 3rd skier and bridged the gap to them. Looking back we had put a bit of a gap on the field. I mentioned this, and Tyler and Casey motioned for me to take a turn at the front. I went to the front and put in a big surge. I pushed for probably 2k before I turned around to see who had stuck with us. To my suprise, Tyler was gone (and ended up dropping out), and only Nikolai and Casey were still there. We started rotating leads and skied along with the pace up for the rest of the second and into the third lap. At some point early in the third lap I took my turn at the front of the pack and Casey dropped back. Nikolai and I continued on, as the constant nature of the race was starting to give me a blurry tunnel vision. We continued to take turns at the front, and when I was in the lead I would periodically put in a little harder surge to test Nikolai. He had skied the SISU marathon the day before, and I was hoping his legs would be giving out, but no such luck. With about 2k to go the pace was pretty high and I was in the lead when I poled right on the top of my ski. I promptly face planted in the middle of the trail and Nikolai narrowly avoided skiing right over the top of me. As I looked up through one goggle lens filled with snow Nikolai was ahead, but in a true showing of sportsmanship had slowed down to wait for me. I scrambled up and we resumed the race with Nikolai in the lead. After a minute or two he put in a big surge, but I was able to stay on him, and I got onto the lake in what I thought was the perfect position for the final sprint - right on Nikolai's heels. I had outsprinted him from this position successfully 2 years ago, but this year our mad dash to the line did nothing to change our positions, and I finished right on Nikolai's heels. I was very happy with my race. I felt great throughout, which is 2 for 2 feeling good at races dispite my more difficult work/life schedule.

Oh, and 2.2 seconds is not how much Nikolai beat me by this year. It is the combined finish time separation between myself and Nikolai over the last 3 years at Boulder Lake. That is 2.2 seconds over a total of 93k of racing. This year he got me by 9/10 of a second.

Vakava Results at Boulder Lake:
2nd Nate (age group win)
7th Paul
18th Dave C (age group win)
3rd Carolyn
4th Angie (age group win)
5th Cheryl (age group win)
7th Katie
13th Nichole

Hit by Boulder

2011-01-17T23:00:00.001-06:00

Boulder Lake was a really hard race this year. The conditions were my worst kind, cold and very slow. I’m a technical skier, not a power skier, and tend to do better on technical courses with lots of transitions and fast conditions where I can really work the course and take advantage of the speed. There was none of that at Boulder. It’s a fairly flat, easy course and the conditions favored strength and power, not finesse. I also have not really felt ready for racing. Training has not been what it should to get into racing shape. I knew this going in and intended to just ease into it, but warming up it was so slow I knew I was going to have a challenge and I was right. I don’t know how I did it, but a few K into the race I managed to stick my ski pole between my legs and suddenly found myself spread-eagle and on my face. This confirmed my suspicions that this was going to be one of those days. A good sized group went by me, including Cheryl DuBois. At least I didn’t trip anyone else up. I scrambled up and caught the group that passed me fairly quickly and got in line. I figured I’d best just chill out with them and see how I felt. I started to move up the group a bit with the guy in front of me. He passed Cheryl at the front and I followed him. He pulled the two of us up to two other guys and the four of us skied together for a bit until one of them started dropping back. I was behind him in the back and when I saw the gap forming I asked him if he was letting them go and he said yes and let my by to go after them. I caught them up and the three of us skied together for quite a while. I tried pulling my share and seemed to be able to contribute a bit despite not really feeling up for it. We slowly worked our way up to another group of three that included Carolyn Bramante. It was a pleasant surprise to see another woman. The six of us then skied together for quite a while, trading pulling at the front. It was a really nice group. Halfway through the last lap the lead guy started to pick it up and got a small gap. I was second in line with Carolyn behind me. I tried my best to close the gap but after awhile it was clear that it wasn’t going to happen. I called back to Carolyn that I couldn’t get him. She said she was tired but would try and took off. I was hoping I’d be able to hang on but couldn’t and lost them. In the process we’d dropped the two guys in my first group and it was just me and John Hopkins then. What little uphill there is on that course is at the end of the loop and I was just too tired to ski them well and John pulled away right at the end and I crossed the finish line alone.

Part of what made the race so hard, in addition to my lack of energy, was the cold. When I fell I got a bunch of snow inside the left side of my glasses and then developed a huge icicle right in the middle of the lashes on my right eye so I could hardly see a thing most of the race. There’s no downhill on that course to rest on and mess with my eyes to clear my vision and I couldn’t afford to slow down and lose my group so I just had to put up with it. By the end of the race the icicle had gotten so big that it clinked the lens of my glasses when I blinked. My whole face felt like it was covered in ice and I’m sure it was from snot, frozen energy drink, frost, and snow left from my fall. I could tell that I was starting to lose it on the last lap when I started to feel chilled, a sure sign my body was done. This was confirmed on my warm-down when I just couldn’t keep warm and decided to just go in and get some chili. I didn’t feel quite as dead as I did after my first big race back from retirement when I skied my guts out at Seeley Hills 42km, but close. I feel just wrecked today and most of my joints hurt. It took a full two weeks after that race at Seeley until I felt normal again. I hope it doesn’t take that long to recover this time, but I’m going to have to monitor myself closely. I’m thinking no intervals this week and may even have to evaluate how I feel before racing this weekend. I don’t want to have a repeat of the over-trained state I got into two years ago. My plan is to just ski easy and do some good stretching and maybe even a massage and see how I feel at the end of the week.

Pre-Loppet

2011-01-10T18:14:00.002-06:00

This Saturday l did the Pre-Loppet, the race which uses the first half of the City of Lakes Loppet course. I started really well and found myself in the front for first half a K or so. Then I let two skiers ahead. My goal for this race was to control my technique and try to be more efficient. I tried to follow Ahvo’s advice from TC champs “not to push the glide”. When I thought about this, I realized that previously I was trying to glide as much as I could and that made me be completely above the ski during the glide, with the hips behind and not forward. It is very difficult to do anything from this position but just pushing upwards. So in my previous races I often found myself kind of “stuck” – I was working had but was not really going fast and could not keep up with other skiers. So this time I tried to change something. Not sure what I actually did, but it definitely made me faster than last Sunday. The whole race I was going 2-4 in the pack. The hills were surprisingly easy for me, it felt harder on gentle uphills and flats when using v2 or v2 alternate. That’s strange because on rollerskis I had it the other way round.
The pace went up in the end of the golf course when Derek took the lead. When we reached the lake Derek went back to 3rd position and I was going 4th. In the woods just 1K to the finish the first two skiers began to break away. I felt I could go faster, but the trail there is so narrow that there was no way for me to go around Derek. When we came back to the lake I passed Derek and was surprised to find how much I had left. I wished the first two were a bit closer, but was only able to finish 3rd. Anyway, I am definitely having progress and it is almost 2 months of racing left.

Mary Beth's waxing adventure

2011-01-05T23:08:00.005-06:00

Mary Beth writes:

You may think that I'm trying to flip you off in this picture, but I'm actually showing off my latest battle wound. I was helping my niece wax her skis about three weeks ago. I did the final run your finger along the side of the base to check for the extra wax thing, when my middle right finger caught a frayed piece of the edge of the ski. At first, I thought I had just got a small sliver of it in my hand, but with more in depth exploration, I realized it was quite a large piece which extended through the entire width of my finger. I could actually put my fingers on each edge and and move it back and forth between my fingers like a poker. I was a little amused by this, as I showed my niece, but she thought this was quite gross and told me to stop. After spending around 30 min. trying to get it out myself, my hand was quickly becoming more painful and swollen, so I headed to urgent care at 10:30 at night. They confirmed to me that they had never seen anything else like this before. After about 20 min of working on it and threatening that I may have to see a hand surgeon the next day, the doc was successful, or so I thought. She pulled out about an 1 inch of fine ski base.

Boy, did I need a beer or something much stiffer, but unfortunately the next day was a work day. Everything seemed to be healing well, until about a week later I had this nagging feeling that there was a little more base left in my finger. After several unsuccessful attempts to try to find the base myself during the next few weeks and trying to convince my husband and my mom to give it a "college try", I made an appointment with a hand surgeon. He was a little skeptical about it, but since he is a family friend, I think he felt obligated to try to pacify me. He injected my finger with the usual pain numbing med's and some epinephren to cause vasoconstriction and slow the bleeding process. He dug for about 10 min, before he placed a tourniquet on my finger to further stop the bleeding. He suddenly saw it, but had to work for several more minutes before he was able to get it out. He finally got it out! Hurray, no more digging! I will definitely think twice before I do a quick finger sweep along the side of my ski to check for extra wax. I hope you will too!

You get what you pay for…

2011-01-04T22:30:00.001-06:00

Skiers are notoriously cheap. I know this because I am one. I’ve never liked spending a lot of money. But as I’ve gotten older and gained clarity on what is truly important and worthwhile, I’ve become looser with my money on those things. Skiing is one of those things. I love skiing. I love getting outside and moving my body almost everyday. I love hanging with my friends and feeling like part of a community. And as much as many would like to believe otherwise, skiing really does cost money. Trails are expensive to maintain whether we get lots of crazy weather with monster snowstorms and heavy rain, or almost no snow at all and the trails get pounded into concrete day after day. So I buy all the ski passes that I’m supposed to. Yes! I do! And if you want nice trails to ski on so should you! I’ve got one for Three Rivers, Minneapolis Parks, and the State Trails system (required for Battle Creek among other parks). Along with nice trails, I also feel that the ski community is very important to me so I contribute to that as well. I am a member of several ski organizations such as SkinnySki.com, which I use regularly, The Birkie Foundation (my favorite race), and the City of Lakes Nordic Ski Foundation.

So if skiing is important to you too, pony up and pay for those passes and memberships. You’ll be glad you did. I am.

Cold/Hot: TC Champs recap

2011-01-03T17:28:00.011-06:00

My concerns about kick wax vanished as I trudged along in the sandpaper track cut out of the ice hard skate deck at Green Acres. It was obvious that no one would be using the tracks except for some of the steeper climbs. I did a few warm up laps to familiarize myself with the course and then got over to the start line to place my skis. I found a nice spot on the far right side between Bjorn and John Swain. When the gun went off I found myself scrambling to stay up with the lead pack. It felt crowded and awkward on the slippery course. As we rounded the first corner things seemed to calm down, but I had trouble getting into any sort of productive rhythm. I felt like I was struggling and kept getting cut off every time I tried making a move. The drifts of slow, dry snow and blowing icy wind only added to the frustration. I finished in 21st, an improvement over last year's 29th in the classic, but not exactly where I wanted to be going into Sunday's 15km skate. The guys I normally ski with had a solid minute plus on me.

Sunday I awoke in a panic at 8am, as I had slept through my alarm set for 6:30am and still had to scrape and brush my skis. Not to mention throwing on my race suit, wolfing down a bowl of oatmeal and speeding from Apple Valley to Theo Wirth for the 9:15am registration cutoff. After completing the fastest scraping and brushing on record I made it to Wirth before 9am and collected my bib and chip with relief. I cruised around most of the 7.5k course, feeling optimistic about the freshly tilled skate deck, which seemed rather fast. I ended up starting in the 19th position, only 4 seconds behind my teammate Andy Kromroy. Of course my goal was to catch up to him as quickly as possible, which I achieved within the first K. But Kelin Dunfee, who started 5 seconds behind me was also out for blood. At about the same time I caught Andy, Kelin came shooting by. We hardly had time to react, but somehow I jumped on his one-man train and settled into the quick pace. He turned out to be an excellent guy to be cruising the course with. I hardly had time to take note of all the people we were passing as I stayed focus on keeping up with him. My skis were fast and I was able to out glide him on the downhills, which bought me some nice recovery time before the big climbs. But every time I pulled ahead he reeled me back on the climbs. We kept exchanging blows throughout the race. Then it came down to the last hairpin turn at the base of the tubing hill and we began the double climb back into the stadium. I heard Ahvo screaming from the sidelines, he knew we had been skiing together throughout the race and now was the time to make a move. I was matching his pace as we turned the corner onto the second climb. I started getting that end-of-race nervousness, knowing that I would have a much better chance if I gapped him during the climb, rather than having to grunt out a sprint on the flats. I thought about Peter Northug. Hell yeah! There was room to come around him from the right, I went for it. I gave it everything I had and just kept going. He didn't have enough to match it and I crossed the line in front of him. He still had a faster skate time since he started 5 seconds back, but I was able to get him in the overall pursuit. I ended up in 10th overall, which I was really pumped about considering Saturday's milquetoast performance.

TC Championship

2011-01-03T13:12:00.003-06:00

The first day with classic racing went really well for me. I had a fast start this time. The most important was a good starting position. I think that the sides are the best, and people should really struggle to get them, but surprisingly nobody realizes this. In fact it was the only place left when I came 5 min before the start. Most strong people started in the middle to get the shorter path so from my position I went without pushing with anybody. This helped me to get in the top 10 after the start without working too hard. After that I stayed where I was the entire race.
On one downhill I somehow lost the skier in front of me. My skis were fast, but I could not keep them from sliding apart on the ice and that slowed me down I think. After that I got I bit lazy to ski fast on my own. But the pack behind me did not get me anyways. Finished 6th overall.

Looking at the photos I actually found that the same sliding apart of the skis happened in my dp too. And my poles were not parallel to each other. Lots of things to work on even in the simplest of all techniques!
Overall, I was very happy with my double pole. Not that it was fast, but that it did not make me tired. So I am expecting to have a great time in longer races like Mora Vasaloppet later in the season.
On the second day of skating I was not that fast. I think I just have not got used to the on snow skiing yet. In fall I was fast on rollerskis, but now I am way slower than I was expecting. The major problem with my technique seems to be that I am staying too much behind and not falling forward. Without that I cannot fully use my upper body. Also, when I straighten the leg before the push I am doing too much vertical movement instead of just bringing the hip forward. So when I try to stay with fast skiers I end up overloading my legs very quickly. Well, now that I figured this out I can work on it.
Vakava results:
10th Derek
14th Eugene
21th Andrew
26th Ryan
36th Dave (age group win)
3rd Kathleen
5th Mary Beth (age group win)
8th Cheryl
12th Katy

Como Championships

2010-12-27T16:53:00.006-06:00

This past Sunday was the Como Championships 10k. This was my first chance to race this season, and I was using the weekend as a chance to bust some rust out of the legs (I couldn't take the race too seriously since Christmas was the day before, and I was not going to ignore all the food and cookies).

This was also my first chance to wear the new Vakava racing suits. The past couple of years the Vakava team has just worn the Finn Sisu suits, but since the team has gotten pretty established we decided to make our own suits. Derek (who is a graphic designer when he is not skiing fast) took my Finn Sisu suit design and made a few changes and also created the great Vakava Racing logo (that you see at the top of this blog), to come up with our new suit design. I personally think it looks very sharp, and I got a couple of compliments on the new suit at the race.

The conditions at como were awesome! I have been skiing in Red Wing (where I live) most of the time, and it has gotten to the point that we have too much snow for the goomers to handle without a piston bully. Almost every pole push sinks down 8" or more. Getting to como and finding firm, fast conditions was fantastic. Skiing is so much more fun - and a lot easier!

The race started out on a nice wide starting line, but it narrowed quite quickly. I have not put in nearly as many hours this year as in past years (working for a living really cuts into my training time!), so I was a bit cautious at the start. I sure didn't plan on trying to keeping up with the CXC guys who I knew would be flying from the start. My plan was to ski relaxed for the first 5k, and then see how I felt from there. When the gun went off I got out in about 12th or 15th place - probably a bit further back than I wanted to be, but I was able to stay relaxed and ski easy. Right from the start, and as predicted, the 2 CXC guys took off and 4 skiers went with them. The rest of field formed its own big pack. After about 2k I found myself at the front of this big pack and slowly reeled in the 2 skiers who had obviously started to hard and had been spit off the back of the lead pack.

At the 4k point I stepped to the side to let someone else lead. Much to my suprise there were still about a dozen skiers in our pack. Jon Miller and fellow Vakava skier Eugene went around me to pull, and I stepped back in to the 3rd position in the pack. There was a bit of jockying for position, but I still tried to stay focused on skiing smooth and relaxed. As we went through the 5k lap point, the timers said that we were 25 seconds back from the other 2 skiers that had been dropped by the CXC guys. We skied along through the second lap, and at about 7k a new skier went to the front a put in a surge. I was in the 3rd or 4th position in the pack and went around to bridge to gap. I was suprised at how much of an extra gear I had. This was the thing I was most worried about since my training has been less than ideal, and this was my first race, but I had no problem surging up to the skier who had broken away. At this point our big pack began to splinter a bit, although a few skiers were still able to match our increased speed. At the second to last "big" hill on the course at about 8k, the front skier surged again, and flew up the hill. I again matched his speed, but this time we were not followed. At the top he stepped to the side and asked me to pull. I went to the front and pushed. I could see the 2 skiers ahead of us, and we were certainly making up ground on them. The last 2k were a blur, since I was just pushing as hard as I could to make sure no one could sprint around me. I made up a fair amount of ground in the last bit, but we had spotted the front pack far too much ground in the first lap. I came in 5th overall, less than 20 seconds behind the 4th skier.

I felt great about my race. It was great conditions, I had rocket skis (Fast Wax Green and a Finn Sisu fine grind), and I was able to go hard and feel like I was racing.

Vakava Results:
5th Nate - 23:27
12th Eugene - 24:22
30th (1st in age group) Dave C - 26:05

Family Ski Outing

2010-12-08T22:23:00.009-06:00

As the sun was setting this evening and my kids were returning home from school, I was waxing five rather dull looking skis. Yes, I ignored the golden rule of ski care and left the skis unwaxed since last spring! My husband returned home from work as I was finishing the last pair. An hour later all the kids (ages 2-11) were dressed for one digit temperatures and had a snack that would hopefully tide them over for a couple hours. After loading up all the gear, we drove to our local high-school ski course and unloaded. The kids fought over who would wear the three headlamps we had in our possession. Five minutes into the ski my nine year old fell to the ground complaining of cold hands, feet, and skis that were too soft. I was still feeling optimistic, four of the five were still not complaining. The nine year old and my husband headed back to the car. I was now in charge of keeping the other four from getting lost in the complete darkness that was lit only by a fingernail moon. My two year old kept a steady pace, even as his five year old brother tried repeatedly to run him over head on. Keeping the younger two together, I watched as the darkness seemed to swallow my seven and eleven year olds as they skated away along the trail. After nearly an hour had passed the young crew was ready to share the car with their sister. My husband and two boys skied one last loop before calling it a night.

To save time we drove directly to a Burger King for dinner. We raised a few eyebrows with our attire, and shared a good conversation about family with a restaurant patron. Years ago, when I was in my twenties, I never would have imagined that a night like this would be fairly typical. Life is a ton of work, but unexpectedly good.

When horrible things happen to skiers / The power to overcome

2010-11-29T17:36:00.005-06:00

The world can be unfair, and people can do terrible things to each other. Sadly, cross country skiers are not immune from this pain. When a woman can't take her children out cross country skiing in a local park without being robbed at gunpoint and then sexually assulted in front of her kids (article here), it certainly drives this point home.

Cross country skiing is supposed to be safe. The ski trails are supposed to be a refuge away from the ills of society and the rush of the modern world. And when this refuge is invaded and the world spills onto the trails in all its horror I feel violated. It feels like the skiing community as a whole has been assulted.

But what defines us is not the terrible things we must endure, but how we come out on the other side. The woman who was assulted released a statement on a community forum. In it she said:

"At one point the boys (who were robbing her) asked for our skis. I wish they could have taken them and used them and experienced the pure joy of gliding in the fresh snow, getting winded from exertion and breathing in cool, fresh air. Please send them all the love you can muster. I think they really need it."

Wow.

If that does not speak to the power of an individual to forgive, and the power of skiing, I don't know what does. I personally am in awe of her response.

Training or Exercising in Futility?

2010-11-23T23:22:00.001-06:00

Fall has always been my least favorite time of year. It’s dark, cold, bad conditions for just about anything, and we’re supposed to be putting in a lot of hours. Not a good combination. This November has proved no different. I haven’t had my heart in my training lately so that is not helping either. I’ve been more in the mood to ‘nest’ in this weather than get out and train and hadn’t trained in a couple days. Dave came to my rescue today and got me out the door. We decided to try the U of M golf course since we figured it’d still have snow. Well, it had snow, sort of. It was more ice than snow, but we ventured out anyway. There is a fair amount of terrain there that we had to navigate in addition to bare spots and ruts so finding a good area to ski was tricky. Conversation was difficult above the noise of us scraping along but some snippets were… Angie to Dave, “Look, another fool!” as we spotted another skier, who wasn’t out long. Dave to Angie, “Come on!” in the tone you’d use to coax a puppy along. We finally picked our way to the north and east sides of the course and found some fairways that had decent coverage, few ruts, and were gradual enough that we could get up and down them reasonably well. Even so, it was rather comical to see each other hobbling and skittering along. I think my heart rate topped out at 110 since it was so hard to move around. All that said, I actually began to enjoy myself. It was a nice sunny day, I enjoyed the company, and I was even getting the hang of the ice at the end. I was thinking how it was good practice in case we have to race in conditions like we did at Pepsi last year. So it wasn’t so futile after all. (I’m still praying for a few inches of fresh snow rather than more freezing rain tomorrow though.)

Minnesota Trails Magazine

2010-11-21T22:40:00.004-06:00

So I got a copy of MN Trails magazine in the mail, and I guess I can now add cover model to my resume. The magazine did have great coverage of last year's MN Skinnyski Series (including a word-for-word copy of Mary Beth's Iceland blog entry - even including my editor's note!). Their team competition coverage was especially entertaining. It went:

"The team competition proved to be, once again, a duel between Vakava/Sisu and Peter's Cheaters. This rivalry has grown to epic proportions and taken on its own mythology. It is a story of good against evil: on the side of good the wholesome and hard-working Vakava racing team, and on the side of evil the Cheater's, a heartless group of mercenaries - recruited by mastermind Peter Hansen - who wouldn't recognize each other on the street. Good triumphed in the end, but there were some interesting moments along the way. Vakava came out with guns blazing at the Twin Cities Championships and scored a whopping 586 points to 541 for the Cheaters. And it was the Skinnyski team also showing some firepower with 581. Boulder Lake saw the two favorites surge ahead with 590- and 572- point totals, respectively. The Cheaters snuck ahead at the Pepsi Challange. Then it was the Muven Gruven squad who made up some serious distance at the Nordic Spirit race. Muven Gruven was best at the City of Lakes Loppet, too. Were we going to see a new champion? It was not to be, as Vakava and Cheaters brought in the muscle for the Mora Vasaloppet. Vakava showed its might with a dominating 595-point performance - just five points shy of a perfect score. Still. in the Skinnyski Series, it's never over until the ax swings at the Minnesota Finlandia. The Cheaters were game and topped Vakava by over 100 points, but it was not enough. The skiers in blue came out on top."

Vakava/Sisu 3525

Peter's Cheaters 3431

Muven Gruven 3167

Skinnyski.com 2578

Hoigaard's/Breadsmith 1594

Nice recap. Couldn't have said it better myself!

First on snow practice

2010-11-19T19:31:00.002-06:00

The twin cities got a bit of snow last Friday and Saturday, which was very nice. We have had a very mild fall so far, and that has made for some quite enjoyable training conditions (although now that I have a job with an hour commute each way, I am still figuring out how to fit it all in...). Where I live in Red Wing we only got about 3 or 4 inches, but that was still enough to get out to the high school ball fields for some skiing on Saturday and Sunday. It was warm slushy snow, and harries were kicking well on Saturday. Sunday I broke trail on skate skis, which was quite the strength workout. I had to V2 the downhills, and V1 everything else.

This Thursday Vakava had our first practice on snow. We opted to head to the U of MN golfcourse to find some pretty much untouched snow to try our hand at crust skiing. It worked pretty well, although that part of the cities definately got more snow than Red Wing, and the problem was that we would break through pretty often. It was still very enjoyable to be out skiing, and although conditions did not lend themselves to doing intervals, we still got in a good workout chasing each other around the course.

2011 Minnesota Skinnyski Series

2010-10-25T12:47:00.002-05:00

So the 2011 schedule for the Minnesota Skinnyski Series was announced today. The skinnyski series is a 7 race series that awards overall, age group, team (Vakava is the defending champs), and most improved awards.

The 2 main changes to the series this year are:
1.) the Mayor's Challange 15k classic race will replace the Pepsi Challange classic race. This takes one of the least attended races in the series (the classic race at Pepsi) and replaces it with a Super Tour and CCSA event. For the team race this will no doubt make it even more important than normal to have older team members racing that weekend - since the under 25yr olds will have the entire college field to fend off, and the under 30yr olds will have the CXC team and other elites to battle to earn good age group points. I can already hear Peter calling up every 80 year old he can think of to try and convince them to ski on his team.
2.) the Nordic Spirit Race will be classic this year. This means that for the first time in the 7 year series history there will be 2 classic races in the series (along with a 2 day pursuit and a same-day pursuit - meaning 4 chances to put on classic skis). This is putting an increased emphesis on classic technique that makes since, since the prize for winning the series is a trip to Iceland to race in the Fossavatn ski marathon (a classic race). This also only reinforces my desire to buy a new pair of classic skis ASAP.

Anyone else have thoughts on the series?

Fall Camp – The Ski Visits the Birkie Trail

2010-10-12T13:40:00.004-05:00

Dave writes:

We took The Ski up to the Birkie trail recently as part of Vakava’s annual fall training camp – we figured that it deserved a trip to the Holy Land after being liberated from the dark clutches of Peter’s Cheaters. (For those of you who aren’t quite up to date on this, The Ski is the trophy from the team competition of the Minnesota Skinnyski Series – it’s been going back and forth between Vakava and Peter’s collection of mercenaries, and the 2010 competition saw The Ski come back to its rightful owners, namely us.)

Vakava has been doing a fall camp in the Hayward area since 2004, and we’ve done it in the sun, the rain, and even a dusting of snow, with weather ranging from lousy to beautiful. This one would have to be rated spectacular – gorgeous fall foliage, sunny, no wind, and perfect roller ski temperatures. The cold weather can hold off for another month – I’m still enjoying the Indian summer.

We pole-hiked the Birkie trail Friday afternoon, roller skied (classic intervals and video-recording) near OO Saturday morning, roller skied some more (including a bunch of specific strength and sprints) Saturday afternoon, and then did our 50K skate (with fast pickups) Sunday morning. The 50K in particular was under perfect conditions – roller skiing from Cable to Drummond and back on beautiful, winding, rolling roads through the north woods – kind of like the Birkie trail but on roller skis.

Then after the hard work, it was time to relax, watch ski videos, eat great food (thanks again, Michele), drink great beer (including home-brew from Angie and Kevin), and, of course, enjoy great company with the Vakava Team. All together, a big, excellent weekend, with lots of good training and lots of fun.

Now, we have our next set of roller ski time trials this coming week; we’re gradually bumping up the intensity and specificity of our training; and it won’t be long before the snow flies and we’re out skiing on the real stuff.

When Vakava Women Take Time Off from Ski Training

2010-10-11T20:40:00.012-05:00

Jeff and I love to go with friends to the BWCA. This year Angie, Jim and family went with us in mid September. The group included 3 kids and they had a great time exploring the surrounding area and creating their own world using rocks, moss and sticks. Who's going with us next year...... Brent and Michelle? Anyone else?

Some like it hot!

2010-08-10T22:14:00.001-05:00

It’s been hot. Really hot. Historically I’ve really suffered in the heat, but it hasn’t been much of a problem for me lately and I think I know the secret to beating the heat. Spend lots of time in it! We don’t use air conditioning at home or in the car and I wear a long sleeved shirt to work since there is air conditioning there. I also spend plenty of time outside in addition to the time I spend training. Last weekend I spent a couple hours both days planting about 90 plants into a rain garden in the blistering heat. I sure sweated a lot, but wasn’t all that bothered otherwise. This morning I did some running intervals and felt great and ran plenty fast. I haven’t had any trouble sleeping on these sticky nights either. I think it’s not that different than, say, altitude training. The longer you spend at altitude, the more your body adjusts and the easier it is to handle. Going without air conditioning can take some getting used to, but not that long and it sure makes training in summer a lot easier. Not to mention the cost savings!

The only negative side effect that I think is attributable to the heat is a little hyponatremia (low sodium) which gives me muscle cramps and minor heart arrhythmia. I had a more pronounced case of it last winter and realized that it must be because I don’t eat processed foods and so don’t get that much salt in my diet. I started adding a little salt and it cleared up. I’ve been noticing it a bit again so I must be sweating more than usual and losing more sodium. I’m now experimenting with some electrolyte tablets that you add to your water bottle to see if that helps. If it does, I think I’ll mix up my own with a little salt and salt-alternative for some added potassium as well (which is usually made from potassium bicarbonate and potassium bitartrate). I may also use some sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). We’ll see how it goes. If the heat subsides it may be a non-issue very soon anyway. Until then, bring it on!

Kathleen & Cheryl's Excellent Water Adventure

2010-07-16T22:16:00.002-05:00

A couple of workouts ago Kathleen asked me if I planned to do the time trials when I said, 'sure' she suggested that since we'd get a good ski workout early in the week why not play hooky from the Thursday Vakava workout and do a Hoigaards canoe race instead (races are every Thursday all summer). Well, it's been quite a few years since I raced canoes seriously but Kathleen is just getting into it this year so I thought 'oh what the heck'. I haven't been in a boat this year so I made sure I got two canoe training sessions in the weekend before. One of the sessions was with Kathleen on a very windy day on Pleasant Lake. We stayed upright in our racing boat (just barely) so I figured we were ready for anything. Fast forward to July 8. A nice hot day but no wind at Lake Calhoun. I got registered, got the boat ready, got me ready but no Kathleen. I wasn't too worried until about 10 minutes to race time - still no Kathleen. I knew she wouldn't blow me off so I figured something must have happened so I started frantically looking for a back up partner, trying to talk solo racers into ditching their boats and going tandem. I even asked the race starter if he'd partner with me (canoe racers never wait for the starters horn anyway). All the boats were in the water when Kathleen came running up. She'd been caught in traffic but she made it so we jumped in the boat and got a great start. She took the stern and for a beginner she did a great job stearing. I guess if you're going to race with a neophyte, pick a rocket scientist - she's a quick study on reading the water, waves and boat angles. Well into the second half of the race all was going well and we had some decent teams within sight coming out of Cedar into Lake of the Isles. Water was calm, no boats next to us and suddenly the boat leaned too far to the right and before we knew it we were swimming! Damn! We tried popping the boat up to get the water out but we couldn't get it flipped AND empty so we had to swim it to the edge of a bridge where we could get a toe hold on the bridge wall. The water was warm and it was a hot night so the water actually felt pretty good. There was a fisherman on the other side of the bridge who enjoyed the show and a few of the old time canoe racers who paddled by as we we struggled to get back into the race took full advantage of our prediciment. I must admit I had a hard time paddling when we got started again because I was laughing. I figured we lost about 6 minutes but hey, we finished the race and still won the women's division. Neither one of us knows why we tipped but after the race Joe Manns said he saw a 4' muskie in the vicinity so my theory is that the 5' muskie knocked us over.

Overall I had a great time paddling with Kathleen. She's amazingly strong in the boat and I think if we did a couple more races we could hang with some of the regular racing women. So if any other Vakers are looking for some awesome cross training, try canoing. Kathleen might even take the stern with you. Just watch out for that 6' muskie lurking on the west end of Lake of the Isles.

enlightenment through closed eyes

2010-07-16T00:04:00.000-05:00

I’ve really worked hard on improving my technique and have made great strides, but there’s always something more to work on and tweaks to make. I think I’m on the verge of a breakthrough. Last week at the V2 video session, Ahvo told me that I need to get my hip just a bit further over and pole longer on the one ski before shifting my weight to the other side. I’ve heard this many times from various sources and know what he’s talking about. I can see it on the video and feel it when I ski, but just haven’t been able to make the change. So earlier this week I tried some balance drills with my eyes closed. I’ve read that having the eyes closed is important for improving balance. I think doing balance drills with eyes open helps strengthen the muscles used for balance, but doing them with the eyes closed helps train the brain and other systems involved somehow. Anyway, I was doing the V2 motion with my eyes closed and found that I couldn’t step back and forth without putting a foot down unless I did it a certain way. After thinking about it I came to the conclusion that that motion was what I had been trying to do but couldn’t quite get. Doing it with eyes closed forced me to do it right. So tonight at practice I tried doing the same thing on roller skis (with eyes open this time!). I was finally able to make it work. It feels deliberate and inefficient since it’s new, but I think once I commit it to muscle memory and practice it a lot it will feel good and be more powerful.

Time Trial #1

2010-07-09T10:09:00.003-05:00

Every summer we do a series of 5k time trails as both an opportunity to gauge our improvement, and also a chance to get in a good, hard effort. The first time trails of the summer were this past Tuesday. They are always in the same location - a 5k area of road on the rolling hills in Afton, MN - and the format is: warm up, 5k skate, recovery, 5k classic, cool down. It is all self timed, individual start, and drafting is not allowed.

I started about 30 seconds after Eugene did, and made it my goal to try and catch him. Eugene is one of the new skiers to Vakava this year, and he is also relatively new to skiing in general. His technique is quite raw (although it has improved quite a bit already this summer), but he has a huge engine, and I think he is going to be much improved by this winter. I was probably a bit to excited to chase him down too quickly, and I started out quite hard. I made up 75% of the distance between us by the half way mark, but by then the 90 degree heat and my fast start was starting to get to me, and I spent most of the last lap just trying to keep the gap from getting bigger. On the last stretch of rolling hills I made a final push to catch him, and I think Eugene was starting to fade a bit as I was closing in. About 30m from the finish I was still 10m behind, but then with a ill-placed pole between the skis Eugene was sprawled out on the ground and I glided past over the finish line, completely drained. Eugene got up quickly, and with bloody knees and left elbow was not far behind.

In between the skate and classic TT's I was doing by best to recover and prepare to go hard again, but I was really feeling the heat. I don't think I have ever felt as light headed or jello-legged at the start of a time trial as I did in the classic portion. I never felt like I was able to give an all out effort or get any snap in my arms and abs, but I could go no faster. I think everyone was just happy to have stayed on their feet during the classic portion. Eugene, after bandaging himself up, gamely put in a great classic TT and he finished in the same time that I did. All in all a good start to the year, and some times to improve upon when we do it again in a month or two.

Skate TT:
Nate 12:34
Eugene 13:10
Paul 13:38
Jason 14:30
Dave 14:39
Kathleen 15:20
Michele 15:39
Brent 15:47
Cheryl 15:57
Bonnie 16:32

Classic TT:
Nate 13:39
Eugene 13:39
Paul 14:56
Brent 15:15
Cheryl 15:29
Dave 15:34
Michele 15:49
Kathleen 15:50
Jason 16:58
Bonnie 17:55

A couple of notes about the results:
1. Both Bonnie and Eugene fell during the skate TT.
2. Jason is brand new to classic skiing and this TT was his first classic "race" ever.
3. We brought along the MN skinnyski series team trophy that we won last winter. We figured that if Peter brought it all across the country to take pictures with it after his team won, the least we could do is to take an occational picture with it too (and send it in to be on the front page of skinnyski.com).

Kathleen and Dave

Afton Trail Run

2010-07-08T16:56:00.004-05:00

One of my favorite things about the 4th of July is that it means that it is time for the Afton Trail Run. Just writing that makes me feel like a sick, twisted individual, but I really do enjoy a good, hard-core trail run.

The Afton Trail Run is basically the biggest, baddest trail run around the Twin Cities each summer, and this year it served as the USATF MN state championship for the 25k and 50k distances. The race is held (appropriately) at Afton State Park, and covers as much elevation change as they can cram into the trails out there. Most of the course is on 3 or 4 foot wide grass or dirt trails through the woods and fields of the park, but part of the course is also on the gravel road, and the last 2 miles is on some very winding single track.

Last year was my first year doing this race, and I went out hard and paid dearly for it. Up the first hill I had wondered to myself, "I know it's steep, but why are people walking already?" only to have an epic bonk and spend the last 4 miles stumbling in (In the last 5 miles I lost 10+ minutes to coach Mark, and ultimately ended with a 8:30 per mile pace). This year I was determined to pace myself and be able to run much more consistently. I also filled the water bottles in my fuel belt with Gatorade Endurance Formula (last year I had water in the bottles and took gels during the race, this year had the Gatorade and skipped the gels).

For the start of the race I placed myself in the middle part of the field and took it easy at the gun. This year I was one of the people walking up part of the first big hill, and I settled into a comfortable pace. Up ahead I could see coach Mark in his Finn Sisu jersey, and over the next few miles I worked to slowly reel him in. I was able to maintain my even tempo, and spent the entire race gaining, catching, and dropping people on the course. Unlike last year, after the first hill I was not caught and passed by anyone during the entire race.

I was still pretty shot by the end, but I only came away from the race with a couple of small blisters (my Inov8 Roclites worked great - much better than my Vasque Aether Techs worked last year) and some chafing that was very painful during my post-race shower (I don't know how people do the 50k!). My time was over 6 minutes faster than last year, and I beat coach Mark by almost 5 minutes (he was pacing himself for Voyager marathon this weekend).

Finn Sisu had some good results:
3rd- James
4th- Evgeny (aka: Eugene - one of our new Vakava skiers)
17th- me
22nd- Mark (the 4th masters runner)

Eugene and James

Hanging in there…

2010-06-14T23:56:00.001-05:00

I have not had so hectic a schedule in a very long time. It’s been non-stop since the ski season ended with no real end in sight. Most springs are busy since things tend to fall to the wayside during the winter race season and I then try to get caught up, but never as bad as this. At least I’d been feeling the best this spring than I have since I started training again three years ago (Ahvo had said that it would take me four years to get back into shape and he sure was right!), but it's finally catching up to me and I’m just frazzled. I just tried to fill in my training log and it was really tough. I hadn’t written in it in over three weeks! I can hardly remember what I did yesterday let alone three weeks ago. My heart rate monitor records my workouts so that helps a bit but that only goes so far. So if I happened to do a workout with you any time from mid-May until now, please let me know what we did! My monitor only holds the last 14 workouts and then starts overwriting the oldest one so I had even stopped wearing it the last few days because I was afraid I’d overwrite my oldest workouts, which of course would be the hardest to remember. I still don’t have a training plan worked out so I just kind of wing it every day. Something has got to give soon or my brain is going to come to a screeching halt. So that is my excuse for lack of posts. And here it is almost mid-night again and I’m still not in bed. (Maybe at least Nate will stop hinting that I need to post something.)

After several hints from various people that it’s time for another Brew-Ski (my homebrewed beer party), I finally scheduled it for the first weekend I had free only to realize later that it was the same day as Grandma’s Marathon. So I moved it to the following weekend only to realize that is the weekend of the City of Lakes Tri-Loppet. Criminy. Who can keep track of all this stuff? Ah well, I guess that’s just the way it is when you hang out with a bunch of athletes. There’s always some race going on. I guess I’ll just have to have another party soon, if I can find a spare weekend to have it and time to write an invite that is!

"If a tree falls in the forest", and other jobless ramblings

2010-06-10T09:06:00.005-05:00

I have discovered the secret to getting in more training: unemployment...

Which coincidentally is my current employment status (well, besides the little bit I do at the ski shop, but I don't think that counts as the proper use of a doctorate degree - or at least my wife tells me it doesn't). After four grueling years I made it through dental school, only to graduate during a recession. The good news is that you can't export teeth, so I do have some options on the horizon and I am sure I will enter the working world soon enough (is that really good news...?). With that in mind I am trying to take advantage of this break between school and the real world and get in a bit of decent training.

One of the best things about living here in Red Wing is that I have the state forest just over a mile from my front door. This has lead to a much increased amount of trail running, which I am very pleased about. My most recent long trail run was in the evening just after the skies had cleared up after a soaking rain. It lead to a lot of mud running, but it was a lot of fun. At one point on the run I was going through a valley where the trees were farther off the trails. I had just finished watching a doe run off the trail in front of me when I heard a crack and looked off to my right to see the top 15 feet of a 40 foot tall big birch tree crash to the ground with a huge thud. I have been in the woods and seen a tree fall before, but this was certainly the closest I have gotten to being hit. This was the closest tree to the trail, only 20 feet away, and I had just run past it. The tree itself was probably 10 inches across and dead, and the very top of the tree with most of the branches had been long missing. This left only the trunk, and the rain from earlier in the day soaked into and water-logged the top. I'm just glad I was far enough away so that I didn't have to regret forgetting to wear my road ID.

Yes they do make a sound.

(Finally) The End of the Racing Season

2010-06-06T11:09:00.009-05:00

It's not often that you get to race - on real snow - at the end of May. It's also not that often that you get to race - at least at my level - against the likes of Ivan Babikov.

Last weekend I got both. The race is Ski to Sea, up in the northwest corner of Washington State. It's held every Memorial Day weekend, and my part was the first leg of a 7-leg, 8-person relay (XC, alpine skiing, running, road biking, canoeing, mountain biking, flat-water kayaking) that starts up at the Mount Baker ski area in the North Cascades and ends down in the saltwater of Puget Sound - ski to sea. The race claims roots going back to 1911 (it was in a much different form back then), but it's been a multi-sport relay now for almost 40 years.

Start of Ski to Sea at Mt. Baker Ski Area in Washington

I hooked up with a team 15 years ago and have been flying out every year to help them try to win, originally, the masters division (40 and over) and, now, the veterans division (50 and over).

It's a pretty big race - 464 teams and 3712 competitions - and it attracts some pretty fast people. Yes, Babikov was there and, yes, he did win. But not by as much as you might expect. Babikov wasn't the only Olympian; in fact, out of the first 13 finishers (I was lucky enough to end up 12th), 6 of them competed in the Olympics at Vancouver, Torino, or Salt Lake City. CXC's Brian Gregg (check out his blog) had a terrific race - he was only 2nd this year, unlike in 2009 and 2008, but he managed to stay with one of the world's best hill climbers up one of the biggest and nastiest hills I ever compete on, pushing Babikov almost to the end of the race and finishing only 20-some seconds behind.

Not a bad setting for a ski race. (It's called the Mt. Baker Ski Area, but it's really at the base of the much more photogenic Mt. Shuksan.)

And, yes, there was plenty of snow - 140 inches still. (This place had a world-record 1140 inches in a single season a few years back.) It was pretty wet and sloppy, as you'd expect at this time of year, but that's what big structure and pure fluoros are for.

Of course, like in any race, the most fun part comes afterwards. We spent a couple of hours skiing around together on the last slushy snow of the season, the I wound my way down the mountain to Bellingham to watch our kayaker Shaun Koos (Torin's dad) finish up my team's last leg, then trade stories of our exploits, and start the mandatory partying.

Brian Gregg, Martin Rosvall, me, Torin Koos, Kent Murdoch. (Martin was leading at 63 K's in this year's Swedish Vasaloppet; Kent is a friend of mine from Seattle who is a past Ski to Sea winner and who is still really fast.)

So, finally, the end of the ski-racing season, almost 2 1/2 months after the Twin Cites snow melted. (I'm sure I was one of the first guys out on roller skis, making sure I stayed in at least reasonable racing shape for this thing.) The rest of Vakava is a month into the new training year, gradually cranking things up. For me, it's time to kick back a bit. (And it's always kind of fun to run the rest of the team through their paces and make them sweat at our workouts during a period when I get to take it easy for a while.)

Dave Christopherson

Editors notes:

Here are the race results. Dave was the top "veteran" skier.

Mary Beth's Fossavatn ski marathon race recap

2010-05-26T09:22:00.010-05:00

After a challenging season on many levels, culminating in my father’s death from cancer just a few weeks before leaving for Iceland, I was more than ready for a nice, stress free trip with my 11 year old son, Will. Initially it appeared that the worst of the Eyafjallajokull volcano had passed, after it closed down a majority of the European airports for an unprecedented 6 days. But the week before departure, like many good volcanos do, it began spewing again. This time, instead of closing European airspace, the Reykjavik airport closed for several days. As we watched very closely, it became clear that there was no way of knowing if we would be able to land in Reykjavik, as opposed to landing in the remote Akureyri with a stopover in Scotland, until we were actually in transit. Not exactly what I was hoping for. It all depended on which direction the wind was blowing. I contacted Icelandic Air the morning of our departure and they were still uncertain if we would be able to land in Reykjavik. It wasn't until we arrived in Boston that we learned that we would be the first flight in many days to be allowed to land. We had a similar situation when we departed. The winds gods were definitely with us on our traveling days. We weren't so lucky, however, on race day.

The day before the race was amazing; minimal wind, sunny and temps just above freezing. A perfect Klister day, or so I was told. Since I've only used Klister three times now, I didn't really feel qualified to make this call myself. Race day was supposed to be more of the same. I remember asking the locals about the weather prediction several times. It was supposed to be even nicer on race day. When we woke up race day, it was warm and calm. By the time Scott Ellertson, my other travel mate, and I made it up to the start of the race, the wind had picked up dramatically and it was cold. As we tried the recommended multigrade Klister out, it didn't take but a few strides to tell it wasn't going to work. Most of the skiers around us were struggling with what to do as well. Scott ended up with a couple layers of VR 50-65 over his Klister and I ended up with one. Nobody around us really seemed to be having great success and we definitely didn't know what would work. We found out after the race that scraping the Klister off and using a product called Ski Go was the application of choice.

At the start of the race I was still optimistic. The first several K are flat and slightly downhill. My skis were sticking a bit, but not more than the others around me. It wasn't until we began to climb that I realized it was going to be a long and brutal race. I can honestly say it was the most difficult race I've ever done. We had very diverse conditions including some falling new, dry snow along with very strong wind. There were gusts between 30-40 mph. I remember forcing my myself to push back into the wind at times or be blown over. I skied about 85% of the race out of the tracks because they were either nonexistent, had snow in them or were just very slow. I kept telling myself to keep my feet moving. I have also never experienced such significant icing on my skis before either. The Swiss men that I was skiing with at the time showed me how to try to reduce this icing, but I struggled to do so. On the last long uphill, I was passed by Stella, the top Icelandic skier and a friend. I have gotten to know her from the two years she has come over to ski in the COLL and a previous Fossavatn race. I was so relieved to make it up the hill. I quickly passed Stella at the top on a flatter section. The last 6-7 K are all downhill. I was exhausted from my duck walk up the hills, but I embraced the potential for an extended, quad killing tuck position. Anything other than the nasty slipping I had endured the previous 43K. I tried to visualize my teammate Angie, who has amazing and graceful downhill technique, during my quest to the finish. The downhill section included dodging many slower skiers from the shorter races and maneuvering through the sloppy, slushy snow that occurs at lower elevations. I was really happy to make it down without falling! After finishing, I quickly found my son who had participated in the 7K race. He had a great time, but he tried to convince me that I had made the wrong choice to only bring waxless skis for him. I just laughed and looked for my post race bag with chocolate in it. Later in the afternoon, was the famous cake buffet which consists of many tables of the most amazing deserts that you have ever seen. Then there is also a talent show, which was hilarious. This is where skiers, and their family and friends, have an opportunity to perform for the group. Then the soup buffet in the evening, followed by more music, dancing and drinking late into the evening. Icelanders sure know how to let loose and have a good time.

Although getting to and from Iceland and the race were difficult. I didn't travel to Iceland just to race. I really went to explore the beauty of the country and its people with my son. Our trip was truly amazing. My son and I were hosted by Margaret Gunnarsdottir, Jon Sigurpalsson and their daughter, Rannevig Jonsson. Why so many last names? An Icelander's last name consists of the father's first name followed by daughter (dottir) or son, depending on gender. This is the second time I've stayed with the family. They have a way of welcoming you into their home and by the time you leave, you think you're part of the family. They are warm, generous, fun and creative, Margaret is a pianist and Jon is an artist. They are the perfect host family.

Iceland's rugged landscape is extraordinary. It has many unique features, from beautiful mountains, stunning waterfalls, fjords, glaciers, and usual rock formations to barren volcanic wasteland where nothing can grow. The landscape has an elemental rawness that's like nothing I've ever experienced. Visitors shouldn't forget the fabulous and relaxing hot pools or "hot pots" as they are called by the locals from their endless supply of natural geothermal heat. Icelanders congregate at these mainly outdoor pools at the end of the day. It is not a vacation spot for the faint of heart. You need to be prepared to endure the elements, but that's all part of the adventure. Full rain gear is essential unless you want to explore while sitting in your car or drenched. Although Iceland has experienced some financial woes recently, the spirit of the people is alive and thriving. They are survivors and have dealt with much adversity before. They are truly a hardy breed. I was also very impressed with the kindness and generosity shown to me and my son by several Icelandic strangers. Although I thought that this maybe would be my last trip to Iceland. I may try to return in several years, perhaps with my daughter Libby. It's just one of those places that makes you long to return.

As they say in Iceland,

Bless, bless
Mary Beth Tuttle

Editor's notes:
Yes, Mary Beth did win the Fossavatn marathon again this year:
2010 50k Results
2010 7k Results (Will did great too!)

Where did that come from?

2010-05-23T16:09:00.008-05:00

I have done a fair amount of running over the years, but I have never been that much of a runner. A good day for me is one where I keep up with my wife Nichole. She has been injured lately, and so I have not been running nearly as often as I normally would during the spring (since I normally run with her). I had also not run any races yet this spring, mostly because I would normally hop into a few of the races that she would run, and she has had to cancel a few planned races. Saturday was the Fargo half marathon, and I would not otherwise drive 4+ hours to North Dakota if Nichole wasn't planning on running the marathon there (she finished 2nd and won $1200 last year). Unfortunately she is still unable to run, but I had signed up for the race before she got injured, and so I was already committed.

We got to Fargo on Friday around noon. My mom and both of Nichole's parents were running the 5k in the evening. It was the first road race that Nichole's parents had ever done, so it was a pretty big deal for them (they have never been runners). Nichole and I did 7 minutes worth of jogging around the Fargo dome while waiting for the 5k race to start, and then we watched the 5k - (Interestingly it was an out and back course, and there were over 5,000 people running/walking so it took 12 minutes for the last people to cross the START line, and the winner came in in 16 minutes, so there was very little break in the action).

On race day morning I (along with my dad, Nichole's brother, and 2 of his friends) got to the Fargo dome to get ready to run the half marathon. As we are waiting it starts to rain. I love running in the rain, but there is nothing more miserable than standing around in the rain waiting to run. As we lined up at the start and the singer starts the national anthem it starts to POUR. By the time we start the race there are pretty big puddles in the street. The good news is that it was not 90 degrees and sunny like the forecast said it could be.

I really did not know what to expect for this race. As I mentioned, I really had not done that much running this spring. The fact is, I have not done as much of anything this spring as I would have liked to, and although I haven't felt particularly out of shape, I certainly have not felt in great shape. Plus most of my running has been on the trails in Red Wing, which has meant lots of hills and lots of sand and mud, but not much sustained pounding on the roads. It is also hard to gauge how fast you are going on the trails. Last year at Fargo I ran 1:28:13 (which was a personal best), but I had already raced 3 other times that spring including another half marathon. By the end of last summer I got my personal best in the half marathon down to 1:27:08. My goal for this year was just to get under 1:30.

The gun went off and I felt good. I was trying not to get caught up in all the people taking off too fast (like I often do in a running race), but I still came through the mile in 6:30. Considering a 1:30 is 6:52 pace I was a little worried. I felt good, but I certainly was second guessing my preparation. I backed it off a bit and came through in 6:40 for mile 2 and 6:49 for mile 3, still feeling very good. At that point I was wondering if I was going to really regret my fast start by mile 10, but at the same time I couldn't help recalling an interview that I had read earlier in the week. The part that stuck with me was about how often the only limitations that we have are the ones that we place on our selves. I was feeling good, and with this positive mindset I picked up the pace a little bit (6:40 for mile 4, 6:39 for mile 5). After two more miles at 6:40 pace I picked it up even further and ran a 6:30 mile for mile 8. My legs were starting to feel the pounding at this point, but I figured at this stage in the race I was committed to trying to keep pushing the pace and would either have a great race or would blow up spectacularly. Miles 9 and 10 were in 6:35 and 6:36. Mile 11 is where I made a surge last year, and so even though I was way ahead of last year's pace I tried to get my legs to do the same thing again this year. Mile 11 was 6:29. Now I was really hurting, but I knew I was on pace for a great time, and I wouldn't let myself lose it in the last 2 miles. Mile 12 was 6:33. In the last mile I was focusing on keeping my tempo up. My legs were hurting enough that I couldn't really tell if I was going faster or slower, but I was pushing hard. Mile 13 was in 6:24, and the last .1 miles was at 6:15 pace to put me across the finish line in 1:26:29. It was a 39 second personal best.

I really don't know where this race came from. I have raced at least a dozen half marathons in the past, many of them feeling much better prepared and with much more running and training in general under my belt. The only 3 explanations that I have come up with for my unexpected performance are: 1.) it rained for the first half of the race, which really helped keep me from overheating; 2.) The trail running that I have been doing at our new house in Red Wing has left my legs strong (even if I have not put in as many miles); and 3.) I found myself with a completely irrational positive mindset for almost the entire race. Based on my training I had no logical reason to think that I should have been able to keep up the pace that I was running, but I kept telling myself that slowing down would only limit my potential, and so I kept pushing. This could have completely blown up in my face but the result was a very good race (at least for me).

Finally another post

2010-05-18T14:46:00.003-05:00

It has been a while since I (or anyone else *ahem*) have posted anything here...
It has been a busy spring. Although unfortuantely not that busy with skiing. This spring has been my worst for training in the last 3 years. I just graduated from dental school last week, and all of the chaos leading up to that event was not helpful to my training. Although without question the worst thing for my training has been hip alignment issues to my wife Nichole. She had been having a great spring, and was setting her sights on a big spring marathon (it would have been this weekend at Fargo) where she was hoping to run a 2:50 or 2:51. All her workouts and lead up races were pointing to being able to hit that too, but as most runners know, you are constantly teatering on the edge of greatness or injury, and unfortunatly injury won out. She has not run more than 3 minutes at a time in the last month, and she is my biggest training partner this time of year. Plus as any married folk out there probably understand, I just feel guilty going out for a long workout while she is at home on the stationary bike in the basement.

Fortunately Vakava is now 2 weeks into the new season. Things start pretty low key for us this time of year. We are still sorting out who will be back for another year, and who will be the new skiers joining the group. We are also working out plans to get some new racing suits for this next winter. Derek is a graphic designer by trade, and so we we have a pretty sharp looking suit design waiting in the wings. Now we are just working on getting a few sponsors lined up to help defer the cost of the suits so that everyone on the team can get one at the begining of the season (if anyone out there is interested in sponsoring us, just let me know). More on this to come in the weeks ahead.

First ROLLERSKI of the season.

2010-03-21T11:40:00.002-05:00

I have to admit that I have already been out on the rollerskis this spring. Gross. And its not that I don't like rollerskiing. In fact I think most of the time it is at least as enjoyable as skiing on snow (especially compared to all the time spent skiing at -15 degrees), which is good considering the ski season only lasts 3 months (4 if we're lucky). But I usually don't break out the rollerskis for a couple more weeks. Technically I didn't break out my rollerskis yet, but on Friday morning Nichole and I were up at my parents' house and she had a 13 mile run planned. I wanted to come along, but my legs were really feeling the previous 6 days running (after no running the previous month). My knees can take only so much pounding, and they were telling me that this should not be running day #7. Fortunately my dad has the same size feet, and after a little scrounging I found some old combi boots, a pair of poles, and the Marwes. Soon we were off, and I double-poled and single-sticked along while Nichole ran with the dog. Nice and easy. It was probably not such a bad thing training-wise -the reason I stay off the rollerskis for a month or so after the ski season is more for the mental break than anything physical, and this rollerski was very relaxing. It was a preview of the next 8 months.

Side note: Ski racing season is not finished on the world cup. How would you like to be the back of Brian Gregg's legs?

Last skiing of the season

2010-03-20T14:06:00.009-05:00

Like Nate I've been pretty lazy since the Birkie. In the past couple of years I've had additional races after the Birkie and we've had good snow sometimes into April. This year, unless one was willing to travel, the ski season ended abruptly since the heat wave that began on Birkie Saturday rapidly consumed all the great snow we got this winter.

Nevertheless, I still strapped on the skis for one last weekend on snow. On Friday the 12th Angie and Dave talked me into driving to Elm Creek. It was raining and probably in the high 30s or low 40s and as I put my boots on I was thinking about how pathetically desparate we must be to drive 35 minutes to ski in these conditions. But the track was surprisingly decent. I had wanted to practice warm weather kick waxing so I put some universal klister on and WOW! It felt like roller skiing - great kick with almost no push of the foot while still delivering great glide. Now I know what everyone means when they talk about how nice klister skiing can be. Not sure if I'll ever have a chance to use it in a race but it was pretty nice that day - a great way to finish up classic skiing for the year.

On Sunday I returned with Jeff and Claire and we had a blast playing ski tag and just skiing around. This time it was sunny and highs got up into the 60s. The snow really was still pretty good so I'm glad we got out for one last ski.

And the training for next season begins!

2010-03-16T14:31:00.004-05:00

Between being a bit sick last week, and also wanting to give my body a chance to recover after the ski season, I took 6 days in a row off from training. I think that is the most down time I have had in 3 years, and let me tell you, it was nice. :) It makes me realize why the average American is so fat - because sitting around and doing nothing but eat sure is easy! I did try to do a little bit besides eat. The extra free time gave me a chance to do more on the job search front, and I interviewed at two different dental offices last week. I also found out that I passed my clinical board exams, so between all of that the real world sure seems like it is coming up quick!

I am back training now - and man am I sore! Nichole has been pounding the roads pretty hard now getting ready for the Marathon this spring, and as her loving husband this means I get my share of the roads too. On Saturday (my first day back training) I did a 6 mile run with her pretty easy. This was the first run I had done in about 3 weeks, and really for most of the racing season I usually only ran once or twice a week, and usually not more than 5 miles at a time. So on Sunday I could feel the previous day's run a little bit in my calves. But Nichole was putting in a big day (18 mile run with the last 8 at marathon pace i.e. 6:30 mile pace), and she is feeling a little sorry for herself that she has nobody to run with her, so I suck it up and get out on the roads. I do 5 of her 9 mile warm up, and meet her at the high school where there is a 1.4 mile loop that, while still a bit hilly, is the flattest option we have here in Red Wing. She starts of at her 6:30 mile pace and I run with her for about half the loop, then I cut off and jog across the middle to meet her at the start point again and run with her for half the loop again. In total I did about 25 minutes at 6:30 mile pace with her, and about 15 minutes of jogging in between. Add in the warm up and the one mile cool down and I had an hour and 32 minutes of running on my second day back training. And that is why I am still sore 2 days later. Probably not the smartest training decision in the world, but I earned good brownie points at home, and I hope it will serve as a good kick-off to this year's training.

Another great season

2010-03-09T23:39:00.003-06:00

Well, it has been a great ski season. I know that JOs are still happening out east, and spring series and other races have yet to be run, but for me (and probably most Minnesotans) the ski season is over. It is 40 degrees and raining pretty hard right now, and even the snowmaking loops at elm creek and wirth will have a hard time holding on for long.

I think my last ski will have been the Slush Rush at Elm Creek last Saturday. It was a lot of fun, and there was a family rate for the race so my parents, wife, and brother-in-law Ben all decided to come race too. The only problem was that Ben had skied a grand total of 2 times in his life, probably totaling less than 10k. True story: the race started at the bottom of the sleding hill, and Ben was having such a hard time getting up the hill that half way up the race organizers came down to him and pushed him the rest of the way up the hill. Needless to say he was a bit over his head, but was smart enough to cut the race short before he hurt himself (or my borrowed equiptment!). The good news is that he enjoyed himself enough to borrow my boots and skis for the rest of his spring break week and is currently skiing on some trails in Wisconsin with some college friends. Only bad part of the race is that I managed to catch a head cold and am now paying the price by having to carry a box of kleenex around with me in the clinic all day (is there anything worse than a runny nose under a surgical mask?). At least this is a good time to take some time off. It is probably good for me too, since I otherwise would have jumped right in to running with Nichole, and last spring that meant that I never really took any significant break after the ski season. This year I will. I will also have to do a deeper retrospective on my training log for the year. It was a good season for me - probably not quite as good as last year, but darn close - and I will have to figure out what type of changes I should make for next year.

As for Vakava as a team, I will simply quote Dave's last email: "It's been a lot of fun seeing all of our hard efforts paying off with some very good skiing and some very good results. Aside from just having a lot of fun on the snow together, Vakava had 14 overall race wins this winter, and more than 50 age-class wins. We're looking forward to continuing to build on that success."

It will be time to break out the Marwe's in no time!

Lessons 1,2,3

2010-03-06T21:50:00.000-06:00

The first race I did this season was the 20k Elk River race in late December. There had been a couple earlier races I could have done but didn’t feel mentally ready to do one. The season can get really long and I thought it was better to pace myself. I figured I needed to race at least once before TC Champs and the Elk River race was the last one before it. 20k is a bit longer than I would’ve like for a first race but the timing was right. My only thought for the race was to just get one under my belt and see how it felt. I purposely didn’t think about who else was there or what place I might get or anything like that. I just wanted to ski my race, so that’s what I did. This is not the same as ignoring other racers. You still need to pay attention to what they are doing and how you might strategize things, but if they are going to fast for you, let them go. If they are going to slow for you, drop them. If they are going a nice pace, work with them and see if you can use the pack to ski faster. So that’s lesson #1: pay attention to others and strategize, but ski your own race. You can’t control how others ski and you shouldn’t let them control you.

The second race was the TC Champs 15k classic at Battle Creek. I planned to ski my own race again, and I did, but I was a little excited and went out too fast. I was leading for the first 1k when I tripped myself up around a corner and went down on my butt. Many people went by and I dropped way back. Then I settled down and found my pace. I was able to catch a couple people on my second lap but could’ve done better if I’d been smarter at the start. So that was lesson #2: keep yourself under control at the start, it’s better to finish strong than to suffer much of the race after starting too hard.

The third race was the TC Champs 10k skate at Theo Wirth for the pursuit start. I was only a few seconds behind Kim Rudd and Kathleen DeWahl was right behind me. It didn’t take us long to catch Kim and the three of us skied the entire race together, which was great. I felt good and it was fun to have a nice group. Kim and Kathleen dropped me at the very end but I still had a very nice race. The three of us had the fastest times of the day and I’m sure it’s because we were pushing each other. So that was lesson #3: find a nice group to ski with if you can since you tend to ski faster in a group.

Stay tuned; more lessons coming soon!

Over All Ready???

2010-03-04T21:47:00.003-06:00

Well, the race season is officially over for me and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I know I need a break both mentally and phyically, but it's still hard to see it end. It was so much fun and I had a great season. But now I can no longer postpone all the things that have been piling up over the winter. I feel rather overwhelmed by it all and am trying to tell myself it doesn't all need to get done tomorrow and that I need to pace myself. But enough about that, the real reason I'm posting is because Nate keeps prompting me to. That and because I've been meaning to all season long. I've learned a lot, or I should say re-learned, namely how to race again. Each race taught me something and I want to recap them all. (Or maybe I just want to re-live the season in self-denial that it's really over.) So over the next several days I'll post about each one and relate what I learned. I guess the pile of projects and chores will have to wait a few more days.

Off to Oregon

2010-03-03T17:35:00.004-06:00

I want to help Nate out here with a little contribution since he does such a great job keeping the blog going:)

First, if any of you haven't skied since the Birkie, Theo Wirth was in amazing shape (front and back 9) as of 11am this morning. It's great to have that kind of coverage and grooming in sunny 30 degree weather.

Second, the Birkie was fun as per usual. Unfortunately I'm still unable to push to a good high max HR as things continue to heal post-sugery. But after really struggling up through OO or so (while very seriously contemplating a DNF), I found a little rhythm and hung on to a small group. I was at Mayo last week, and the surgeon said he believes everything seems to be healing (although they put me back on a rate control drug due to my 90-100bpm resting HR). Luckily, I snuck into a top 200 spot, so hopefully next year I'll be fully recovered ready to go again.

Finally, next Tuesday I'll be defending my PhD thesis and then moving to Portland, OR to work as a circuit designer for Intel. Luckily there is good CC skiing one hour away at Mt. Hood (see pic below), and a little further than that in Bend. It's a bummer to move away from such a great city with so many trails, but such is life. If anyone finds themselves in Portland and is looking to roller ski or ski, email jkeane3@gmail.com.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me work on my form or whipped my butt in intervals. I'll be following Vakava results from the Northwest!

Da Birkie

2010-03-03T15:59:00.009-06:00

Now that was fun! If there is one thing that will help mask a little lack of fitness, it is blazing fast trails on wicked fast skis (thanks Devin!).

As expected, the field was pretty dang impressive. Like most people, I was 15 minutes faster this year, and also like most people (it seems) I was 10 places further down in the results. 28th last year, and 38th this year. I don't think I could have finished any faster though. From the begining my legs were not feeling great. I was still with the lead pack through most of the power line hills, but I was not too focused on staying with them, and by the first feed stop I was off the back of the (very large) lead pack (side note: this was the first time in 4 years that I was able to get a feed at this first feed station, so that was one major benifit of having the classic skiers start first - it got the feed stations ready for us!). By the 7k mark I was caught by a good pack of skiers that included Bjorn Batdorf, Josh Korn, Matt Weier, and about 3 others. We worked together and caught Tyler Kjorstad and another skier that were a bit ahead of me, and from there we had a really nice pack that skied together for the rest of the race. I was very thankful for the pack. I skied most of the first 80% of the race at the back of this pack of 8 or 10 skiers just trying to get my legs to feel good. I always seem to have crappy legs for the first part of the birkie, but most years I am feeling good by OO, and feeling tired but very good by Bitch hill and have a good finishing kick. This year it took my legs until well after OO to feel ok, and still by Bitch hill I was not feeling like pushing the pace and was just trying to hold onto the group. In the hills after Rosie's field our group started to split up a little bit (I have heard that Bjorn may have had to take an unfortunate pit stop about this time), and I did have the legs to bridge a gap that formed and keep our pack together. On the last flats before the lake a skier from Canada (skiing his first Birkie) made a break, and once again I went to the front of the chase and brough the group together. Once we were on the lake the Canadian and another skier in his first Birkie (you can tell from the "1" written on the bibs) were pulling our group with my self in 3rd. I was perfectly content to let them switch off the leads, meanwhile trying to keep my left tricep from cramping. By the time we got off the lake and on to Main Street I knew that both of those guys were pretty spent. I pulled into the far right lane and sprinted hard to the line. I was the first guy in my pack to the finish (even though the results list Chad Tolbert in front of me).

Which brings up the point: Why is the starting sensor at the 300m mark in the race? Has anyone done a race that starts the chips part way into the race and not at the start line? This just seems stupid. Why not have the starting sensor at... the start!?! My other suggestion is that they instead move the start sensor to the 15k mark for next year, since that is when my legs usually start feeling good anyway.

But despite the timing quirks, this was probably one of the best (if not the best) Birkies I have participated in (this was my 7th). It truly is an experience that every skier should do once (if not once a year!).

Looking at the results I think I can justify saying that I had as good a race as last year when I was 28th. Note: 9 skiers who beat me last year did not race (or were in the classic race). 19 of the skiers who beat me this year did not race last year (or were in the classic race). 3 of the skiers who I beat last year beat me this year, but I beat 3 skiers this year who were ahead of me last year. This seems to point to an extra 10 top elite skiers in the race, and I was 10 spots worse in the results. Makes since to me.

Another side note: for the 3rd year in a row (every year they have had it), the U of MN - Twin Cities was victorious in the Birkie College Team Competition. This year all three scoring U of MN skiers also trained with Vakava: Myself, Bjorn, and Allie Rykken.

The Vakava team as a whole had a fantastic race (especially the ladies!)

Vakava skate finishers:

38 - Nathan Porath

67 - Derek Wallen

72 - Bjorn Batdorf

112 - Andy Schekel

154 - John Keane

160 - Dave Christopherson (age group win)

162 - Dave Bridges

171 - Paul Olson

296 - Brent Oja

5 - Jojo Winters (in the money)

7 - Mary Beth Tuttle (age group win)

14 - Angie Robinson (age group win)

19 - Kathleen Dewahl (age group win)

24 - Cheryl Dubois (age group 2nd, because Mary Beth was in it)

30 - Mel MacMillan

36 - Michelle Oja

43 - Katie Splan

101 - Nichole Porath

Classic:

51 - Mark Ahlers-Moore

102 - Kevin Ivens

111- Pete Thurmes

11 - Margie Nelson (age group win)

19 - Allie Rykken

This year I unfortunatly was unable to take part in any post-Birkie festivities due to my dental board exams the following day. They went well. I will find out the results in a week or two, and hopfully there will have been no consequenses to doing a 50k race the day before the board exams.

Now it is time to soak up the great spring skiing here in Mn. I took the dog out skijoring yesterday, and today it is supposed to be 45 degrees and sunny. Fantastic.

Eager like a bever!

2010-02-26T15:17:00.002-06:00

The big one is tomorrow. It is Birkie time!

I was in at Finn Sisu this morning putting the last touches on my skis (and to help out waxing some of the skis submitted for waxing at the shop). The recommended wax job for the Birkie is: a coat of Rex Blue, a coat of Rex RCF Black, a coat of Rex Olympico Moly, and 3 coats of Rex TK-72. It sounds like things will be pretty abrassive on the course, so that hard wax with the graphite is going to be important. Duribility will be key.

There were a lot of other people in at the shop this morning too. Most of them were from out of town who were picking up some last minute items on there way to the race. There were 2 guys there because the airlines had lost their ski bags! Apparently the airline has no idea where their bags are, and could not even find a record of where they had been checked in. Ouch. One of the guys had a pretty good attitude about it ("a good excuse to buy new skis!"), but the second guy was coming all the way from Sweden (!) and was pretty bummed out.

To make this weekend even more crazy, this Sunday are my dental board exams. I am typing this from the dental school computer lab waiting for a mandatory pre-boards meeting. From here I will be swinging through my parent's house for some pasta, and then heading the rest of the way to Hayward to their cabin. After the race tomorrow I will unfortunately not be heading to the Sawmill Saloon, and will instead be heading back to the Twin Cities to get ready for my 7:45am exam on Sunday. This is the patient-based part of the exam, so it consists of scaling and root planing (a deep cleaning), a class II restoration (a filling on a back tooth), and a class III restoration (a filling on a front tooth). The dentistry should not be too bad, but if one of my patients doesn't show up I might be screwed. At least I have the Birkie to keep my mind off it until the last minute.

I have been going over the race in my mind the last couple of days, and I still havn't decided on my final game plan. The last two years I have been the first or second guy who has not been with the lead pack (28th last year, 30th the year before), but I got there two differnt ways. Two years ago I went out and skied my own race and let the lead pack go early, getting into that second group and skiing easier from the start. Last year my goal was to stay with the leaders for as long as I could. Around the 18k mark I was spent, and Chad Giese and I both kind of fell off the back of the lead pack, and skied together for a few k before the second group caught us and we jumped in with them. Both methods lead to about the same result, and to be honest, skiing my own race hurt a lot less (until the last few kilometers, at least). It will be interesting how having two strong teams in the race (the Italians and CXC) will affect how things go at the front. In the past the Italians could pretty much control how the race was skied, but now CXC might be able to mix it up as well. I am glad it is going to be recorded again :)

Few new items:

2010-02-20T22:46:00.005-06:00

It has been a great day to be a nordic skier:

1. Minnesota Finlandia was this morning. The weather was amazing (I was skiing my cool down in a baseball cap with my sleeves rolled up) and the conditions were almost perfect.

2. The 25k pursuit race there served as the final race of the 7 part Minnesota Skinnyski Series. Our beloved Vakava Race Team was leading the team competition by 198 points heading into the race. We had 4 skiers in the race (meaning we could only max out at 400 points), so if Peter's Cheaters had sent a full squad of 6 skiers and had a perfect score (every skier winning their age group) they would have beaten us by just 2 points! The Cheaters did perfect score the race last year, so I was more than a bit worried, however they only had 5 skiers in the race and so Vakava has successfully taken down the Cheaters and won the team competition for the first time in 3 years!!!

3. I had a good race today myself, winning the pursuit for the 2nd year in a row. The race was a lot more fun than last year too (last year the field was a bit thinner and I soloed the whole dang race), since they wisely started the classic and pursuit skiers together this year, and this ment that there was a nice group of skiers for the classic portion of the race. This was nice, since I am not as strong of a classic skier, and I was able to hang out in the pack and get pulled around to the transition area and have plenty in my legs for the skate half of the race. The trophys for the Finlandia are the best of any ski race I have ever seen (well, I hear they give out some decent neckwear at those races in Vancouver) in the form of very intricate hand painted double-bladed lumberjack axes. Very cool, and worth the trip to Bemidji just for that. Vakava women took 1st and 2nd in the women's race too (nice job Mary Beth and Kathleen!)

4. There was a great battle at the front of the 50k race to watch, with Andy Liebner out sprinting Zack Simons and Andrew Johnson. I was telling somone after the race, "the 50k field was really tough. One guy was in the last Olympics, and one guy has one the Birkie." Of course then I had to say, "but neither of those guys won today". Big props to Liebner.

5. I got home just as the olympic men's 30k pursuit was taking off on TV. What an awesome race. It had the breakaway by Olsson, the team tactics of the other two Swedes (which made the race that much more compeling), and the amazing racing of the 4 Canadians (all in the top 16, including 3 of the top 9). The only thing that could hav possible made that race better would have been seeing some Americans a bit closer to the front. Kris Freeman looked to be havng a good race before his blood sugar and then his body crashed. Southam had a respectible race in 34th. Has anyone else noticed that of the 6 races so far, the top american in 4 of them (including all 3 men's races) has been somone not on the USST? Just saying.

Best race ever

You've probably already seen this, but:

2010-02-20T18:03:00.002-06:00

How tough are you? Probably not this tough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI-qbDbdZz0

Vasaloppet recap

2010-02-19T11:59:00.002-06:00

I have not been feeling quite as fast this year after having a great year last year. Between board exams and moving, this fall did not have the volume that I was hoping for leading into the season. Consequently I have been feeling a bit flat so far in the season, and the last couple of races have shown this (2nd at Nordic Spirit where I didn't have the skis or legs to hang with the leader from the gun, and 19th at COLL where I kept falling backwards in the standings throughout the race). Due to my not feeling quite as strong this year (and also a bit of a desire to help the Vakava team finally beat the Cheaters in the team race) I switched from the 58k to the 35k for the Mora Vasaloppet. The Vasaloppet is the largest ski race in Minnesota, and the 35k skate race served as the 6th race in the MiSSeries. The switch to the shorter race paid off, as I not only felt great in winning the race by a minute and a half, but Vakava as a whole had a great day sweeping the podium in the women's race and finishing 1,2,4 in the men's - helping to give us a sizable, but not quite comfortable lead in the team standings going into the last race of the series.

Vakava results at Mora (with dala horse listed):
35k skate:
Men:
1st- Nate Porath (1st)
2nd- Andy Schakel (1st)
4th- Paul Olson (2nd)
9th- John Keane (3rd)
25th- Dave Bridges (3rd)
30th- Mark Ahlers-Moore (2nd)
40th- Per Nelson (3rd)
Women:
1st- Mary Beth Tuttle (1st)
2nd- Angie Robinson (1st)
3rd- Kathleen Dewall (1st)
7th- Mel MacMillian (1st)
13th- Nichole Porath (3rd)

42k classic
Men:
16th- Dave Christopherson (1st)
20th- Brent Oja (1st)
35th- Kevin Ivens
37th- Pete Thurmes
60th- Ahvo Taipale (1st)
Women:
5th- Michelle Oja (1st)
9th- Allie Rykken (1st)

58k freestlye
11th-Derek Wallen (3rd)
12th- Bjorn Batdorf
Women:
2nd-Johanna Winters (2nd)
8th- Cheryl Dubois (1st)

Yes, that is 20 out of 23 people (the 3 coaches are included) winning dala horses. That is impressive.

Now I am waxing skis for tomorrow's race, the Finlandia 25k continuous pursuit. (I have an old swix portable 3-piece bench clamped to a board, that is clamped to the coffee table in the dorm, that is suspended on two chairs). The weather looks like it will be perfect, and the snow has been great. Fun times! The Vakava team is not sending a full squad to the race tomorrow, so the team standings will be very close (Peter's Cheaters put up a perfect score of 600 here last year). Hopefully we can hold them off.

Lessons Learned

2010-02-18T18:49:00.002-06:00

I've been meaning to post race reports all winter long but just haven't had the time. I'll try to recap them as I find the time since each race has taught me something. My main goals for this year were to feel good and have fun and not worry about how fast I was going. I've been having a great season in stark contrast to last year and have accomplished all those goals. I've felt great, been having a great time, and the less I worry about results they better they are. I think several things have helped me have a better season this year. Last year was a difficult year for me personally and I wasn't sleeping well because I was stressed. I think I just tried to push myself harder than my body could recover properly from with the other stresses and lack of sleep. I just got more and more worn down and felt worse and worse. This year I've managed my stress levels much better and have made sure that I didn't continue to push myself if I was tired or feeling overwhelmed by life. I've really tried to monitor my sleep, which is a good barometer of my stress levels, and take it easy if I needed to. This made my hard workouts more productive and I was able to slowly get stronger and faster. It really drove home that feeling like an easy workout really was easy, too easy even, was a good thing and that allowed hard workouts to feel good too as a result. In essence I relearned to pace my workouts appropriately. I used to be really good at pacing in races and I think I've relearned that as well. I've stopped worrying about how fast my competitors were going and just skied my own race. I can only ski how fast I can ski, so pushing myself too hard to keep up with others is counter-productive. If I can keep up with them I can, and if I can't I can't. It really is that simple. So I've just listened to my body, focused on what I could do that particular day, not worried about what I can't do, and enjoyed being out there. And what a difference it's made.

So many cheaters!

2010-01-30T00:25:00.014-06:00

So they finally posted the team standings for the MN skinnyski series. After 3 races the Vakava Race Team is sitting in an all too familiar position - a close second to the dreaded Peter's Cheaters. We had put some good distance on the cheaters in the first 2 races of the 7 race series, but we lost 86 points in race 3 when we only had one guy in the skinnyski series race at Pepsi (others were skiing in the longer race). In a curious development, there are now 3 teams of cheaters (the other 2 teams are in the bottom two spots), and one can't help but think that Peter created these extra teams so that he himself could actually ski on one this year ;)

This weekend is a new race on the skinnyski series calendar - the Nordic Spirit race held at Spirit Mountain, Duluth. Should be interesting. I am not sure how deep Vakava's roster will be at this new race. I know some people are taking the weekend off. We can only hope the same is true for the cheaters.

Speaking of the Pepsi Challange: major kudos go to Angie Robinson for winning the race in front of Mary Beth Tuttle and Mel MacMillan (a Vakava podium sweep!). Vakava also took both men's and women's age-adjusted overall races (Mary Beth for the women, and of course Dave for the men). For the year the Vakava women have 4 of the top 5 spots in the overall competition, with Cheryl Dubois, Angie, and Mel in the top 3 spots (and Dave is winning the men's overall too). As if we didn't need further proof that Angie is having a great year so far, she is currently 3rd in the skier of the year (most improved skier) category.

The skinnyski.com photo galleries provide nice documentation of Angie's winning race:

"Tuck for speed"

"Get this extra water out of my way"

"Fist pump for the win!"

"Yeah, I skied pretty awesome"

NYTs on CC Skiing

2010-01-28T07:43:00.006-06:00

I thought it was kind of interesting that the New York Times had an article on cross country skiing and Olympian Andy Newell. ARTICLE

That led me to Newell's website, which has some pretty entertaining videos, like this

Getting packed up

2010-01-26T23:46:00.002-06:00

So tomorrow is the start of a month of living out of a suitcase again. I am spending the entire month of February working in a clinic in Hibbing, MN - spending the weeks drilling, filling, and pulling, and every weekend driving to a different ski race. I hope to still be able to spend one night a weekend in my own bed in Red Wing, but really I am trying to pack as if I will be gone for a month. This also means that tomorrow will be my last Wednesday night Vakava practice of the racing season. That will probably be the hardest part of being gone for the month - the training on my own. It is so nice to know that I will be getting at least one good hard workout with other skiers a week. At least I will see most of the team at the races!

Well, off to pack. Wish me luck.

A quick call from Caitlin, another long post from me.

2010-01-20T22:12:00.006-06:00

We had a big group at practice tonight. Seems to always be the case when Ahvo is going to be there. He really is something to see. He is so good with picking out minor (or major) changes in people's technique, and he is so quick for a 63 year old guy. We were working on V1 turnover on short uphills, and he can still "dance" up those hills with the best of them.

At the end of practice we had a group call with Caitlin Compton. All of us huddled around the phone and got to congratulate her for making the Olympic team. Caitlin seemed really excited to have everything work out. She said that when she got the call yesterday that she almost didn't want to answer it in case it was bad news. It has certainly not been an easy (or typical) road for her, but she has definatly put in the work and deserves her spot on the team. She told us that she is looking forward to putting in a good block of training at altitude before heading to the races in Canmore. She was also looking forward to catching up with fellow Twin Cities skier Garrott Kuzzy, and was quite optimistic that he would be on the team too within the next two weeks.

Last weekend was the second skinnyski series race at Boulder Lake. Vakava had a strong showing, although we will have to wait until the after Jan 22nd to hear which cheaters that Peter Hanson will cherry pick for his team. We are hoping to have a strong team for this year to at least give him a run for his money. The hardest part is picking a roster of only 12 (our team is 20+ skiers strong this year).

Personally my race was tough but fun. The conditions were not at all what I expected. I had visions of a fast, firm trail after the warmer weather earlier in the week, but the trail was mashed potatoes, and my poles punched in 6" or more every time I polled. In my opinion the conditions favored a skier with stronger legs and a bigger engine. I am more of an arms skiers and I tend to exploit my glide - neither of which was easy to do. That and I am not in quite as good of shape as I was hoping to be in this year. From the gun the pace was fast (the 10k skiers start at the same time and do one lap instead of three). There were only 3 guys who were able to go with the fastest 10k guy, and I was in the first chase group (which was probably 12 guys big). I spent most of the race in the first 3 of that group, spending what I considered to be a fair amount of time at the front doing some leading. At about the 20k point of the race I was in second or third in the group when my ski hit one of the large divots of mushy snow and in my state of off balance I polled between my legs. I went down hard, crotch first onto the trail. The other skiers in the group were able to avoid me, but I was left to pick myself up, try to convince my stomach move out of my throat, and make my way back to the group. That took me a couple of kilometers, but I was soon able to hang at the back and recover. By the last few kilometers as the pace was picking up I was able to move through the group to the top 3, and in the sprint across the lake I was only beaten by Nikolai Anikin to the line. It was a pretty good showing and a lot of fun.

Vakava results this weekend:
Seeley Hills:
22k classic:
5) Dave Bridges
22) Pete Thurmes

11) Michele Oja

42k classic:
18) Derek Wallen
37)Brent Oja
47) Kevin Ivens

1) Jojo Winters (winner... by almost 5 minutes)
11) Allie Rykken

Boulder Lake 31k freestyle:
5) Nathan Porath
11) Andy Schakel
15) Dave Christopherson (once again with the top age-adjusted time for MN skier of the year standings).
36) Mark Ahlers-Moore
74) Kevin Ivens (pulling the big 2-day double)

1) Mary Beth Tuttle (continuing her winning ways, both overall and age-adjusted)
3) Angie Robinson
6) Cheryl Dubois
8) Kathleen Dewahl
10) Mel MacMillian
11) Katie Splan
12) Nichole Porath
(Vakava ladies pretty much dominating the top of the standings with 7 of the top 12!)

Sorry if I missed anyone. That is a lot of people racing!

An update

2010-01-06T15:48:00.004-06:00

Here are some random thoughts:

1. One of my classmates that I spent Dec. in Hibbing with sent me a pic that he took while we were up there. One of the last nights that we were there we went out to the lake (there was no snow on the trails) and skied around. Two of them had never skied before, but one of my classmates in dental school is Renee Kinney (skied for Stillwater HS, U of Vermont and Team Birkie), and so between her and I there was equipment to use. It was fun to all get out on skis together.

2. I was very sad to hear that Cindy Brochman had passed away after her long battle with cancer. She ran with Nichole on the run n fun team, and I only ever heard good things about her.

3. I did the TC Championships this past weekend, and it was a ton of fun. I am looking forward to skiing it next year, and hopefully I will get out on classic skis a bit more before that race. This year I got out great at the start (and avoided the large pile-up), but I did not have the fitness to stick with the leaders. This kind of worries me, since I signed up for the long race at all of the big races this year (COLL, Mora, Birkie). It also could be because I am not as good of a classic skier. The skate race on Sunday went well. Even though I still lost more time to Bjorn and Matt than I would have liked, I was able to post the 5th fastest skate time of the day and catch a number of guys who beat me in the classic race.

Vakava skiers (and others we claim as our own) at TC Champs:

Men: 2nd overall-Bjorn Batdorf (1st in classic, 2nd in skate), 8th-Nathan Porath, 19th-Derek Wallen, 27th-Andy Schakel, 32nd-Dave Christopherson (1st in age group), 33rd-Ryan Atwell, 38th-Per Nelson, 50th-Kevin Ivens,

Women: 1st overall-Jojo Winters (2nd in classic, 4th in skate), 3rd-Kathleen Dewall (1st in skate), 5th-Angie Robinson (3rd in skate), 8th-Cheryl Dubois, 10th-Margie Nelson, 13th-Mel McMillian, 18th-Sara Conrad, 22nd-Katie Anderson, 24th-Allie Rykken

4. Bert Blyleven misses the baseball HOF by 5 votes. Seriously? Go Twins.

Excuses, excuses...

2009-12-30T15:06:00.004-06:00

In high school I heard a saying that stuck with me: "Excuses are like backsides*. Everyone has one and they all stink." (*You can imagine what the backsides word usually is.) However, I have a couple weird excuses I'm dealing with now.

As I whined to several of you about, I had a catheter ablation performed on my heart in mid-November in order to hopefully cure my atrial fibrillation. This problem started becoming noticeable soon after I ran the Twin Cities Marathon in 2006. My heart would skip around randomly at a high rate, and for no good reason. Within about a year, this was happening to me about every 7-10 days, and the episodes lasted for up to 24 hours or longer. When it happened, I couldn't even walk up stairs without getting winded. Then I could go out the next day after it was over and pound a 20 mile run...it was weird.

After my collegiate track/CC teammate from Notre Dame, Ryan Shay, died of a heart attack in the Olympic marathon trials in November of '07, I decided I had to get checked out right away. (Incidentally, the last time I saw him was when we went out to dinner after that Twin Cities marathon the year before.) The doctors told me I had "A. Fib" and sent me on my way. I didn't try drugs until the summer of '08, and then added another drug in October of that year after I had to walk away from the start line of the TC 10 miler because an episode started minutes before the gun.

The drugs didn't work well, so I went to Mayo to have the surgery done. I was out for about 8 hours, during which time the burned the portions of my heart containing bad electrical pathways in order to "open" those circuits. That's my extremely dumbed-down explanation, but the hope is that this stops the conduction of the erratic electrical signals that caused my Afib. Now, about 6.5 weeks after the surgery, I'm still Afib-free.

However, two things are holding me back on the athletic front. First, my phrenic nerve was damaged, so my right diaphragm is partially paralyzed. It pushes up against my lung rather than going down when I breathe. Second, I started noticing lately that my heart rate is weird. My resting rate now is 90 (which is not so surprising since my resting rate when I'm healthy is usually way up in the 70s), but the absolute max I've been able to hit so far is 165, which I confirmed by wearing a monitor during a skate interval session on Monday. That is over 20-30 bpm lower than what I'm pretty sure it should be. I know it was generally not too difficult for me to stay in the 170s or 180s for sustained efforts before the surgery.

The doc thinks that it's possible my sympathetic nervous system was affected during the ablation, and along with the phrenic nerve, it should heal over several months. But for now I'm left with a couple barriers to any success this season. I'm going to keep training hard and hoping things come around by late February for the big races. In the mean time, if I miss some Wednesday workouts (like tonight), it is likely because I'm still trying to do my own stuff where I experiment and watch what happens with my max rate. Hopefully things will get better soon, and I'm left with a strong Afib-free heart.

Body Knows Best

2009-12-13T15:43:00.002-06:00

I was planning on racing the Pre-Season Physical today. I wanted to get a few shorter, easier races in before the bigger, longer races start in January and thought I may as well start with that one. The problem was that I'd had a very disorganized week and ended up doing very little training early in the week due to weather and whatnot and tried to cram in a bunch on Friday and Saturday. By Saturday afternoon by body was very tired and I was feeling my legs quite a bit when trying to sled with my son. I figured I'd do the race anyway even though I was tired and hadn't prepared my skis just so I could get on a starting line and get used to the whole race thing again. So I got all my clothes ready for morning and went to bed. Sometime in the middle of the night I woke from a dream about the race. I was in the middle of the race skiing nice and easy and feeling good. I figured it was time to pick up the pace and took off. I quickly started getting more and more tired. Soon I was dragging myself along on my belly through the snow until I finally ran completely out of steam and just lay there in the snow, exhausted, unable to crawl any further. When I woke up, I figured by body was trying to tell me something and that it was best to listen. I reached over and turned off the alarm. As hard as it is to back off sometimes, I've learned that it just doesn't pay to ignore your body. It knows best. I'm a little disappointed that I missed it, but feel it was the right decision. I still have a few opportunities to get some races in this month and hopefully I'll be able to plan ahead and be better prepared.

Been a while...

2009-12-10T23:12:00.003-06:00

The title could be taken a couple of ways.
1. It has been a long time since my last post here.
2. Unfortunately it was even longer since my last time on snow.

I am currently up in Hibbing, MN doing required outreach as a part of my last year in dental school. The dentistry is great - I have been seeing more patients than I usually would at the school clinic, and the clinic itself is quite nice. When I learned that I would be heading to Hibbing in December I thought "well at least they will probably have more snow than the metro". Unfortunately I was wrong. So while my wife is shoveling out our house in Red Wing, and the Vakava team is doing intervals on snow in St. Paul, yesterday I was double poling back and forth on a little used road not far from the clinic. At least I was on snow (Hibbing got less than an inch from the storm that buried parts of the Midwest = lots of new "speed grooves" in the rock skis). It had been 5 weeks between time skiing on snow!

Today I tried to drive to Giant's Ridge today to ski under the lights. But as I tried to coast to a stop at a stop light my car started to accelerate on its own! I grabbed the floor mat to make sure it was not caught on the gas pedal, but that was not the problem. I put the car in neutral to see if that solved things, but that just made my car jump to 7000 RPMs (but at least I wasn't accelerating anymore). All I could do was shut the car off and steer to the side of the road. When I tried to start the car it immediately jumped to 4500 RPMs. After getting the number for the towing company from my wife I tried to start the car one last time. After some clanking and grinding the car seemed to be running normally. I had a dilemma. I wanted to ski, but I was 20 miles into a 40 mile trip, and it was probably a lot better to be stranded in Hibbing (where I at least have classmates with cars) than at the Ridge (even if the do have lit trails with some snow). So I aborted my ski for the night and drove back to Hibbing. Fortunately the dental clinic here is one building over from the auto mechanic school at the community college, and they will be able to look at my car tomorrow. Hopefully they can figure out what is going on with my car, because I have 5 pairs of skis in the back, and I am craving getting on some more snow!

Snow last week, rain this week.

2009-10-30T11:51:00.002-05:00

Nichole and I have now completed our move to Red Wing, and the first benifit of said move was that while the twin cities got no accumulating snow last friday afternoon, Red Wing (40 miles to the south) got 4 inches of snow. This allowed me to get my first day of on snow skiing in on Saturday morning. I drove over to the middle school and skied around the soccer fields and dirt track. The snow was melting fast so I only got an hour in, but it was a fantastic ski (40 degrees and sunny at the start, and 50 degrees by the end), and harries were kicking great. I could tell that my arms are used to the nice easy gliding of rollerskis - they were sore after double poling through the mush for only that hour.

This week has been rainy. Last night's rollerski with Vakava was a classic workout on the big river trail with 30 minutes of "on" interval time. It was also our last week on rollerskis (it gets dark too early, especially with daylight savings ending this weekend). Fortunately we were able to avoid most of the heavy rain, but it was still very wet. Some how I managed to lose a rear fender off the back of my marwes during a ski last week, and I sure missed it yesterday. Without the fender on the wheels seemed to take the water on the road and just dump it down the back of the cuff of my classic boots. I was sloshing in standing water in my boot after just a few minutes. It did motivate me to double pole more and DP kick less - double poleing kept my feet in place and the water was able to warm up around them better.

Here's hoping for snow soon so that we will have fewer weeks of dryland at como park... :)

New Woman

2009-10-20T22:43:00.003-05:00

We had our last roller ski time trial of the season today. I had not been looking forward to it. I'd been a bit worn out with all sorts of things since coming back from our camp in Hayward a couple weeks earlier. So I hadn't been training very hard or sleeping nearly enough and was not feeling at all chipper. But I hadn't done the previous time trial and wanted to get the last one in, so I decided to go and not worry about the outcome. I needed a good workout at any rate since I hadn't been doing much. So after a fairly stressful and busy day I fought the traffic down to Afton and got there a bit late. I ended up starting the skate time trial by myself and it felt about how I had expected, dreary, like the weather. But I was able to get myself into my classic gear in short order and caught up with the others for the warm up for the next round. We started the classic time trial as a pack and I wasn't sure I was up to being pushed that hard and demoralized and that perhaps a private pity party would be better, but I jumped in anyway. What the heck, I was there, may as well, whatever. I felt surprisingly good and skied in a nice pack with Kevin, Dave, and Kathleen. We skied the whole thing together and it was so much fun!!! I felt good and the pack dynamics were great. We all finished strong together and it was so invigorating! All my cares melted away. I felt like a new woman. Since starting up racing again after my long hiatus, I've been trying to figure out why I'm doing this. I don't have the high goals and purpose that I had before, so why am I working so hard and putting in the tremendous effort it takes to ski at this level with all of my other responsibilities? I know that the regular exercise and friendships are really important to me, but I can still have that and just ski recreationally, so why push myself so hard? Tonight really reminded me why I do it, because I love it so much. So thanks guys for the pick me up! I needed it.

Des Moines by rollerski

2009-10-20T14:33:00.005-05:00

This past Sunday was the Des Moines Marathon. My wife Nichole was running, and I was looking for a good way to see as much of the course as I could (and my bike has a flat tire that I have not fixed in months), so I threw the rollerskis into the trunk and away we went to Iowa. The morning of the race I did all the helpful husband things to get her ready for the start. We jogged a warm up together and I took her warmups just before the gun went off. After watching the start I sprinted to the car parked a few blocks away and got my boots, skis and poles on. Then I sprinted to the mile and a half mark to spectate.

Watching a running race on rollerskis actually works quite well - assuming there are parallel streets to ski on. I would watch the race go by (taking Nichole's long sleeve, or handing her a gel as needed), then I would head over to the parallel street, hammer for a mile or two, and head back to the course to cheer again. She got the feeds that she needed, and I got to see her at many different points of the race while getting a decent workout in the process (I'd call it natural intervals).

The most entertaining part of rollerskiing along the race course was the looks I got from the spectators (and a number of calls of "hey, thats cheating"). I guess there are not a lot of rollerskiers in Des Moines. Even funnier were the looks I got from runners - especially the Kenyans in the elite pack. They looked at me like I was crazy. I definately don't think there are many rollerskiers in Kenya.

Near the end of the race I got back to the car, back into running shoes, and back out to watch the last half mile. Nichole was hurting pretty good at that point (i.e having a hard time running in a straight line), and it was nice to have the mobility to be able to jump the finish barrier to help her hobble to a cot in the medical tent (she was fine after some rest). Her race went well. She finished in 2:55:53, which was not quite as fast as she was hoping, but still a new personal best, and it puts her less than 10 minutes off the Olympic Trials standard.

Check out her blog for the first hand account

First Ski on Real Snow!

2009-10-12T22:03:00.006-05:00

I got out for a ski today! I grabbed my oldest classic skis and a bag of kick wax out of the basement on my way out the door this morning. I don't think those skis have been waxed in at least 15 years, but no matter, I didn't expect it to be fast anyway. When I got to Gross Golf course, which is right by where I work, I discovered that the bag of wax didn't include a cork. No matter again, I just applied some purple powergrip and used nature's first cork, the heel of my palm. I apparently took too long messing with my skis because a guy came and told me I couldn't ski on the course yet. No matter! I just went to the cemetary across the street. I occassionally run and roller ski there in the summer. There is great asphalt, no traffic, and rolling terrain. Plus I've never been asked to leave. I also saw another woman running the road in there today so I wasn't alone, and the other occupants didn't seem to mind my presence. It was a bit strange to ski among the barely turned leaves and stones, but also very peaceful and beautiful. All in all it was a very nice ski. Hopefully it won't be long before I can get out again.

2009-09-23T22:21:00.002-05:00

OK this is my test since I've never written a blog before. My prior posts were actually emailed to Nate and he published them for me so here goes:
Training is going pretty well. I think I'm a little behind last summer at this time due to a strained ab muscle and a few other things but I'm feeling good now and hoping I can have a good fall. I did intervals yesterday with my new heart rate monitor - yes, I guess I am a technology resistor - and was surprised that I could not get my HR above 170. I'm either a wimp or I have a low max HR. Regardless, I figured that today should be a recovery day. I lifted weights in the AM and this afternoon went out for a relaxing skate in North Oaks, throwing in a couple of pick ups. During one fast pickup on the flats I flushed an owl. A big one. As I watched it take flight right in front of me I noticed a snake dangling from it's beak. Most of my memorable wildlife sightings are great all around experiences but this one left me with a puzzling combination of awe and eww.

Vacation last week, time trial yesterday

2009-09-02T14:44:00.003-05:00

One of the nicest parts of being a professional student is the breaks. This August I got what will probably be the last month long break until I retire (wow... sad). I am making pretty good use of my time. I'm working on finding a job for when I graduate next spring (anyone want to hire a dentist?), studying a bit for board exams, and getting in some good training. Nichole actually has a job, but she took last week off and we went up north for some "relaxation". Most of our vacations consist of some form of beating our bodies, and this year we decided to have a go at backpacking. I have a bit of experience backpacking, having been on a number of such trips during my boy scout days, but Nichole had never experienced the joys of carrying everything you need to survive on your back while hiking from place to place. Although our plan had been to camp for 3 days, by day two we had decided that backpacking was too slow, and that cars had been invented for a reason. So we got ourselves out to a road, ditched our packs in the woods, and did what we are more comfortable doing on vacation -run (all the way to our car). We picked up our packs, drove to the next state park, took some pics at the waterfalls, and then drove to my parent's cabin near Hayward, WI. It was a great decision. We spent the rest of the week running, kayaking, and rollerskiing around Hayward (I had a black bear cross the road in front of me when I was out rollerskiing. That was a first!). It was my first 15+ hour week of training since last year's summer vacation with Nichole :)

Nichole saying "what am I doing out here?"

Feeling much better after the run back to the car (and the pack off).

Lesson of trip: exploring without backpacks > exploring with backpacks.

Overall my training has been going very well. This has been my best summer ever - even better than my summers during college. My goal at the beginning of the year was to train one hour a week more that what I had done the year before, and so far 26 weeks into the training year I am already 42 hours ahead of last year. A lot of that has been on rollerskis (I have nearly doubled my hours on rollerskis this year compared to last year), but I have also increased my running (100 miles more this year than this point last year).

Hopefully the training will show up in the ski races this winter, but it already has been showing in running races this summer (my PR in the half marathon has come down 2 minutes), and our rollerski time trials this summer. Yesterday was our second Afton 2 x 5k time trail. It is 5k skate followed by ~20 minutes of recovery followed by a 5k classic time trial. We do this 2 or 3 times a summer, and it allows for pretty good comparison from year to year and at different points in the season. Yesterday I did not feel really great in either the skate or the classic, but I did feel strong. My times were really fast. I set new personal bests in both skate and classic by almost 30 seconds (and I have done this course a number of times over the last couple of years). Conditions were ideal yesterday, so that was probably worth a couple of seconds, but it is a good indication that I am in much better shape than I have been at any point in the last 2 years. Bring on the snow!

I should have full results from the TT later today.

First Post

2009-08-08T11:02:00.012-05:00

Hi all,

I'm new to the group, and since I have to be out of state this summer (unfortunately), I thought I should post something so I'm not totally forgotten so soon after I met most of you...

Summer has been hectic...here's a summary: I was married on May 23rd in Minneapolis, and then left for 10 days in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. Less than a week after I returned to Minneapolis, I left for 10 days in Japan. I presented a paper at a circuit design conference, but figured as long as I'd be half way around the world, I really had to spend some time touring. Less than a week after I got back from Japan, I moved to Austin, TX for a few months to do another internship with IBM Research. I'm about ready to finish my PhD in CMOS circuit design at the U of MN, but it's not a great time to be looking for jobs, so I'm kind of waiting out the worst part of the recession before finishing up. Therefore, coming back to Austin (for my 3rd stint here) provided me with a chance to get some more experience and earn a decent paycheck for awhile.

The summer in Austin is always a killer, but this summer has been one of their worst ever. The high temp has been over 100 almost every day since I arrived at the end of June. And, no, it's NOT a dry heat. So although the temps "cool down" to a little under 80F in the early morning, the humidity is usually ~80%. There is no choice but to deal with this if you want to run or rollerski outdoors, so we just get used to it and accept that paces won't be quite as fast.

Although some weekend traveling has interrupted my training schedule a couple times, here is a normal week for me now:

M: 11-12 mile run, lift
Tu: 11-12 mile run with 30 min tempo (~5:30 pace), lift
W: 1:10-1:20 rollerski
Th: 10 mile run with speed work (track or fartlek), lift
F: 11-13 mile run, lift
Sa: 15+ mile run
Su: long-ish rollerski (hope to be getting this to 2.5+ hours soon)

Hope you are all enjoying the cool weather up north!

John

ps. here are some pics from my travels:

The new wife (Sarah) and I in Mexico.

Sensōji Temple in Asakusa. It's a Buddhist temple, and Tokyo's oldest. In this picture you actually see the Kaminarimon, or “Thunder Gate". The temple is behind that.

Train when you can

2009-08-04T08:36:00.003-05:00

So this is finals week for me. Hopefully, the last finals week of my life. (I just think back to how many tests and exams I have taken over the last 26 years and cringe). But as with most finals weeks, my training has taken a bit of a hit. I have a final early in the morning on Mon, Tues and Wed mornings, but I will still be in the clinic after that until 4pm, leaving little time to both study and get a workout of any substance.

My plan for yesterday was to try and get a short run in once I got home just to clear my head before I started studying for this morning's TMD/orofacial pain exam. All was going to plan when at the Franklin Ave light rail station (I ride the train to a park-and-ride every day) it was announced that the train would be going no further. Apparently there had been a crash further down the line. When this happens buses come and shuttle people to the next stops, but there are thousands of people that take the train, and the people around me were mumbling that the last time this happened the buses never really showed up. So I decided that I should at least start moving towards my car, since walking put me closer to home than standing waiting for a bus that I did not know if it would ever show. When I got to Lake street I could see a news chopper hovering over the next station. I figured that that is where the crash was, and about this time I also figured I should really try to use my time wisely and double-task. So I cinched up my back pack and started to run. I am sure I got some strange looks from the cars on 55 as I ran along with my backpack and lunch pail, but because of the crash I was actually going faster than they were. The crash site its self was pretty bad. I guess some guy decided to try and drive around the crossing arms and drove right in front of an oncoming train (really, how stupid can you be?). I just kept on running to the next station, and since I was now on the opposite side of the crash, I was able to catch a bus to my car. All total I got 20 minutes of running in, and although that really is not much to write home about, what I have learned is that 20 minutes is better that nothing (a point that Chad Giese drove home earlier this year in talking about his transition to full time job with a young kid), and that fitting in little extra workouts can add up. Its why I do push ups in the morning while waiting for my oatmeal to cook in the microwave, or do pull ups every time I go down to my basement. If I can't always block out big chunks of time to train, I just train when I can.

First long group ski of the summer

2009-08-03T08:27:00.002-05:00

Last Thursday's practice was the second 1k double pole TT of the summer (and it was so much fun that Dave had us do it twice!). It seems like almost everyone was able to set a new personal best, and a couple people were even faster on the second 1k than the first. I felt good on the first 1k up, and my time was fast - a new course record and personal best by 5 seconds in 2:34. Bjorn started a few people back came in at 2:36, and Derek finished in 2:40. The second time up the course was tough for me though. The first thing to give out in these all out sprints is my legs, and they were getting pretty bogged down by half way up the course. I also had Bjorn starting just a couple seconds behind me, and I could hear his poles getting closer and closer. In the end I was able to hold Bjorn off, and finished faster than I thought I would in 2:37, but Bjorn killed the course in a new course record time of 2:30. The TT confirmed to me that I need to get my legs stronger. I have been putting in lots of running this year, and that has really helped my fitness, but I have been lacking in the leg strength category. I will have to find time to get to the gym for more lifting, and should ideally add some bounding to the training. At least I know what I should do, now its just whather I find the time/energy to do it.

Sunday was the first long group rollerski of the summer. Last year these group skis got very popular, drawing in most of the top skiers in the Metro at one point or another (with our biggest group being 28 people). Every year we move the start date further up the calender than the last year, so I wasn't sure how many people would be up for the long group skis on August 1st, but there must have been some pent up demand since we still drew a group of 12, including olympian Carolyn Bramante and national champ Caitlin Compton, among others.

The discussion on these long skis often involves how fast we (as individuals) should be going. The course that we take around Afton always includes plenty of out and back sections that allow for regrouping, but some people are better at going there own pace than others. I know that I have probably "won" a few to many hills on these long skis. Caitlin is inspiring on these long skis not for how fast she goes, but for how slow she takes these long skis. She is a master of the "ski slow to ski fast" mentality. My struggle is always how to adapt this to my training. She is training twice (or three times) as many hours as I am in any given week, and she has to keep her long skis easy so that she can hit her intervals hard. I am often not able to get in a workout every day, and so have more recovery built in to a given week, but does this mean that I should be taking the long skis harder? This week was easy to go slow since I raced a half marathon the day before (and set a new PB by over a minute!), and needed the recovery. Next week will be the real challenge to hold myself back.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Need for Speed

2009-07-27T19:25:00.003-05:00

I'm going to be up north on the Gunflint trail at the in-laws cabin all next week. I wanted to get in a good hard week of training this week because I don't expect to get much in up North besides a little running, and hiking and canoeing with the kids. I decided to go out to Afton to hit the hills for some intervals. I was using the hill on Trading Post Rd., long but not too steep. When I got to the top there was a car full of teenage boys hanging out. After turning around to head back down, I saw that they were preparing to go down the hill on skateboards. I was going down leisurely, catching my breath, standing up to get a nice long recovery and they zoomed by. When I reached the bottom after them I just turned around and headed back up. When I turned at the top to head down again, I passed them as they prepared to head down again also. I was standing again and they caught me in the middle of the hill. There was a slight rise before it heads down again and I decided to follow them. I did a few quick skates over the rise and went into a tuck. One of the boys was half standing and doing some slalom back and forth. I had to squeek by him as he swerved toward me and didn't see me coming. I passed him and started catching another boy who was just crouching low on the board. We all reached the bottom about the same time and I turned and headed back up again. As the boys passed me in their car on the way to the top, I got a double toot on the horn and a two-fingered, peace-sign wave. I thought it was pretty cool for a 42 yr old woman to get that kind of recognition from a group of young skate boarding boys. I guess we connected on understanding the need for speed; the rush of wind in your face as the ground zooms by under your feet. I just love that. Don't we all?

Rain rain go away

2009-07-21T22:12:00.013-05:00

Truth be told, my lawn really needed the rain, but as I drove towards Afton this evening and my radio was saying "severe weather going through Woodbury and Afton right now" I was not thinking of my lawn. Tonight was the first set of 5k time trials for the summer (we do them three times each summer). The time trial consists of a 5k skate, a bit of recovery, and then a 5k classic. Tonight I got to the time trial location on Nybeck road 45 minutes early hoping to get a little extra skiing in, but this is what I saw rolling in:

Instead of skiing in I got to sit in my car and watch the clouds roll through and dump quite an impressive amount of rain. Fortunately by the time that we were supposed to start it had pretty much passed, and we were left with just a drizzle.

By the time we finished our warm up the rain had stopped and the sun had come out. It actually got pretty hot! (or at least muggy). The time trail went well. My arms could definitely feel the 2:45 classic ski from Sunday, but I was still able to post a personal best time in the skate race (the classic was a bit slow for me). Dave should send out results in a day or two.

More pictures:

It was Cheryl's birthday, and that meant treats! But don't try to steal any of her brownie - she will cut you!

Elbow pads

2009-07-20T22:12:00.004-05:00

One of the best things about our sport of Nordic skiing is that it is a sport for all ages. How many high school football players are still playing at 50 (or even 25) years old? This makes it a great family activity, as everyone can participate. I have it particularly good, as my dad has always been a skier (although mostly downhill when I was growing up) and is always willing to hop into a race or some crazy endurance adventure. My wife is also my best training partner, and by far my greatest motivation to work out (I have to keep up with her!). She has also been a fantastic sport and has been willing to leave the comfort and speed of her running shoes to wobble around on rollerskis trying to learn a sport that can take frustratingly long to feel comfortable.

This year, even my mom has gotten into the act. She has always been an avid walker (and she can really move!), but she never did much more than the occasional cross country ski in the winter. However the past couple of winters she (I think feeling a little sorry for Nichole, as well as wanting to improve her fitness) has been out more, and even got skate equipment. My dad and I have been giving some pointers, but this spring he (and Greg) managed to talk my mom into joining Sisu Skiers. She has loved it so far! She got a pair of Marwe combis, and has been going out on her own and practicing. I worried about how she would get the balance (since she has had minimal skating on snow experience, and she had a pretty serious knee injury in the BWCA a couple years ago), but she has actually picked that part up quite well (I think years of downhill skiing and some limited rollerblading with my sister have helped). The irony is all that worrying about rollerskiing didn't account for other freak accidents... since last Thursday at Sisu Skiers practice (a dryland practice at battle creek) one of the guys there accidentally ran into her and she landed awkwardly on her arm. Unfortunately the ensuing trip to the ER revealed that she broken the end of her radius at her elbow, and her rollerskiing will be on hiatus for the near future. Hopefully she will have the speediest of recoveries, since I know she would much rather be out with her group of Sisu Skier newbies.

Winter days on snow are wonderful, but not nearly so when spent alone every day. I just want to thank my family for participating in this great sport, and in doing so supporting me and all the fun I have skiing.

Hopefully I won't kill you all in the process :)

Take it easy

2009-07-18T15:32:00.004-05:00

The life of a researcher is tough... especially when conferences are held in the middle of the summer in a happening "town" like Oslo. At the end of June I hopped a plane to Norway with my ears ready for some serious listening and my USB stick (with my own presentation on concurrent strength and endurance training in recreational runners about 98% ready) in my bag. Upon arrival, I found the sun shining (didn't stop once during our stay) on a beautiful city with lots of good dining/outdoor activities/shopping/parks/museums... the only disappointment was that Holmenkollen is being renovated so I didn't get to visit the place (I guess I just have to go back sometime!). I definitely recommend a visit to Oslo (though it's not such a cheap place - cheers to traveling on "business"!)

Norway's obsession with nordic skiing makes most folks' obsession with nordic skiing look like child's play. Thus, the conference had a relatively high number of skiing-related presentations (many by Norwegian researchers, quite a few Swedes, a couple Finns and an Austrian if I remember all... topics covered biomechanics, physiology and coaching, among others).

One of the themes that stuck out in the presentations on training was volume and intensity of training. There was, an entire session on training to achieve optimal adaptations that, after "careful consideration", I chose to attend over the other 7 sessions happening at the same time (well, in reality the skier-magnet in me didn't really give me any other choice...). Other presentations were linked into sessions on physiology, coaching/testing, etc. The presentations discussed, for example, how high intensity training improves VO2max more effectively than moderate intensity training, and how long slow distance (LSD) training is essential for VO2max development/maintenance in even highly trained individuals. These presentations confirmed most of what we already understand about adaptations to training and there were no groundbreaking secrets on how to train, though throughout the congress, some new methods for the assessment of the effectiveness of training and what is going on at e.g. the neuromuscular or cellular level, were presented.

One presentation that stood out for me in a practical sense was one in which the researcher presented three colored charts of yearly training volume (intensity was denoted by different colors) from some TOP level skiers in Europe (I mean world-class here). The next slide was yearly training volume and intensity from a research project done in '99 using top US skiers. The main difference between these plans/training logs was the amount of green on the charts. Green was the color used to denote low-intensity distance training, of which there was significantly more of on the Euro charts than the US chart. While many training methods can produce good skiers, and while there are interindividual variations in training responses, I found it interesting that many of the best skiers in the world really do ski EASY (LOTS of green on their charts which is equal to about 75 to 90% of training volume performed below 2mmol blood lactate). The key observation here was not that total training volume between the Euros and the US differed, but that there was a lot more low intensity training visible on the Euro charts than on the US ones. Could this difference in volume of low intensity training be one of the keys as to why Euro skiers have traditionally dominated the podium? To my knowledge there are no studies directly comparing training between skiers from different nations (and which method(s) might be more effective), but from an observational standpoint I would venture to say that it makes a difference.

In my skiing experience, long slow distance workouts didn't always end on such a slow note even if they started out in the zone and I'm betting I'm not the only one... The competitiveness of a team and multitasking (thinking about the homework/upcoming exam/*insert something else that could make your mind spin here* while skiing) can gradually work you out of the zone as can the expectation that you always work as a team. In college, we logged our hours of training as "easy" when we skied for 3 hours even when the heart rate monitor average BPM didn't necessarily agree...this means that the training volume I had at moderate and high intensity was greater than my training log will let you believe....of course I should have known better, but hindsight is always 20/20 (If you want to read more on that on a "personal level" I wrote a series of six "ski lessons" last year after going to a Finnish Ski Association Coaching Seminar. (the views expressed are mine alone) Here are the links: Lesson 1, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4, Lesson 5, Lesson 6). Based on what I listened to and observed in Oslo, I cannot, unfortunately, write a formula to achieve skiing glory, but the take-home message was to train with purpose (easy when you need to go easy and hard when you mean to go hard) and do not underestimate the power of low intensity training!

Get your game face on!

2009-07-08T01:15:00.002-05:00

Time Trial. Battle Creek. Thursday. Try to stay in front of Caitlin Compton. Be there!

Cookies

2009-07-01T08:53:00.003-05:00

Last night Derek and I finally got out for a rollerski together. Derek and his wife moved this spring to a house only about 4 miles from mine, but it has taken us until last night to actually get out for a ski together (we have certainly talked about doing it a number of times before).

Today is actually Nichole's 26th birthday (everyone wish her happy birthday!), but it is way too predictable to suprise her on her birthday (and you can't suprise someone after their birthday, since then it just looks like you forgot), so last night I got home a bit before she did and got her gift out and started baking chocolate chip cookies (we have a long history of me providing cookies, just ask Brent). This was going great until I realized that we were out of chocholate chips. I raced over to the store, and was in the chocolate chip isle when my phone rang. At first I thought it was going to be Nichole telling me that she was almost home and my suprise would be ruined, but instead it was Derek asking if I wanted to rollerski. I raced back home, got the cookies in the oven, got my rollerski stuff on, got the cookies out of the oven, and was able to suprise Nichole when she got home. I then headed out for my ski with Derek. We did a nice little double pole together, were able to loop around to check out his house, and then we ended up back at my house for a water bottle fill-up and some fresh cookies. Very nice, since it is great to have someone to train with that is nearby. We will have to do that more often (including some runs in Lebanon Hills that Nichole will have to join us on too).

Happy Birthday Nichole :)

new roller ski route

2009-06-29T19:45:00.002-05:00

I discovered a new roller ski route close to my house today. I was even able to ski there from home! It's in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood of St. Paul, nestled between Hwy 280 and Como Ave. John Swain mentioned that he grew up there and would roller ski in the neighborhood so I thought I would check it out. It's a small area with little traffic and good terrain so it will be a nice place to do some intervals. There are a few hills that you can't go down, and I wouldn't recommend skiing there if you aren't really comfortable on skis because there are plenty of intersections to navigate, but it was fine for me. I'll have to work out the best route for an interval, but I think it has great potential. I'm psyched!

Speed Work

2009-06-23T22:04:00.003-05:00

Looking to get in some speed work? How about a 1 mile race on the track at Macalester? Next Tuesday there will be a fundraiser for Cindy Brochman who is currently fighting cancer (check out an interview here). A $10 minimum donation is suggested, and races start at 6pm (including kids races that are shorter distances) with the fast heats going off at 8 and 8:15pm. Should be a good time for a good cause. Check out more info here, and registration form here.

transformation

2009-06-22T21:42:00.006-05:00

Last Thursday we did a video session with Ahvo and worked on double pole. DP has been my weekest stroke and I've been working on it since I started with Vakava two years ago. I went back and looked at some video from the previous two years and compared it to this years. It was amazing to see how much it has improved and shows what working with Vakava has done for me. There is no way that I could've made those improvements without this group. These people have not just helped me with technique, but have also given me the motivation and support to do the hard work required to improve my conditioning and strength which is needed to make the technique improvements. Thanks everybody, I couldn't do it without you!

I know others have made dramatic improvements as well. My husband has wondered what the point of a team was for an individual sport. I think this proves it's worth.

June '07 - out of shape and just getting back on roller skis after a 12 yr. hiatus - pitiful

June'08 - getting much better

June '09 - that's more like it!

Beer

2009-06-12T20:13:00.002-05:00

Since Kevin isn't a "contributor" to this blog yet, I am going to post the piece of brilliance that he emailed earlier today. It deserves a wider audience.

Vakers,

Now, there's no reason to wait for that post-rollerski beer! At last, I no longer have to act ashamed whenever people discover my hydration bladder is full of Summit Pale Ale —I'm simply ahead of my time. Our pal Science now says that beer, yes beer, is more effective for rehydrating the body than plain ol' water. I think I'm not alone when I say that this qualifiesas news on par with peace in the Middle East.

Researchers at Granada University in Spain found this Nobel Prize-worthy discovery after months of testing 25 student subjects, who were asked to run ona tread mill in grueling temps (104 degrees F) until they were as close to exhaustion as possible. Half were given water to drink, and the other half drank two pints of Spanish lager. Then the godly researchers measured their hydration levels, motor skills, and concentration ability.

They determined that the beer drinkers had "slightly better" rehydration effects, which researchers attribute to sugars, salts, and bubbles in beer enhancing the body's ability to absorb water. The carbohydrates in beer also help refill calorie deficits.

Based on the results of the study, researchers recommend moderate consumptionof beer as a part of athletes' diets. "Moderate consumption" for men is 500ml per day, and for women is 250ml per day. Goodbye Gatorade, hello Sam Adams. This opens the door to a whole raft of new athlete beer sponsorships. Hopefully we'll see Lance replace the water bottle on his bike with a 40 of St. Ides in the next few months. (In fact, maybe that's why he didn't win the Giro d'Italia.)

This of course doesn't mean anything for hydration outside of strenuous exercise, but I'm not taking any chances—best to start hydrating now. [cracks open bottle of Newcastle].

Kevin Ivens

Time Trial Night

2009-06-12T15:00:00.002-05:00

Last night was our first time trail of the summer - an individaul start, self timed, approximately 1k double pole up lower afton rd. It was a nice night, and we had a bit of a tail wind (I seem to remember head winds most times), and this lead to some fast times, with 6 people setting new personal bests even though it is early in the season. We had a big group of skiers participating (including Caitlin Compton).

Results:
Nate 2:39!
John S 2:47*
Andy 2:51!
Derek 2:58*
Caitlin 3:01*
Brent 3:05
Mark 3:06!
Dave 3:10!
Jojo 3:11*
Kevin 3:13
Paul 3:20*
Pete 3:20
Cheryl 3:21
Angie 3:25!
Michele 3:31
Margie 3:43
Allie 3:45*
Nichole 3:59*
Mel 4:00!
Katy 4:00*
Sara 4:04*
(! = personal best time, * = first time on course)

After the time trial we went up into the neighborhoods and worked on double pole kick technique, with some pick-ups thrown in.

Even today my throught is still a bit scratchy from breathing hard during the TT - maybe that's because my body is not used to 1k sprints... got to love the taste of blood in your mouth at the end of a sprint.

From the world of sport science

2009-06-09T07:43:00.004-05:00

Greetings from Finland! As a former (or current/honorary Vaker), I've been added to the blog to throw in a little bit of international and sports science perspective. As some of you might already know, after completing my BA at
Gustavus (a little after other Vakers Nate, Nichole and Mel and before Kathleen), I headed to the University of Jyväskylä in Finland to work on my Master's in what is called the Biology of Physical Activity. Somehow or another the MSc snowballed into a research assistantship (in our department, and in part with KIHU because of my thesis topic) and starting work on a PhD (1 class down and years to go!). So far my studies have focused on combined strength and endurance training (because strength training and endurance training produce divergent adaptations, more on that at a later date) and I've been dabbling a bit in endocrinology, we'll see where that goes. I still ski and run (less racing as of late) and have gotten a bit into rowing and orienteering.

The first bit I will contribute here from the world of sport science deals with nutrition and recovery (inspired by a blurb in a recent email from my ski club here). The sports drink and nutritional supplement market is a huge money-maker, but are expensive sports drinks worth it? Supplements and sports drinks can certainly play an important role in an athlete's nutrition/recovery; however, the use of lots of supplements suggests that one does not trust their own nutritional choices (paraphrasing the head coach of the Finnish Natl team as well as my dad here...). A well-balanced and adequate diet that is made up of a variety of foods should be able to reasonably fulfill your daily nutrient requirements and besides that, the bioavailability of nutrients is typically higher in foods than in pills and powders. (The mini disclaimer: some supplements may be necessary, for example, calcium and iron for women...).

A recent study by Kammer et al. 2009 published in Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition reports that cereal and non-fat milk are as effective in promoting muscle recovery following 2 hours of cycling at 60-65% VO2max.

A quick explanation: Long bouts of endurance exercise deplete muscle glycogen stores (your fuel) and increases the rate of protein synthesis while at the same increasing the rate of protein degradation (which typically exceeds the rate of synthesis). In order for the muscles to recover from endurance exercise (so you can get back out there and do it again), glycogen stores need to be replenished and a positive net protein balanced needs to be achieved. Glucose is needed for glycogen synthesis and amino acids are needed for protein synthesis, so simply put: carbs and protein are needed for recovery.

In this study by Kammer et al., subjects randomly performed two trials after whcih they were given either Wheaties and non-fat milk or a commercially available sports drink. Similar positive results were achieved with cereal and milk as with the commercial recovery drink. This suggests that cereal and milk are an effective recovery food. (A previous study by the same research group concurs).

For more details on these studies, my embedded links should bring you to the articles. Until next time, eat your Wheaties (or insert other whole grain cereal here)!

sore knees and shoulder

2009-06-08T21:21:00.002-05:00

I've had cronic tendonitis in my left knee forever, classic IT band problems that makes the outside of my knee very sore. I'd learned to sort of work around it and be careful running, especially in the spring after not running all winter. But then both knees started bothering me at the top of the knee caps, although they didn't really bother me skiing so I continued to pretend it wasn't a real problem. Same with my left shoulder. It was bothering me lifting weights, but not skiing. But by the end of the ski season last year they both started bothering me skiing so I could no longer pretend. I went to the doctor and the xrays were normal so she told me I was just VERY tight and needed massage or yoga or something to loosen up. I went to The Fix Studio for some massage and it's helped a ton. I also got a foam roller to roll my legs on and am trying to stretch more. My knees are no longer bothering me and I can run as much as I want to now and the shoulder is much better, but still needs work. I can lift weights without pain but it's not as strong or stable as the right side. Last winter my legs were sore and achy a lot and I would wake up in the middle of the night with achy legs, but no more. I can get out of bed in the morning now without feeling like a stiff old woman. I think I've gotten my legs to the point where I can keep them loose enough on my own through rolling and stretching and will do a few more massages to hopefully get the shoulder to that point as well. I guess that keeping the muscles loose is increasingly important as we age. I think I've learned my lesson now and will take the time to keep them looser since it seems that I won't be able to keep skiing pain free if I don't!