Mary Beth's waxing adventure

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…

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

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

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