Ready for Rogla
· Mar 8, 11:15 AM
We’re loading the vans for tomorrow’s 10 hour drive to Slovenia, and I’m bringing with me a healthy balance of acceptance, frustration, optimism and readiness after this weekends OPAs. FIS has results from at least Sunday’s race, and FasterSkier has an article, but I will go into a little more detail here than what you might get by reading those links – at least as far as my races are concerned.
Two Weeks
· Nov 11, 08:43 PM
What a difference a week makes. When I left, we were seeing highs around 50, clear skies and snow up around 8000 feet – really, quite nice for October. Now, we’re looking at winter. There are 18 inches (and counting) up at Bachelor. “Tumalo Langlauf Club”: is getting after the grooming on Century, which means my appeals for a groomer have been answered. There’s not too much else to ask for right now. Well, “snow in West Yellowstone”: sure would be nice.
Time Trial Season
· Sep 20, 09:11 PM
Actually, this weekend felt like the beginnings of fall, which would be fine by me. It actually has been just fine training in the sun at 75-80 degrees in the afternoon, but I could do with some signs that winter is on its way. One sure sign of the approaching race season (9 weeks to the first race at West?) is the frequency of time trials in my training.
I guess 4 in 5.5 weeks isn’t really all that many (basically averaging one every 10-14 days), but it’s nice to always have the next one in sight. This morning Marshall and I did the North Rim TT a week ahead of schedule (I’m not going to be around next weekend and I convinced him to do it with me even though a couple of our other training partners had … (ahem) … a change of heart at the last minute). We battled back and forth the whole way until the finish where, tragically, there was no line to lunge for or camera to determine a winner. Not really a problem, I’m happy to claim a share of the course record for at least a few days.
This was my second PR of the summer, following up on August’s Westminster West Road effort. 21 seconds off in a 28 minute test today and 20 seconds off in an 18 minute test back in VT. I’m pretty pleased with both those efforts. Of course they were sandwiched around two rather disastrous uphill skate TTs (Century and Edison), so I really don’t know what to make of it. Maybe I need to consolidate the gains I’m making in classic skiing and get back to skating like the last couple of years? That seems like a good plan. Actually, it would be good to go faster than in years past.
I’m making a quick trip cross-country this weekend for the festivities surrounding my cousin’s wedding. It should be a great chance to catch up with the extended family, have a grand old time and hopefully catch some of that foliage I’m starting to miss.
CCC (3 for 3)
· Aug 1, 03:09 PM
My bike racing season continued (and ended) with the OBRA version of the Cascade Cycling Classic (aka the Cascade Stage Race), which is where you end up if you’re a Cat 4. After my huge successes at High Desert I decided to extend the season for two weeks. That let me get in a sweet “training ride” at Crater Lake and then a little intensity block in the form of 4 stages in three days.
Comment [1]
Ah Bike Racing
· Jul 12, 04:20 PM
The High Desert Omnium (Road Race) … Today was my first bike race of any kind in three years (since Williams Crit) and my first road race in six. It was pretty fun. I found some muscles that I didn’t remember existed, put my legs into trouble on a few occasions, did some suffering, threw in a couple of attacks and was even around to fight it out at the end.
Comment [1]
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.