The Tour de Finn Continues at the Pepsi Challenge

First up, a brief recap of my Birkie 

Conditions were icy and this meant fast. I skated the last speedy year in 2020 and this was my first time doing the classic at rocket speeds. I figured this would make the overall race easier, and it was, I just didn't get nearly as fatigued. It also meant less ideal training for the upcoming Ski North Ultra 100 km. 

Kick waxing conditions were tricky and despite building a base of a mix of 1814, SWIX 45, and Oslo Purple and then adding Rex Gold klister on top, I essentially had no kick. Sure, I could shuffle a bit on gradual inclines, but you don't stay in Elite Wave by shuffling. And so I took to the herring-bone run which was difficult on the icy trail.

 

Elena skating to a good Birkie 2026 result.

 

Things went OK until a bit after OO when for some reason, as I went to get back in the track after a herring-bone hill, my ski grabbed and I face planted. Now, this was the ONLY time in the entire race that my skis felt at all sticky so I can only assume I hit some gel packet or a weird piece of ice or something. Then a couple kilometers later I was herring-bone running up a short hill and I slid out and fell over. Chill out a bit, Elspeth. The trail was so icy I really had to dig in my edges to herring-bone and as a result I couldn't run very fast.

Despite being a classic specialist, I have lackluster striding technique and often my kick wax isn't very good. Usually I can still make my skis work but it was too icy to herring-bone run to match my aerobic capacity. I was feeling good and man-grunted every time I had to get out of the track to herring-bone run knowing I was loosing precious seconds that became minutes. In hindsight I should've double poled more but I was afraid it would get my arms too tired. Only after the last aid station did I really start double poling uphills. I must've double poled most of that hill after 77 because all of a sudden I was at the final steep pitch of the climb, which I herring-bone ran. 

Josh had great kick for the 2026 Birkie!

 

Overall a frustrating Birkie for me, my second worse place, and despite all my training, still 10 minutes off a phenomenal placement. Next year:)-

The Pepsi Challenge

After a weekend hiatus for the Birkie, the Tour de Finn returned to the Pepsi Challenge, specifically the 25 km skate race. It's a good thing I've been doing the Tour de Finn or perhaps I wouldn't have done any skate races this year. Pepsi was my third skate ski in as many weeks and as I went to do my warm-up, I could tell. My skis were squirrelly and seeing as a massive cold front had come in and temps hovered around zero, most of my goal was to stay warm rather than get the engine revving.

There was a big field (100 to be exact) and I lined up somewhere in the middle. Within 100 meters the course was down to two skiers wide and after half a kilometer, just one skier wide. I wasn't very aggressive at the start and found myself way back, so far back that I could move up by double poling. I was about to pass a couple skiers and get into great position by going wide as we entered the woods, but when I went to take a step, the snow underneath me gave way and I face planted.  

I struggled to get up and thought surely everyone in the race had passed me by the time I righted myself. Now you've done it, Elspeth! I mean, by this time, I was behind the women in the tutus jamming out to their bluetooth speaker. I spent the next 3 kilometers of the Silver Trail gradually passing people, a couple times double poling uphill, to essentially get to a good place in the race. Largely this meant skiing by myself with a couple women to chase. At the first aid station, about 10 km in, I passed the two women, one of whom was Jenna.  

Then we were out onto the Summit Trail, gradually making our way uphill. I tried to focus on keeping my weight under me as I did my V-2 pushes as I pursued the next skier, and the next skier. The next skier was a woman and as I caught up to her, she surged. I managed to stay not too far behind her for the next several kilometers as we climbed more and more, but once we started going downhill, she gapped me fast. I could also hear someone skiing behind me and wondered if it was Jenna. 

Birchlegger Mary Beth had an awesome Birkie. I guess I still have 20 years to learn how to skate ski!

 

My hands got cold as we descended for a couple kilometers before looping around on the Gold Trail by the summit. I knew it might be better tactics to let that skier behind me lead but mostly I just wanted my fingers warm and know that I'm not very good at following so I tried to just keep skiing hard. Except that I'm not very good at V-1ing up steep uphills and there were two times I simply herring-bone walked. My bad. If I'm going to be good at skate skiing, I need to practice:)

Then we flew downhill on the Gold Trail and with half a kilometer to go that skier passed me so fast I couldn't keep up. It was indeed Jenna.  I finished 11/32 women but I got second in my 10-year age class so I got some socks. 

Gabby cruising in this year's skate Birkie and rocking our new Vakava spandex.

And in terms of the rest of Vakava.....well those pip-squeaks put the smack-down on us geezers with Josh 3rd and Ian 4th for the men with Gabby 1st and Laura 2nd. I mean, how are the senile Vakers supposed to top that? For the old codgers, Craig led the charge in 7th with Artie 17th and Erik 25th for the men and my abysmal 11th for the women. But the TCSC Icy Insurgents reign supreme with one weekend of Tour de Finn points on the line having creamed even the Vakava upstarts by 39 points at Pepsi to lead by 64.63 points heading into next weekends' double header (or rather, choose your own adventure) of the Ski North Ultra and the Great Bear Chase. Meanwhile us old farts seem rather solidified in 3rd place barring some geriatric catastrophe. 

The Minnesota Finlandia 2026 Version

After a two year hiatus due to low snow, the Minnesota Finlandia was back this year. But as time moves on, the ski racing season evolves, and land changes hands, this year the Finlandia decided to forego their flagship 50 km skate race and newer pursuit and consolidate to just a 21 km classic and 21 km skate. Then a week out with a considerable warm-up, the 21 km distances were further shortened to 18 km and became a three lap race of "the west side." 

Rosemaled axes are the prizes at the Minnesota Finlandia!

The Tour de Finn began three seasons ago and while the Finlandia had been on their series the two previous years, this was the first year it went off, albeit, not as the originally planned pursuit but instead either the skate or classic counted for official points. 

My relationship with the Finlandia is deep because it's my hometown race. And I've done the race a bunch of times and blogged about it ad nauseam: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 (there's more, but that's enough). 

Hatchets now for 2nd and 3rd place.

I don't much like pursuits (perhaps I'd like them more if I could classic second) and so was more than happy to do the classic race. The previous few days had been sunny and in the 40s with it getting below freezing overnight. Hence, when I went out to ski the hilliest part of the course, it was ripping fast. The race started at 9:45 am and I hoped we'd be done before the snow transitioned to slow slush. I didn't have any kick with the Opti Klister I'd been recommended and didn't have anymore after panic waxing with START Purple Oslo but at least I wasn't icing and while there's some shorter steeper hills on course, there aren't any grinders so I figured it wouldn't be too bad without kick. 

We lined up to start near the "Finish" and timing shack. There was so much room almost everyone could have been on the front line but instead I lined up behind my teammate Laura and behind Kerrie Berg in the classic track. I had few hopes of keeping up with Laura but would try and figured I'd likely be skiing much of the race with Kerrie. I was super stoked though to see the Bemidji high schools girls were carrying on the tradition of touring the classic race, something that dated to before my tenure on the team in the early 00's, because this would give me substantially more Tour de Finn points. 

The start of the classic race. I'm the short one in the middle:)

The gun went off, the flags were raised, and we took off towards the Buena Vista Chalet to do a "promo lap" before skiing through the field and tunnel to the west side. Laura had much better kick than me and quickly gapped me but I was on Kerrie's heels until we hit the S-curve which I snowplowed into to curb a bit of speed before step turning. I did the same on the next hill and was glad I did as Kerrie fell and then I was able to step turn around her. Next was the biggest hill on course. I double poled far into it and then broke into a herring-bone run. This was followed by the biggest downhill on course which fortunately doesn't have as tight of a corner as the previous two. Then there's a brief climb before the double-pole section of the course. 

The sweetest axe painting, at least in my opinion, went to the classic men's winner. 

 

Here I caught up to former assistant Bemidji Nordic coach Ryan. When I skied out onto the skate deck to pass him I realized it was way faster out there so I stayed out there. Ryan tucked in behind me for awhile. The downhill down to the swampy section was screaming fast and there was a transforming section up the next hill. Then after another uphill there was a downhill and then we were in the rolling hills heading back to the lap. Here I gapped Ryan and set my sights on my bro who was skiing in front of me in a t-shirt and capris. He had some bomber kick though (in typical Ronnander fashion he described his kick waxing as "well, I smoothed out what I had on for the Finlandia three years ago and added some black magic!") and I was very slowly gaining on him. 

My bro finishing the 2026 Finlandia in t-shirt and capris.

Somehow, despite taking the previous week as a "training week" to better prepare for the Ski North Ultra, I had unrelenting energy. I could herring bone run up those hills without getting tired. As I started on my second lap it wasn't long before I hit major traffic. The skate race had started 10 minutes behind us and the Tour 12 minutes. On the first uphill I passed Bruce Slinkman wearing old school knickers on wood skis. There was a fair amount of traffic as I navigated the S-curve and the next couple hills but my herring bone run was still solid. I was double poling on the skate deck, wondering when the skaters would pass me. The first one got me in the flatter section and then my teammate Craig actually jumped in the track to pass me while I was herring boning a small hill. Fortunately despite having no kick, most of the course was icy enough that I could double pole into the hills and even small uphills, like the one heading by the old Cans's Loop intersection. I just double poled uphill by this guy skating! 

I caught my brother at the lap where he was taking down some water at the aid station. I stopped as well and then scooted by him but he caught me on the next uphill with his bomber kick. We skied together most of that lap. My body felt really fresh, my mind was mentally on, and after Mora where things just didn't click as I double poled along I thought, "I needed this race." Coming out of the swamp we lapped the high school girls, one was blasting Taylor Swift from a backpack and I began pulling away from my bro. I knew I had to make my pass decisive while I still had a few hills to work before the last flat field section. As I came up the last hill and went past the lap there was a very confused woman who didn't seem to understand that some people were already finishing the race!

That field section is long and I wasn't sure I was going to hold off my bro, but I got him by 6 seconds. 

Me having just finished, turning around to look for my bro.

 

If I could figure out the secret formula for feeling great on race day I suppose life would be less interesting. Sometimes I taper and it works and other times I follow almost the exact same plan and I'm not at my peak. Sometimes I train through a race and still manage to feel amazing - prior to Finlandia my last rest day was before Mora.  

Laura indeed won the classic race and scored some good points for the Juniorits. Ian was the only other Juniorit skier, finishing 3rd in the skate race. The TCSC Icy Insurgents brought three skiers, including the men's and women's 18 km skate winners and third place in the men's classic; hence, they move ahead of the Juniorits by 25.63 points. For us Seniorits, Craig finished 2nd in the men's skate with Erik 10th and I was 2nd in the 18 km classic. We remain in solid third place, over 500 points below the Juniorits and 500 points clear of the Flying Fungi of Yuggoth who have surpassed Team Yamageddon after the Finlandia. 

Women's classic podium with Laura for the win and myself in second.

 

Men's freestyle podium with Craig 2nd and Ian 3rd.

 

Team points after the Finlandia.

 

Two race weekends are left in the Tour de Finn: the Pepsi Challenge on February 28th and on March 7th, either the Ski North Ultra or the Great Bear Chase. Hang tight as the racing continues. I checked my women's place after missing the first few races and am in 6th. As of now, Ian leads the men's standings and Laura the women's!!! 

Ian leading the men's standings with quite a few Vakava skiers in the top 20 for now.

 

The Classic Birkie, by the Numbers

With the biggest race of the midwest ski season approaching, I thought it would be a good time to take an analytical look at the classic version of the event. This blog post is ultimately about a stats project I’ve been working on that quantifies and visualizes past men’s classic Birkie results. However, I feel like I first need to give some context by telling my Birkie story and what led me to starting this project. 

The classic Birkie instantly became my favorite race after skiing it for the first time in 2014 as a freshman in college, finishing in 308th place. The following year, instead of making goals focused on getting good results in college races, I was dreaming of finishing in the top 100 of the classic Birkie. This dream came true as I surprised myself with a 19th place finish that year. However, with NCAA regionals being held on the same weekend as the Birkie my junior year and the Birkie being canceled my senior year (2017), 19th place was the high point of my Birkie performances in college. 

On course during my second Birkie in 2015

After college, I struggled to find motivation and consistency in my training. I skipped the 2018 Birkie, then finished 102nd in 2019 and 447th in 2020. I then skipped the race for two years in a row while doing very little skiing in general. I had lost motivation and any thought of improving on my previous best of 19th was long gone. However, in 2022 I started pharmacy school and moved to Duluth. The new environment gave me an unexpected new motivation to start training and racing again. As I approached that year’s Birkie I was hopeful, but unsure of how this new motivation would impact my finish. Starting in wave 2, I skied most of the race by myself and felt the best I had on skis in a long time. After finishing I quickly found out I beat my previous best from 8 years prior, finishing in 9th place. This inspired me to train even harder the following year and I went into the 2024 Birkie looking to improve again. However, due to a strong men's field and a short, looped course, the competition was difficult and I ultimately came in 9th place again.

Finish line of the 2024 looped course Birkie

That brings me to the reason for this post. As I was nearing my thirties with two of my best ever ski race results in the books it was obvious to me that I wouldn’t keep improving forever. Being honest with myself I knew that if I didn't have a goal to chase that made me feel like I was building towards something new I might find it difficult to motivate myself and stay active in the sport.
So what could I do to make sure I had something to motivate me in the next few decades while I inevitably slow down? I thought I could set a goal to be the most consistent Birkie skier I could be over multiple years. But how would I measure consistency? I ended up looking to another area of cross country skiing that uses a points system to score and rank athletes over a series of races: the World Cup Overall Crystal Globe. In short, athletes on the World Cup get 100 points for winning a race and 1 point for finishing in 50th place. Here’s a full breakdown: 

World Cup Scoring Points by Position 

I realized that if this same scoring system was applied to each edition of the Birkie we would get a pretty good sense of which skiers were performing the best year after year. I recorded the results and corresponding points for the top 50 skiers from each classic Birkie since 2008, when separate skate and classic races were first held. After tallying up the points I ended up with graphs showing who the most consistent skiers have been and how their results have trended over the years. With this data I could both appreciate great Birkie performances in a new light as well as motivate myself to reach for longterm goals in the future. For the following graph I selected the 10 male skiers who have had the most cumulative points based on my scoring system, and plotted how they earned those points over each edition of the classic Birkie.

With Murray Carter ranking in first, different skiers in the top 10 show various career trajectories

As you can see, some skiers have been putting in consistent performances since 2008, racking up points every year. Others have had long gaps between performances and others still had stopped scoring altogether at a certain point. Of note, when we see a skier stop earning points it's impossible to tell from the graph alone whether they're simply not finishing in the top 50, have decided to race the skate Birkie instead, or have given up skiing entirely.

Next, I thought it would be interesting to see if there was an age where top skiers tend to become less competitive. I used age data from Birkie results to look at how the best skiers have performed over various ages. The following graph shows the same top scoring skiers as the previous graph, but plots them by the age they were as they accumulated points over their careers.

Skiers showing that it's possible to be competitive across a large age range

This shows there are some skiers finishing consistently in the top 50 well into their 50s, as well as one or two stand out skiers who started having top results right away as teenagers and continued into their twenties. As impressive as it is to see someone get good results into their 50s, I realized I was missing some equally stand out performances from older skiers who might not be racking up top 50 performances. Because of that, I went back and looked at the best performance for every age, up to 86 years old, which is the oldest male finisher I found in all editions since 2008. 

Best performance by finishing position for every age

For instances where multiple people of the same age had equal results in different editions of the race, I listed the result from the earlier edition. To get a better visual of how best-ever-performances change across ages I converted the table above into the following graphs:

We see there are quite competitive results from skiers in their 70s still finishing in the top 250 skiers at times, with some more variability in best-ever performances for skiers in their late 70s and 80s. 

After looking at all of these different ways of measuring and visualizing consistency, I’ve personally found greater motivation to keep competing while having something to aspire to. If you’ve stuck with me through this post I hope you’ve found a small piece of inspiration too. 

If you want to see my full google sheet including a few additional graphs and tables feel free to take a look here: 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lbQpML62-7OW1xqAYoPgbj_BnQBKOAc0FQstrgcAXPw/edit?usp=sharing

If you have any feedback, questions, ideas, or anything else you want to let me know related to the classic Birkie or skiing in general feel free to reach me by email at leif.a.hanson@gmail.com

2026 Mora Vasaloppet

 The Mora Vasaloppet Part 1: Saturday Skate Races

The Mora Vasaloppet is a favorite amongst the Vakava skiers, likely because it is a relatively short drive away and because team member Paul is one of the snow farmers. Saturdays skate races didn't draw as many Vakava skiers as usual though, because the Tour de Finn points race was the classic marathon on Sunday.

Andy Schakel led the charge in 8th in the 51 km skate with McEwan in 17th, and Abe 36th while Steph Lewis pulled off a big 2nd place in the women's field!!! For the men in the 34 km skate, Paul Olsen was 5th, followed closely behind by Nate Porath in 6th, Haakon Sigurslid in 8th, Artie Huber 15th, Hans Harlane 27th, Chris Jopp 28th, and Mark Ahlers 35th. And for the women Elena Cattaneo finished 6th and Mary Beth Tuttle 10th. 

Steph racing to 2nd place.

This photo features Haakon with Nate just in front and Paul behind.

 The Mora Vasaloppet Part 2: Sunday Classic Races

I assumed Sunday's races would be quite competitive owing to the Tour de Finn points in the long classic. Given the more competitive field, I lined up in the fourth row. I'd scouted the hill onto the lake and decided I wanted to be on the left side, outside the tracks, as there was a notable pinch point over on the right when some tracks ended. This mostly served me well although my sprint double pole isn't very strong. Erik started just ahead of me and I couldn't keep up to him on Main Street.

As we made our way down to the lake, on one of the longest glide out hills on course, I noted that my skis were running well. I wasn't too far behind Laura (not in the tracks) or Gabby (in the tracks) on the lake. I tried to pole hard on the lake, also outside the tracks, but couldn't quite keep up. As we came off the lake, there was compression in the tracks and suddenly Erik was right in front of me. My kick wasn't great. I had gone too conservative and finally added a couple layers of SWIX 55 which was OK in testing but I was hoping for a bit more so added a tad of START Purple Oslo which didn't give me anything but at least wasn't catching. I stayed right behind Erik in the tracks up the hill leading off the lake but Laura gained on us along with teammate Ben. 

I kept telling Erik to "go, go, go" hoping to catch the pack ahead of us. We got boxed in for a bit after leaving the Nordic Center and then they were just too far ahead. At the first aid station I pulled in front of Erik and was leading through a few twists and turns. My skis were faster than Erik's. But then as we neared the bump north of the Nordic Center for the first time, Erik pulled ahead along with another guy and two women - one in the short race and one in the long race. I tried to ski on their pack but they got a gap on me that I couldn't make up. 

We hit some dirtier snow on the far northeast part of the course and then were onto the hills in the northwest part of the course. Unfortunately my kick was pretty bad. Unlike previous years, I was glad to not have the drops down to the lake with tight corners. There were still a couple downhill corners though where I would have preferred that the tracks were pulled up. I seemed to be gaining on Erik but when we started heading south again, he was stronger in the double pole. Here Margie passed me and I just couldn't keep up with her as she slowly built a lead on me. She had good kick, too.   

I pressed on, trying to ski hard and keep Erik in sight. I suspect the southwest area of the course hadn't been groomed much because parts of it were like skiing in sand. The course was starting to feel a little janky - perhaps too many turns for classic skiing and not enough pulling up tracks to really turn smoothly around them with the marathon skate technique. Before long though we were back around by the Nordic Center and then out on Mora Lake for a loop around the northwest bay before repeating the course for a second time. 

As we came off the lake, I was making good time on the woman who had passed me when Erik did. I recognized her as the 2nd place finisher in the Alley Loop from two years previous. I soon passed her as we went by the Nordic Center. As we looped around, I saw my former teammate Sarah Widder was not far behind me. I don't really like head-to-head racing so kept trying to move fast so she wouldn't catch me but she was close.

A few more kilometers went by, back through the dirty area (told myself it was dirty for everyone), and then back through the hilly northwest section. Snow-plowed on two downhills a tad, the second because there was a crash ahead of me. I appeared to be gaining on Erik but as we turned south on the flats, he surged ahead. And that's where Sarah passed me, in exactly the same place as Margie had a lap prior. I really didn't know how many women were ahead of me but Sarah is my age, so hence, that's a horsee.

Anyway, I haven't been feeling very mentally sharp in my racing this year (certainly not terrible but lacking that extra fight) and Sarah easily got away from me. After a couple more kilometers, my arms were getting tired. I made a comment about the sand as I lapped a woman and got a laugh - I think that was my highlight from the race. There were some gradual uphills that I tried to stride to give my arms a break and reset but my kick was bad so I really had to stand upright and couldn't glide them out so it was back to the double pole. As we skied back across the lake, up Bell Tower Hill, and down Main Street, I really lacked a top gear. 

In the end, Erik bested me by 1 minute and 5 seconds and Sarah by 47 seconds. I always want more, yet should be happy with 5th place and 2nd in my age class (we went 4th, 5th, and 6th in the 35-44 age class). 

Vakava finish-line photo; although in the endless "not good enough" narrative, I finished a minute too slow to make the cut. There were obviously some others (slower and faster) missing as well.

 

Overall, it was an impressive classic showing for Vakava and a good dual between the Juniorits and Seniorits, although us Seniorits got schooled again. Gabby won the women's race with Laura close behind in 2nd for the Juniorit women while Sam Shaheen, Josh Albrecht, and Leif Hanson went 10th-12th for the Juniorit men. I was 5th, Eva Reinicke 11th, and Maria Schilling 17th for the Seniorit women with Craig Cardinal 14th, Brock Lundberg 17th, and Artie Huber 28th to round out the scoring for the Seniorit men. Ian Wright finished 15th but his score didn't count for the Juniorits as only the top 3 from each team count. Similarly, Ben Mullin finished 39th and Erik Pieh 41st for the Seniorits but were also not team scored. For the Vakava skiers neither on the Juniorits or Seniorits, Zach Pannkuk finished 30th and Dave Folland 49th. 

Photo re-do with a bunch of horsees.

Alas, following Mora, Vakava Juniorits pulled ahead of the TCSC Icy Insurgents with a narrow margin of 74.38 points while the Seniorits keep a firm hold on third.