Fairbanks
· Mar 23, 04:37 PM
Two days in March has gone a long ways towards changing my opinion of Fairbanks. While it’s still ridiculously cold (below 0°F) in the mornings, the sun actually comes up in the sky a little (and stays there) to the point where we’re seeing highs around 20. Actually, the skiing the last two days has been great. The snow is still squeaky cold, but skiing with temps in the teens really isn’t bad. And it’s hard to complain about waxing when VR40 is plenty of kick and really on the slow side.
Racing starts tomorrow at the late hour of 6PM, which does make me wonder what to do with the rest of the day. Normally I’d think daylight would be an issue, but it’s a little different up here this time of year. It takes at least an hour and a half for the sun to rise, and once it does, it just sort of stays at late afternoon type sunlight all day – until 8 or 830. So it might be cold, but it won’t be dark.
The only other news of note right now is that Mt. Redoubt erupted last night. There are some issues involved in flying between Fairbanks and Anchorage right now (can’t do it), so let’s hope that clears up by Sunday…
41. Engadin Skimarathon
· Mar 9, 07:29 AM
The scene around the Engadin start made every other race I’ve ever been to seem poorly attended. As we drove by the starting pen (it’s on a lake, so we could see it from the road above) an hour and a half before the start there were already 4-5 rows of skis lined up in the Elite A and Elite B waves. We had a parking pass, but weren’t quite sure in which lot it entitled us to park, so we ended up at least half a k from the staging area in a public lot. I’d been warned that it was a long walk from bag drop to the start, and I wasn’t too thrilled with the prospect of warming up, taking off all my warmups and then freezing for half an hour before the gun went off. So Marshall and I came up with a better plan. We would jog our skis down to the start, jog back, drop our clothes bags in the truck and then jog back down. Seemed like it would work pretty. With 35 minutes to go we took off down towards the start. We happened to run in to Kevin Hochtl and told him what we were doing. He said “that’s a great idea if you want to miss your start. Take your clothes off, put them in the bag, then go to the start.” So we did, except it was not as simple as it sounds.
The first 10 days
· Mar 5, 11:43 AM
I admit, aside from the pictures (which may be more interesting than my writing, and I’m okay with that), I’ve been pretty lazy about posting from over here. Granted, I have posted more pictures of Switzerland than I have for quite some time, so I’m going to give myself a pat on the back for actually using my camera. But enough apologizing and excuse making, time to write something a little more.
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Rumford
· Feb 5, 10:30 AM
Long sprints seem to be the norm on the domestic scene this year, and honestly, I’m not complaining too much. Yesterday was classic at Rumford and I qualified in just over 4 minutes. I did make it down to the 3:40s in the heats though.
There were only 29 guys racing yesterday and with a full field going through (“30” qualifiers), there wasn’t much of a premium on qualifying fast. Well, unless you wanted that nice $250 bonus for winning qualifying. I didn’t really think I’d win qualifying, but I also didn’t think I’d get caught. Being 16 or 17 seconds out in qualifying is bad enough, but to get caught while doing it, that’s just a little unnecessary. I had a lot of people remind me afterward that I did do a 50k on Saturday and I did kinda bonk, so maybe it wasn’t that surprising that I didn’t have a lot of life. And besides, qualifying isn’t really my thing. But still, 18th out of 29, ouch.
So, after the morning disaster I had a little food, relaxed (didn’t need to put my legs up and drain the lactate because I didn’t build any – oops) then get ready to do it again.
The afternoon went much better. I didn’t have a lot to work with in terms of energy, but just having people to follow (Chambo mostly, as we started in the same initial heat) really helped. I wasn’t ever going to make the race out there, but I followed along pretty well. Each heat felt the same or a little better than the one before it, and at the end of the day I made it through to the A final. I pulled down a 4th there, which was a bit disappointing. I really would have liked to be on the podium, but my sprint double pole failed me at the end. Ah well.
I’m a bit tired today, but hopefully this means I’m back on track for some better days this weekend. Carnival days again.
Craftsbury Marathon
· Feb 2, 06:52 PM
Well, Kris and Justin have already posted their version of events from Saturday, Eli doesn’t have a blog as far as I can tell, so I figure it’s time for me to throw my hat in the ring. Let’s start with the positives. The skiing was phenomenal – perfect tracks for 24.5 of the 25k loop (the top of the final hill got viciously windblown, something about which I was not happy on the second lap), waxing couldn’t have been easier, people turned out, my skis were great (and the many, many road crossings didn’t beat them up at all), and well, yeah, pretty much everything that wasn’t related to my performance was excellent. As for the race itself, well, I’ve had better.
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Wax of the Day: Skate Skis
· Jan 12, 09:50 PM
And no, I don’t mean skate skis in the sense that I meant last week. In Alaska LF6/ZR1 on my best skate skis gave excellent kick out of the track. Here, well, skate skis are the wax of the day because trying to classic ski is practically a waste of time. No one ever said waxing was going to be easy at Whistler Olympic Park was going to be easy, but the last couple of days have been downright ridiculous.
Nationals 10k skate (in brief)
· Jan 5, 10:47 PM
Historical perspective – a look back at my performances at past US Nationals:
2005 – Soldier Hollow, 10k Skate – 7th
2007 – Houghton, 15k Skate – 7th
2007 – Presque Isle, Pursuit – 7th
2008 – Houghton, 10k Skate – 7th
2009 – Anchorage, 10k Skate – 7th
I guess I’m nothing if not consistent. I think I should see what I can do about reserving the place next year. It will save me the effort of actually racing.
Today was cold. Well, not as cold as the weekend when they failed twice to hold the sprint. But they did shorten the race, went to an easier course (which avoided the big hills and the really cold holes) and sent us out at 15 second intervals. My race was a good effort (hard to be top 10 at Nationals on a bad day unless you’re Bird), but not quite stellar. I struggled with the cold out of the start, but got into it on the second lap. I’d be psyched to see lap times, but I don’t think they exist.
The schedule has been changed around. Instead of testing classic skis I’ll be racing – either a 10 or 15 classic. The jury is going to make a decision on the distance sometime tomorrow morning. I guess they’ll also probably have to make a call on whether or not to race, but we can’t be too concerned about that right now.
Whistler WC start spot on the line tomorrow. Time to go have one.