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.
