2026 Mount Ashwabay Summit Race (and other Tour de Finn races/notes)

Not that I was planning on doing the Noque, but when I saw the predicted temps, I sure was glad I wasn't. Ben provided a nice recap of the race so I won't belabor, only to say that Brock told me he had good kick without any sticky wax and Laura said she raced in her warm-ups and every underlayer she had brought. There was a good showing from the Juniorit Team at the Noque with only Brock and Ben representing us Seniorits; hence, those whippersnappers took some revenge on us geezers after the Riverview Loppet to surpass us by 4 points when the updated standings came out. 

 Mount Ashwabay Summit Ski Race 30 km Classic

This was my first time skiing and racing at Mount Ashwabay. It's always a treat to ski somewhere new, especially in the midwest. A bunch of Vakars had done the race last year and the guys said it was "surprinsingly double-poleable." Great, I love double poling, but coming from double pole specialists, I suspected I'd be doing more striding. The course was two 15 km laps with each lap cresting to the summit and back down again. 

The Mount Ashwabay race course. 2 loops for 30 km.

After having the best kick of my life at our Wednesday night Vakava Battle Creek practice, I showed up to Mount Ashwabay with Swix 40 on my skis and thought that would be good but my kick sucked. I added a layer of 45 but it still wasn't very good. I was hesitant to add more since I'd heard this was a double pole race. It also was kind of warm. My Garmin said it was 14 ℉. Not exactly balmy but after the recent arctic blast, I had to keep shedding layers.

There was a sizeable field to line up at a relatively narrow start, likely because this was THE Tour de Finn race at Mount Ashwabay. I tried to ski narrow and not get my poles broken. Fortunately after a couple hundred meters the congestion died away to a couple skiers wide. I was going hard, hard, hard, but couldn't quite catch a big pack of women ahead of me. Then my teammates Adrienne and Bonnie passed me. I kept yo-yoing with Bonnie but once we began climbing after the lowest point on the course, Bonnie was mostly ahead of me.  

After a flatter section, we climbed in earnest. My kick wasn't good enough to stay in the tracks so I got out and ran/shuffled. Bonnie left me in the dust and by the top of the climb, my lungs and quads burned. I could never remember so much discomfort in my quads classic skiing previously. And I dreaded doing this climb again. The course briefly flattened before making a second, slightly shorter, push to the top. 

This Mount Ashwabay course profile doesn't look terribly impressive, but it did make for about 1,000 feet of climbing over the 30 km race. I think the 200 feet of climbing from the course low point to where it flattened out from about 2 to 5 km in the first lap and 17 to 20 km in the second lap, really wore me down. Perhaps had my kick been a bit better I could have rallied over that 3 km stretch.

 

Then the course really did flatten out but there was still some false flats and overall the snow was slow. I was passing a bunch of racers who had started before me in different races. Soon we were at the final summit and then going back downhill. The trail was gradual enough that the descent wasn't at all scary but the initial hill was quite long in the tuck position. There was another flatter section that I tried to push and then one final downhill. Here Allie and then Molly skied by me. I made myself ski with those two as we started out on the second lap.  

We reeled back in Bonnie, but then Allie got away. She had some good kick on her skis. Molly was more in my boat with the kick and I was able to ski with her as we exchanged leads a couple times. I wasn't looking forward to the big uphill, although I think the slightly flatter but steady climbing was worse for me. I just tucked in behind Molly for some shuffling up the big hill until I was losing too much energy staying in the tracks and then got out and ran. I pulled ahead of Molly here, and on the second steeper uphill section and then we were on to mostly double poling.

Molly passed me as we descended from the summit. I was skiing right behind her but as we came to the flatter section between the two downhill segments, Molly surged with her double pole and I had no response. From here it was just a few minutes down to the finish. 

I have to admit that I had some higher hopes for this race, it being a classic race afterall. It was quite competitive though. Molly is a good skier and if I was able to ski with her for the second lap until she gradually pulled away from me to beat me by 25 seconds, that's not too bad. I think there were a couple things that made this race hard for me: the gradual 200 foot climb from 2 to 5 km, not having very good kick, and I was punching through a lot with my pole baskets and I'm starting to think I need to get some slightly bigger baskets on my poles.  

 Here's to hoping Mora goes a bit better.... 

Vakava crew at the 2026 Mount Ashwabay race. Lots of pie servers (age class and 2nd and 3rd overall prizes) and one pie (for the win).

 And in terms of the Vakava Seniorits, Craig finished 7th and Erik 17th for the men while Adrienne led the charge for the women with a 3rd place finish. I was 9th and Eva 19th. BUT those Juniorits fielded an almost full team led by Laura winning the women's race, Elena in 6th and Bonnie in 11th. For the Juniorit men, Josh crushed in 3rd followed by Ian in 11th. And for the Vakava skiers who didn't score any team points on the day: Haakon finished 10th and Dave 26th in the 30 km classic, and Mary Beth 2nd and Mark 18th in the 30 km skate.

The City of Lakes Loppet Marathon

With age comes wisdom and so many of us Seniorits either took the weekend off or, myself included, stayed near Mount Ashwabay to ski there another day. But the young guns returned to the city and man-made snow to race some loops and whoop up on us old farts. Gabby took 4th place, Steph 6th, and Laura 9th so Elena's 13th place wasn't even scored in the team competition. For the Juniorit men, Sam was 15th, McEwan 42nd, and Ian 44th to collect some nice points. Brock was the lone Seniorit representative, finishing 108th.

 

 

 So, while the Juniorits led us Seniorits by 4 points coming into this weekend, they now have a staggering 572.18 point gap on us. Perhaps those youngins will run out of steam as the series continues. For now, we'll take solace in a margin over Yamageddon. Meanwhile, the TCSC Icy Insurgents continue their commanding lead. Stay tuned to see if Vakava can melt the ice before the 2026 Tour de Finn wraps up in early March. 

Noquemanon 2026

 Time to pull some of my weight around the Vakava blog.  Elspeth has been holding down the fort almost solo for quite a while.  My last post was after my 10th Birkie back in 2023.  Yikes.

We will dive in for a classic Ben style race report.

Brief Update

So while we probably don't need to get into everything that has happened since the 2023 Birkie, a little context will help set the stage for the race report itself.

Training Update

My year has really been built around skiing.  Usually I have a rolling list of stupid events I sign up for that keep me training for something.  This past year, as I was thinking about possible summer or fall events nothing was really scratching any itch.  DaMN?  Nah.  Marji?  Nah.  Some running event?  Nah.

So instead I've had a fairly singular focus on the 2025/2026 ski season.  I signed up for some coaching above and beyond Vakava, and have been training long and hard all summer and fall.  In the ten months since April I have more hours than I have had for any 12 month April-Mar stretch in my training records.  More roller skiing, more strength, more long workouts, more intervals.  Pretty much just more.

So when I say I'm a bit nervous about the race season its because I have almost 500 hours invested in this season and I hope it pays off.

Season Plan

The other new thing for the year is a focus on classic skiing.  I spent a number of years of wanting to like classic skiing but always feeling like I kinda sucked.  I was always hunting for kick thinking it was just my technique.  It couldn't possibly be the skis right?  Well last year I finally sprung for some sweet new Atomic C9's from Finn Sisu.  Turns out I don't suck.  Well, it isn't just me anyhow.  Those new skis have given me a new love of classic skiing.

So this year for my 13th Birkie I'm jumping into the classic race!  In fact, I'm only doing a whopping 20km of skate racing all year and everything else is classic, culminating in the Ski North Ultra 100k.

Noque Specific Preamble

Did anyone notice it was cold recently?  I did the Noque in 2019 when it was also -15F at the start.  So I was fairly confident that they were going to hold the race even though the temps were pretty consistently looking frigid.  They cancelled the Junior and Adaptive races on Friday, and pushed the 50km start back an hour on Saturday, but otherwise it was all systems go.

But let me tell you, I was glad to be doing classic this time instead of skating.  Those skis in 2019 felt like they had kick so I might as well be able to use that.

Race Report

Alright, if I want to get this out we need to tighten this up a bit.  More bullet points, less rambling prose.

Pre-Start to Deer Lake

• Stayed in the elementary school until about 10 minutes to the start
• Dashed outside, chucked the bag in the truck, put the skis on the snow, went 100m up the trail, said "yup, got kick", rolled up to the start line
• Started about 3rd or 4th row
• Flailed like mad as folks swept past me on the first downhill
• Grunted up the first big climb with my hr well into L4
• Tried to tag onto the end of a group hoping things would settle down
• Lost contact and stepped out to let Laura go catch the group
• Left Al Quaal out into the wilderness quickly finding myself basically alone
• Desperately trying to bring my HR back into a zone I thought I could sustain for 3.5+ hours
• Take my first drink from my bottle that had near boiling water in it about 15 minutes before the start and almost burn my mouth
• Crossing Deer Lake I could still see people ahead so I wasn't COMPLETELY alone

Deer Lake to Dead River Basin

• That headwall off of Deer Lake 😲
• Finally feeling like I am settling into something and people might be coming back to me a little bit
• Catch up to Brock on a steep climb after some power lines.  He is doing some striding on his double pole skis with no kick wax... ouch
• Catch up to Mike and Ketzel
• Ketzel pulls three 40+ Vakava dudes for a couple of km
• Sun is shining and snow everywhere so it is beautiful
• Grooming suddenly changes and I'm no longer fighting for every cm of trail, skis actually seem fast relative to others now.  Dramatic and very noticeable change.
• Ketzel gives me a turn on the front and I feel good but notice I'm probably going harder than I should
• The thought of the climb off Dead River up to the high point and the massive implosion I had there the last time I raced is looming in my mind
• Aid station, supplement my bottle with a drink of something
• Lose Mike who forgot his bottle in the car in Marquette and he takes on more fuel
• Quickly find myself crossing Dead River and ready to hit the big climb

Dead River Basin to Forestville

• Tom Woody and Ketzel climb like goats and disappear up the hill
• Share the whole climb with Brock
• Absolutely loving the views.  Blue skies, DEEP snow next to the trail, nice grooming, beautiful trees...
• Think I'm almost to the top starting about half way up the climb
• Finally make the top, not feeeling completely blown, a little crampy twinge in a quad though
• Long glide down to 510, through the start of the 24km, and into the Mead Hills area
• Rip past Tom on that downhill, he wants to trade skis
• Tom passes me back on the climb up Mead Hills
• Rip past him again on the way down
• Catch back up to Ketzel
• Start passing some of the 24km skiers, passing is HARD, the tracks are faster than the skate deck
• Some 24km skier won't stop skiing on my tails
• About 15km to go Brock decided it was time to race and absolutely rockets off the front and disappears
• Ketzel climbs better than I do, but I can usually catch up on the downhills or flat sections
• Starting to get other cramp twinges.  First the right lat.  Then the left tricep.  Only one sharp twinge.
• Go through FV trailhead... only 9km to go... not dead yet... bottle is empty though and I definitely should have been taking some gels

Forestville to Marquette

• Definitely getting a little bonky, but in my haze don't do anything to fix it
• Mitchell from the 50k skate passes looking like a boss... only skater to pass me
• Ketzel breaks the elastic and slowly gets out of sight
• Just... need... to... make... it... to... Marquette
• Get through River Park
• Just the last 1-2km of flat straight run into the dome
• All alone so not much to keep the pace going
• Finish and go lay on the floor in the dome hoping I don't have full body cramps for someone to video and send to Artie

Strava Flyby comparison on my race with Ketzel

Conclusion

I'm mostly pleased with how things went.  Think I need to evaluate my ski selection/grind for COLD races.  I think I gave away both some time and energy in that first 45 minutes.  Definitely need to fuel more.  So that is actually a positive and negative.  Seems like all of my training has made me a little more durable for going HARD and fighting through the bonk, but definitely not happy with the execution as that is just a mental lapse.

In the end I walked away with a age group win and a solid marathon race under my belt.

Vakava overall had a solid day with a bunch of age group hardware and Laura was 3rd female.

Introducing Vakava Seniorit versus Juniorit and the Riverview Loppet (and Ski de She)

Two years ago, the year of the inaugural Tour de Finn, Vakava entered a team and we took second. Not winning, especially for the team sponsored by Finn Sisu, was a bit of a bruise to our ego. Hence, last year, we fielded two teams, Vakava Pink and Vakava Blue, with the Pink team stacked with those of us committed to the most Tour de Finn races. And it worked out, Pink won the Tour de Finn team competition handedly.  

The Vakava Racing Team 2025-2026

This year, in an attempt to encourage more racing and some friendly rivalry, Vakava has pitted our seniors (those age 40 and older) against our juniors. Not unlike many other local teams, we’re limited in how many teams we can enter because we only have enough women for two teams. Thus, many of our male skiers are not on either team.

And so this brings me to the Riverview Loppet on the Tour de Finn circuit. Erik and I were on a ski trip in Colorado the past two weekends (blogpost to be published some day) and so, after Skadi’s Chase was cancelled, this was our first Tour de Finn race. Two weekends previous the Seniors made us proud taking the victory over the juniors in the BCFK, but alas the juniors had their revenge at the 22 km Seeley Hills Classic where Gabby won the women's race while Josh took second and Leif third. In an advantage for our Seniorit Team, all the racing Juniorit women were doing the Ski de She, instead of the Riverview Loppet. 

Seeley Hill Classic 22 km age class podium with Leif (left) and Josh (middle).

Coach Dave was second in the 70+ age class in the 22 km classic but isn't on our Seniorit team.

It’s interesting how life moves in circles. Perhaps due to our current team camaraderie, or WhatsApp, or a combo of the two, the Vakava Racing team has gotten a bit tighter and everyone is game with carpooling and sharing lodging. Our teammate Ian found a group of us doing either the Riverview Loppet or Tour de She a VRBO north of Hayward. We got to carpool with Ian and fellow teammate McEwan to hear some new stories. After years of Erik and I driving and staying by ourselves, suddenly it feels a bit like we’re back in college!

I’ve raced the Riverview Loppet twice previously, both times when it was the weekend after the Birkie before Pepsi moved to that weekend. The first time was back in 2004 when I skated the long race (it was a bit shorter back then) and it was a warm slow ski day. The second time was 2007 or ‘08 when I raced the shorter classic distance, which per memory, was only 12 km. I’ve never skied the After Hours trails (where the Riverview Loppet takes place in Brule, Wisconsin) for training ever. Hence, all I could really remember about the course was that some of it was fairly flat but that there was one section of sketchy downhills.

As a classic specialist, the Riverview Loppet might be my only skate race of the season, but because the official Tour de Finn race was the skate, that’s the race I entered. There was a fairly icy base following a warmup earlier in the week but it began snowing the evening before the race and kept snowing right through the race. This made for some pretty conditions in the trees, but for a very soft base.

Likely because the Riverview Loppet was on the Tour de Finn series, there was a big crowd and the race organizers decided there should be two waves for the 28 km skate. Those 40 and older would start two minutes later. Except, in the last five minutes of the race I learned it was those 41 and older (I’m 40) and anyone who wanted to could actually start in the first wave if they felt fast. Hence, because of the confusion, I got a really really bad starting position at the absolute back.

Sometimes I wish people would self-seed a bit better. I spent the first couple kilometers trying to get around a few people. The track was only one skier wide to complicate matters. As my former Vakava teammate Ben, passed me though from the “old people’s wave” I double poled while he passed me and I realized the double poling was actually quite fast on the firmest part of the skate deck.

I’ll be frank here, the skating absolutely sucked. Conditions were slow and to boot, the course isn’t piston-bully groomed, and so as often happens, there’s a small firm strip in the middle of the skate deck, but if I pushed off just off that, my ski would sink down and squirrel to the side. I hoped the slow conditions would work to my advantage as more of an endurance specialist but as the race progressed, it became clear, I’m just not good at skate skiing under these conditions.

I double poled along the side as the pack of the old people caught me, teammate Mary Beth hanging on the back. She told me to jump on and I tried but we were going uphill and I couldn’t V-1 very efficiently and so they got away. Awhile later teammate Brock caught me. He’s a real double pole specialist. I moved to the side and started double poling with everything I had and instead of passing me, Brock just tucked in behind me. The tempo was really jacking up my heart rate and I didn’t think I could maintain the speed for the remainder of the race so I told him to pass me. I tried to ski behind him, he was mostly double poling, but I just wasn’t strong enough and so I was back skiing on my own, occasionally trying to enjoy the snow clinging to the trees, but mostly just trying not to trip myself up in the soft snow.

About 14 km into the race my teammate Leif in the classic race passed me. I tried to double pole behind him and was successful for awhile, including on this super sketchy snow plowed out downhill. Fortunately it was a relatively short downhill and I talked to myself enough that I stayed upright but not long after Leif got away from me, too. Those short stints of double poling with Brock and Leif were my favorite times on course.

The course was an 18 km loop followed by a 10 km loop (same trail, just cut off 8 km) on some fairly fun terrain - few sketchy hills but lots of turns and transitions to work. Under normal circumstances, this would likely be a very fun course but with so much fresh snow, I almost felt like I was stopping around corners, struggling to string together the transitions, and I love transitions. I just tried to keep the tempo high and keep forcing the pace even though there was rarely anyone ever in sight. 

Riverview Loppet course. The southwest part of the course was the extra 8 km we did the first lap.

 My time was just under 2 hours for a 28 km skate race. It definitely wasn’t my day but gave me more training time and made the drive more worth it. Afterwards there was one of those local lunches in the old town hall building that was retrofitted as a basketball court and the Lions club sang us their song. And almost everyone got an award.

For the Seniorits, Erik helped pull Mary Beth to the win from the old people’s wave. The timer seemed a bit shocked that someone 62 could beat out those twenty years her junior. Otherwise Craig had a strong showing for the Seniorit men, finishing 5th (I believe the official results are wrong since Craig started with the fast youngsters and hence never subtracted his 2 minute wave time), with Erik in 31st and Brock in 36th and for the Seniorit Women I finished 6th and Eva 11th to round out a full scoring Tour de Finn points team. For those whippersnappers, Ian led the chase with 18th place followed closely by McEwan in 19th. Leif Hanson won the 18 km classic race for which I believe he will get 20 Tour de Finn points for doing one of the offered races. Nate Porath for Vakava (at large) placed 13th in the 28 km skate while Zack Pannkuk won the 10 km skate by a large margin (should I tell him that’s called cherrypicking??? My editor let me keep this comment:)) 

Zach winning the 10 km skate.

And finally but not least, Ahvo Taipale (does he need an introduction?) won the 10 km classic at age 79, so don’t give up yet!

Moving on to the Tour de She, Gabby Vandredies placed 7th in the 30 km skate followed by Stephanie Lewis in 9th, and Laura Cattaneo in 18th. In the 20 km classic, Adrienne Keller finished 10th. 

Adrienne for the 40-49 age class win!

Stephanie (left) and Gabby (center) for the 20-29 age class at the 30 km Ski de She.