A Perfect Race

Way back in high school I realized I was good at double poling. It quickly became my favorite technique. It didn’t require balance and I could use my upper body. I don’t have great VO2max. OK, I’ve never measured it but I figure running speed, like say a flat out mile, says something about aerobic capacity and I’m not exactly a gifted runner. But for me, the double pole is the great equalizer because it requires strength and technique in addition to cardiovascular fitness. People I have zero chance of ever keeping up with in a running race I can take down double poling. 

There weren't any classic photos this year so here's some from the skate race. Here is near the start (by the Mora Nordic Center) in The Vasa with Laura front and center and Ben L on the right. Laura finished 5th in the women's race.

And so it’s become that the Mora Vasaloppet, a fairly flat and largely double-poleable course, has become my absolute favorite. I’ve wanted to get that wreath around my neck at Mora for years. I’ve been on the podium a bunch, but not since they added prize money to The Classic. But that hasn’t stopped me from the dream and training and tapering for Mora. Some weekends I “train through” my races in preparation for my A races of the season and Mora is always an A race for me.

I took two days off before Mora this year and while sitting on the couch the day before glanced at my watch and it said my heart rate was 46. I didn’t know my heart rate got that low! I checked it manually and confirmed the reading. I hoped that meant I was rested for Mora.

Even though I was tapering my training, I made sure to eat a good amount throughout the day before the race. Back in the day, I used to not eat much until a huge dinner and not be able to sleep because my stomach was so full. I don’t do that anymore. I also put chocolate chips in my overnight oats the morning of the race. It’s always interesting to me that even though I’m eating just a bit more than my normal amount of breakfast food, which I usually take down without any issue, on race morning the butterflies make it hard to stomach my breakfast.

I’ve also found it’s important to do anything that makes me a little happy. As such I definitely have my special clothes for racing. This includes a pair of navy blue long underwear that I’ve had for two decades and my blue Finlandia hat from 2008. So if you’ve seen photos of me racing, well, I almost always sport the same headgear.

 

Elena racing The Dala. She won her age class got a red horsee.

I had forgotten that The Classic at Mora now had a prize purse until a few days before the race when I was reading through the guide again. I was bummed about this because prize money usually means deeper competition and although I’m speedy, I'm far from World Cup level. Wreath-around-my-neck dreams shattered. Podium B goal forgotten. Hopefully I can just eek out a dala horse in my 10 year age class.

The morning of the race I looked at Saturday’s Mora skate race results. This told me who might be doubling and who might show up fresh. But I didn’t really know who would be there. I did my warm up ski and since there were already some skis down in the start I decided to put mine down, too. I debated between the second, third, and fourth rows, eventually settling on the third, telling myself I could always switch farther back with someone later on. That’s the nice part about being up front, we all know each other and our abilities.

When I returned to the start there was Margie. My former teammate Sarah was there, too. She’d gotten third in the skate race the day before. I’d been picking up my bib when Chelsey Youngberg was getting hers, so I knew she was there, too. I’d seen Renae Anderson had raced yesterday and then there she was finding a place on the front line. There were a couple other faster looking women, one I recognized from the Founders Classic and another one I didn’t know. OK, mark all the women. Sarah’s probably going to beat me but pay attention at the start. I stayed in the third row, next to teammate Ben and behind teammate Brock. Sarah was to my right and Margie was behind me.

The gun went off. If I’ve learned anything over the years ski racing, it’s that the first 200 meters matter more than any other part of the race. Who you start with and behind and ahead of determines sooooo much. So I started fast and strong and quickly was in front of Sarah who was over in the tracks. After a couple bends, way less than half a kilometer into the race, I saw Chelsey in front of me. Erik was to my right. There was an open track. I wondered if he knew that he was slightly between second and third place woman. He wasn’t moving into that track so I jumped in it. And there was Chelsey. How could she be so close to me? She’d been kicking my teammate Gabby’s butt this year. And to be clear, Gabby is in a totally different league than me. I don’t even see Gabby EVER during intervals. I think she like does them with our top guys. Just try, Elspeth, my competitive side screamed as my conscience quipped that’s so dumb to even think you can keep with her. No. Just try.

So I tried and within the next kilometer she was totally out of sight as I’d figured. I tried to keep Erik in sight as we skied around some corners on the flat trail. My teammate Maria had said to me before the race, “when I get lapped” and immediately I thought I’m not getting lapped! Someone came up on my right and it was Owen. Holy crap, I must be skiing fast. I’ve never skied by Owen before. I’m definitely not getting lapped! I think I spent most of the first lap skiing with Owen and another guy. The trail snakes all around and a couple times I could see I had a slight gap on Sarah. As we came through the lap lane the announcer called “Elspeth Ronnander, currently in third place.”

Now it was onto the second lap, this time we would start going down to Lake Mora. Owen got away from me and bridged up to the pack with Erik. Soon there was someone else on my right. I’d only gotten a brief look at them but feared they were a woman but soon enough they passed me, fast, and it was a dude with a ponytail. Suddenly Erik seemed closer to me out on the lake but he was now packed up with Owen and a YAM and soon they gapped me more.

But as we climbed up from the lake and made a couple more turns, I couldn’t help but think that I’d never seen a male YAM in front of me before so I couldn’t be doing too bad. Then I noticed that Owen had fallen off that pack and I was slowly making time on him. I began lapping skiers and cheering them on. If Josie isn’t in this race (conflicts with her kids and the Wisconsin State Champs) I’ll take on the role of cheerleader.

At this point it all becomes a bit blurry. There was Erik’s pack in front of me, usually a couple guy stragglers off that pack between us, and a couple guys behind me. I definitely passed Owen on that lap. I never really thought about my pace, mostly just in my groove, double poling hard, striding/running when it made sense (not much) and then herring bone running all the steep hills and running/pushing hard over the top of every hill. 

Perennial favorites in The Dala, Nate and Paul skiing together early on in the race.

 

Craig and Nate racing a bit later on in The Dala. Nate would go on to win, beating out Craig by two seconds. Paul ended up a couple places behind.

Ever since I started citizen ski racing I’ve noticed that there’s two races going on. There’s the overall race and then there’s the women’s race. Us women are interspersed with the men and there usually aren’t many of us. It feels so different to me skiing around women versus men. It’s like brownie points to beat men but the real race is between me and the scattered women. That’s what matters. Anytime I’m going for a podium I prefer to not be racing close with other women. Ranae and Chelsey were so far in front of me I didn’t have to worry about them, but I was always concerned about who might be chasing me from behind. 

Mary Beth going strong in The Dala.

By the third lap I was closing in on a guy who was just double poling. I don’t use my kick much but I’m convinced it makes a difference. I soon passed him. Half way through the third lap I could see a couple guys catching me. The first one turned out to be Jim Carlan. He passed me quickly. Keep him in your sights, I told myself. Perhaps, had he been a woman, I would have had more motivation to stick with him. But also, as I’ve written about so much previously, I really prefer to ski by myself, albeit with some others around. As we went out on the north lake for the second time in the third lap, I heard someone next to me. Present yourself, I thought. I was pretty sure it was another guy, and indeed it was, and another one without kick wax. He didn’t pass me quite as fast and he never got too far in front of me.

Then we were onto our fourth lap which meant everything for the last time. The double pole guy wasn’t too far in front of me. I could still see Jim, a little farther in front, and just barely in the long enough straight stretches, I could see Erik, too.

Now we were encountering a lot of traffic and I was starting to get tired and my right medial epicondylitis was beginning to flare. But the kilometers ticked by so fast and I was often passing skiers like they were standing still. As I broached the final climb off Mora Lake I saw that Margie had passed Sarah as we met at the 9th street road crossing. I felt securely in third but I kept up the pace and soon I was passing double pole guy. Erik saw me again at the north aid station. I was at least providing good motivation for him. I still tried to do a bit of cheering as I lapped skiers, sometimes double lapping them, but mostly I was getting tired and frustrated that a bunch of them were in the left track, which in my opinion was just a bit faster and also firmer for the pole plants. One guy jumped out of my way and I said thanks.

Before I knew it I was up and over Marshmallow Hill for the very last time and then came out to the last U before we headed south to the finish. I could see that Jim was closing on Erik and that I had made up just a bit of time on Erik in the last lap. Then it was into the finish and I was determined to keep up a strong double pole.

I’m sure I was tired at the end but it’s always invigorating to finish on the podium and I think I could have kept up that pace for awhile longer. I was stoked to take home my biggest payout to date but also just a bit melancholic that as I bridge my fifth decade in less than two weeks, my odds of getting that wreath around my neck are diminishing. I guess it’s a lesson to appreciate what I have and that I’m still getting faster and stronger even at my age. 

The Classic podium at Mora 2025.

As I posted recently, I’m getting older, but still on the chase. My lower paraspinal muscles always get insanely sore after Mora but his year they felt less so. And after tapering for Mora, I was able to jump into an intense training block, running 6 miles the day after Mora and then doing a full strength workout two days later, and then doing a long interval set three days later with Vakava. It’s taken a couple decades, but I’ve become a well-trained athlete, and that’s every bit as much success as my results on paper.

On Skiing in Circles, Becoming a Cold Baby, and a Couple Races

The lack of snow continued in January and so we skied round and round on the manufactured snow loops. The 5 km loop at Hyland takes me 20 minutes and Wirth’s 7 km loop even longer. So it’s not that bad. On the couple weekends I didn’t race, I did some intervals. Well, actually, it was just one set of intervals. I heard that instead of doing 30-30s, APU does 2 minutes on followed by 1 minute off for an hour for an L3 workout. I did this with Erik and kept up a blistering pace with him. It was intense! I don’t get tired very often but this workout was both difficult to complete and made me extra sleepy.

Despite the lack of snow, we’ve certainly had our share of cold weather. I’ve admittedly become a “cold baby.” At least that’s the term we used back in the day for our friends who didn’t ski when it was below zero. My hunch is that I’ve spent too much time at cold temps improperly dressed. That and with Raynaud’s I’ve simply frost-nipped and even frost-bit my fingers (and thumbs) one too many times. Hence they seem all the more sensitive, the tips of my pinkies permanently numb, and not wanting to injure them more, I’ve started to avoid skiing, or at least skiing so much, when it’s cold. I really struggle to keep my hands warm. Often they initially get cold, will warm up for awhile and then get sweaty, and then around an hour or so start getting cold again. It’s super frustrating.

Last year Erik bought me some heated socks to help with the feet. I got heated gloves a few years ago and was not a fan (the best I could understand was that they were to be used when it was 30 degrees ABOVE zero) but these heated socks have been a game changer. I’m pretty sure they are designed for alpine because the socks are very tall (like up to my knees) and the batters are ridiculously large. They do keep my feet warm though and that’s important.

I’ve also succumbed to wearing more layers, especially for Vakava practice at 6:30 pm which correlates with a time of day when my body temperature is lower (I always get cold around dinner, then get hot from 8-9 pm). I’ve learned when I need more windproofing on my legs and to wear a buff and hat even in the teens, and to dress in multiple layers. 

A very cold Vakava group ski on a sunny Sunday. Hard to tell who everyone is with so much face coverings! Photo: Ben

Some days though, I’m perfectly content to just go for a walk. Ideally I would run more but my posterior tibial tendonitis has flared again. Plus, the major benefit to walking is that I don’t get sweaty. That and I can keep my fingers all tucked inside my mega mitts. Skiing is hard for me in cold temps when my fingers freeze and then when I get sweaty and go down a hill at 30 miles per hour….well, that is just cold and I think I only have so much tolerance for that.

Alas, I’ve mixed things up with some races. The first was what I still like to call the Pre-Loppet. I did something kind of dumb and didn’t wax my skis for the race since it was a “training” race and I’d skied three hours the day before and they had been plenty fast just about every other time I’ve been out this year on the manufactured snow but there was an inch or two of new snow and my skis were super slow! I think the body felt reasonable but I probably tired myself out too much holding onto some pride to beat a couple teammates and it made the race feel really rough. It was interesting though, where a couple weeks prior I’d been skid turning into La Squadra to control my speed, during the race my skis were so slow I was free skating.

The next race was the Founders Classic sponsored by the Mora Ski Club. After local races the week before got cancelled, this one popped up on my radar as a good training race for the Mora Vasaloppet. A bunch of other Vakers headed to Mora for this one as well. I love a good double pole course and that’s exactly what I got in Mora, going round and round, mostly with coach Dave, trying to chase down the small pack of men ahead of me (that got harder once teammate Paul jumped in the race and decided to shake things up some). Anyway, I still won for women and got some great perishable prizes (maple syrup and a giant cookie!). And I got in a good double poling workout that will hopefully help prepare my back for the classic race at the Mora Vasaloppet. 

A good chunk of Vakava skiers for the  Founders Classic. Photo: Brock's wife

Then the first weekend in February it was time for the City of Lakes Loppet Skate Race. It was a five lap race (ok, four laps last weekend, five laps this weekend, back to four laps next weekend…be sure to remember and count them all!). I was worried about the trail conditions given it hadn’t gotten below freezing overnight. And after not racing the skate race for a few years, I was relegated to Wave 2 and was worried about a lot of trail congestion (usually I ski off the back of the first wave).

My fears were largely put at bay though. I managed to get a front row starting position in Wave 2, accelerated off the line to at least keep up with the men until the double pole zone ended, and then was never impeded by traffic. I got into my racing zone quickly, pushing my pace but not suffering. I had a brief thought that maybe I’d gone out too hard but I quickly put that to rest and just skied on, trying to mark the other women in Wave 2, hoping to win my wave for the ladies. 

 

Me on the far left, off to a good start in Wave 2 of the City of Lakes Loppet.

The downhill conditions were markedly better than I’d anticipated. I have this problem though that I’m usually only confident if I can take an outside line. This year I’ve been working on this some, sometimes purposely going inside when I do feel confident, to practice. I’ve just had bad experiences in the past when I’ve gone inside, hit ice, and lost control. Slush and ice both make me tense up and lose my cool completely. I took the pace fast heading down into La Squadra every time and there’s part of me that can’t believe I actually do this because in a sense, it’s terrifying to edge in my skis to make those turns at such high speeds. It’s also thrilling. I can only do it when I have 100% confidence. And as the race progressed, it became a quad burner as well. 

Erik demonstrating how to ski downhill.

There were a couple short mashed potato hills that I struggled on and tried to just ski up. The couple weeks before I’d been playing with my V-1 technique, as that seems to be the technique when everyone skis away from me. I tried to stay lower overall and keep my feet wider instead of bringing my legs in close. It seemed faster (and I even practiced this on my January 30th rollerski) but was hard to do in the mashed potatoes. There were also places on course where the snow felt slow, like new snow condensing. Kinda weird conditions but likely because it was manufactured snow made when it was cold and this was the first time it was warming up so it hadn’t totally transformed yet.

 

Laura crushing it per usual (on a warm day!)

Anyway, I was leading Wave 2 for the women on the fourth lap when I couldn’t take my outside line on the downhill coming by The Trailhead. I freaked, snowplowed, got knocked backwards, and fell down:( I got back up quickly enough and skied on but lost a few places. At least my confidence wasn’t shaken on the downhills and my final time down that hill my outside lane was clear again and I took it full speed. I didn’t win my wave but I mostly felt good out there, appreciated some cheering, and was able to push my body well. I can’t ask for much more than that. 

Craigger racing the Loppet.

Now I’ll look forward to some classic races.