Mora Vasaloppet

Dave Christopherson reports:

An overall win, three more overall podium finishes, and over a dozen horses – Vakava always seems to come to the forefront at Mora, and 2013 was no exception.  Strong winds, sometimes-heavy snow, and a starting lap on Knife Lake certainly made for an interesting and somewhat unusual 41^st Vasaloppet, but it was the same downtown finish, cheering crowds and small-town atmosphere, and over a thousand competitors.  Always one of my favorite races.

After a very slow and crowded start, where no one seemed anxious to break the headwind for the first several k’s, things finally started moving when we got to the far end of the lake and switched directions.  I tried to stay on the faster, crustier snow, but there was enough slightly wet new snow and slightly dirty wind-blown snow that you definitely wanted a good fluoro top coat on your skis.  I chose Fast Wax Flite Warm, ironed on with the Fast Wax Base Saver, on top of HSF-30, along with a pair of uni-grind Rossi’s that can handle softer snow.  I think everyone felt their skis were a little slow in some of the wind-blown stuff, but then my skis seemed to take off when we got into more of the new-fallen, fresh snow.  Of course, it also helped a lot that I had two team-mates to help pull me along with a good draft – thanks, Rob and Paul.

A strong, hard finishing sprint up Main Street didn’t move me up any places, but it at least looked good (hopefully) for the crowd.  That’s 24 of these under my belt now, and I’ll be back next year.

Vakava results:

35K Freestyle

Mary Beth Tuttle -- 1^st overall, 1^st age group

Kathleen DeWahl – 2^nd overall, 1^st age group

Angie Robinson – 4^th overall, 2^nd age group

Nate Porath – 2^nd overall, 1^st age group

Rob Edman – 10^th overall, 2^nd age group

Dave Christopherson – 11^th overall, 1^st age group

Paul Olson -- 12^th overall, 3^rd age group

Andy Schakel – 13^th overall, 3^rd age group

Mark Ahlers – 15^th overall, 1^st age group

42K Classic

Michele Oja – 13^th overall, 3^rd age group

Eugene Beletskiy – 2^nd overall, 1^st age group

Kevin Ivens – 51^st overall

Brent Oja – 66^th overall

58K Freestyle

Bonnie Weiskopf – 3^rd overall, 1^st age group

Katie Splan – 9^th overall, 2^nd age group

Derek Wallen – 7^th overall

Steve Yore – 29^th overall

(And our east coast contingent, temporarily on leave in Baltimore, also did very admirably, despite almost no time on snow this year – Carolyn Bramante was 3^rd overall in the 35K and Anthony Bramante finished 33^rd in the long race.)

Full results and lots of photos.