Boulder Lake was a really hard race this year. The conditions were my worst kind, cold and very slow. I’m a technical skier, not a power skier, and tend to do better on technical courses with lots of transitions and fast conditions where I can really...
This Saturday l did the Pre-Loppet, the race which uses the first half of the City of Lakes Loppet course. I started really well and found myself in the front for first half a K or so. Then I let two skiers ahead. My goal for this race was to control m...
This Saturday l did the Pre-Loppet, the race which uses the first half of the City of Lakes Loppet course. I started really well and found myself in the front for first half a K or so. Then I let two skiers ahead. My goal for this race was to control m...
This Saturday l did the Pre-Loppet, the race which uses the first half of the City of Lakes Loppet course. I started really well and found myself in the front for first half a K or so. Then I let two skiers ahead. My goal for this race was to control m...
This Saturday l did the Pre-Loppet, the race which uses the first half of the City of Lakes Loppet course. I started really well and found myself in the front for first half a K or so. Then I let two skiers ahead. My goal for this race was to control m...
Mary Beth writes:You may think that I'm trying to flip you off in this picture, but I'm actually showing off my latest battle wound. I was helping my niece wax her skis about three weeks ago. I did the final run your finger along the side of the base t...
Mary Beth writes:You may think that I'm trying to flip you off in this picture, but I'm actually showing off my latest battle wound. I was helping my niece wax her skis about three weeks ago. I did the final run your finger along the side of the base t...
Mary Beth writes:You may think that I'm trying to flip you off in this picture, but I'm actually showing off my latest battle wound. I was helping my niece wax her skis about three weeks ago. I did the final run your finger along the side of the base t...
Mary Beth writes:You may think that I'm trying to flip you off in this picture, but I'm actually showing off my latest battle wound. I was helping my niece wax her skis about three weeks ago. I did the final run your finger along the side of the base t...
Skiers are notoriously cheap. I know this because I am one. I’ve never liked spending a lot of money. But as I’ve gotten older and gained clarity on what is truly important and worthwhile, I’ve become looser with my money on those things. Skiing ...
My concerns about kick wax vanished as I trudged along in the sandpaper track cut out of the ice hard skate deck at Green Acres. It was obvious that no one would be using the tracks except for some of the steeper climbs. I did a few warm up laps to fam...
The first day with classic racing went really well for me. I had a fast start this time. The most important was a good starting position. I think that the sides are the best, and people should really struggle to get them, but surprisingly nobody realiz...
This past Sunday was the Como Championships 10k. This was my first chance to race this season, and I was using the weekend as a chance to bust some rust out of the legs (I couldn't take the race too seriously since Christmas was the day before, and I w...
As the sun was setting this evening and my kids were returning home from school, I was waxing five rather dull looking skis. Yes, I ignored the golden rule of ski care and left the skis unwaxed since last spring! My husband returned home from work as I was finishing the last pair. An hour later all the kids (ages 2-11) were dressed for one digit temperatures and had a snack that would hopefully tide them over for a couple hours. After loading up all the gear, we drove to our local high-school ski course and unloaded. The kids fought over who would wear the three headlamps we had in our possession. Five minutes into the ski my nine year old fell to the ground complaining of cold hands, feet, and skis that were too soft. I was still feeling optimistic, four of the five were still not complaining. The nine year old and my husband headed back to the car. I was now in charge of keeping the other four from getting lost in the complete darkness that was lit only by a fingernail moon. My two year old kept a steady pace, even as his five year old brother tried repeatedly to run him over head on. Keeping the younger two together, I watched as the darkness seemed to swallow my seven and eleven year olds as they skated away along the trail. After nearly an hour had passed the young crew was ready to share the car with their sister. My husband and two boys skied one last loop before calling it a night. divbr //divdivTo save time we drove directly to a Burger King for dinner. We raised a few eyebrows with our attire, and shared a good conversation about family with a restaurant patron. Years ago, when I was in my twenties, I never would have imagined that a night like this would be fairly typical. Life is a ton of work, but unexpectedly good./divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1572647974447867713-8455500230009844222?l=vakavaraceteam.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
The world can be unfair, and people can do terrible things to each other. Sadly, cross country skiers are not immune from this pain. When a woman can't take her children out cross country skiing in a local park without being robbed at gunpoint and then sexually assulted in front of her kids (article a href="http://www.startribune.com/local/110839604.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU"here/a), it certainly drives this point home.br /br /Cross country skiing is supposed to be safe. The ski trails are supposed to be a refuge away from the ills of society and the rush of the modern world. And when this refuge is invaded and the world spills onto the trails in all its horror I feel violated. It feels like the skiing community as a whole has been assulted.br /br /But what defines us is not the terrible things we must endure, but how we come out on the other side. The woman who was assulted released a a href="http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/mpls-poho/messages/topic/3WktKMthY3tOQ4CeSWcZmS"statement/a on a community forum. In it she said:br /br /strong"At one point the boys (who were robbing her) asked for our skis. I wish they could have taken them and used them and experienced the pure joy of gliding in the fresh snow, getting winded from exertion and breathing in cool, fresh air. Please send them all the love you can muster. I think they really need it."br //strongbr /Wow.br /br /If that does not speak to the power of an individual to forgive, and the power of skiing, I don't know what does. I personally am in awe of her response.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1572647974447867713-2518025495955131247?l=vakavaraceteam.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
pFall has always been my least favorite time of year. It’s dark, cold, bad conditions for just about anything, and we’re supposed to be putting in a lot of hours. Not a good combination. This November has proved no different. I haven’t had my heart in my training lately so that is not helping either. I’ve been more in the mood to ‘nest’ in this weather than get out and train and hadn’t trained in a couple days. Dave came to my rescue today and got me out the door. We decided to try the U of M golf course since we figured it’d still have snow. Well, it had snow, sort of. It was more ice than snow, but we ventured out anyway. There is a fair amount of terrain there that we had to navigate in addition to bare spots and ruts so finding a good area to ski was tricky. Conversation was difficult above the noise of us scraping along but some snippets were… Angie to Dave, “Look, another fool!” as we spotted another skier, who wasn’t out long. Dave to Angie, “Come on!” in the tone you’d use to coax a puppy along. We finally picked our way to the north and east sides of the course and found some fairways that had decent coverage, few ruts, and were gradual enough that we could get up and down them reasonably well. Even so, it was rather comical to see each other hobbling and skittering along. I think my heart rate topped out at 110 since it was so hard to move around. All that said, I actually began to enjoy myself. It was a nice sunny day, I enjoyed the company, and I was even getting the hang of the ice at the end. I was thinking how it was good practice in case we have to race in conditions like we did at Pepsi last year. So it wasn’t so futile after all. (I’m still praying for a few inches of fresh snow rather than more freezing rain tomorrow though.)/p div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1572647974447867713-2391469453985667342?l=vakavaraceteam.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hvZteNu0E40/TOn3sRWmm6I/AAAAAAAAALs/zoUkvtkvvTM/s1600/trail%2Bmag.jpg"img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 230px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542233156400618402" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hvZteNu0E40/TOn3sRWmm6I/AAAAAAAAALs/zoUkvtkvvTM/s320/trail%2Bmag.jpg" //a div/divdivSo I got a copy of MN Trails magazine in the mail, and I guess I can now add cover model to my resume. The magazine did have great coverage of last year's MN Skinnyski Series (including a word-for-word copy of a href="http://vakavaraceteam.blogspot.com/2010/05/mary-beths-fossavatn-ski-marathon-race.html"Mary Beth's Iceland blog entry /a- even including my editor's note!). Their team competition coverage was especially entertaining. It went:/divdiv/divbr /div"The team competition proved to be, once again, a duel between Vakava/Sisu and Peter's Cheaters. This rivalry has grown to epic proportions and taken on its own mythology. It is a story of good against evil: on the side of good the wholesome and hard-working Vakava racing team, and on the side of evil the Cheater's, a heartless group of mercenaries - recruited by mastermind Peter Hansen - who wouldn't recognize each other on the street. Good triumphed in the end, but there were some interesting moments along the way. Vakava came out with guns blazing at the Twin Cities Championships and scored a whopping 586 points to 541 for the Cheaters. And it was the Skinnyski team also showing some firepower with 581. Boulder Lake saw the two favorites surge ahead with 590- and 572- point totals, respectively. The Cheaters snuck ahead at the Pepsi Challange. Then it was the Muven Gruven squad who made up some serious distance at the Nordic Spirit race. Muven Gruven was best at the City of Lakes Loppet, too. Were we going to see a new champion? It was not to be, as Vakava and Cheaters brought in the muscle for the Mora Vasaloppet. Vakava showed its might with a dominating 595-point performance - just five points shy of a perfect score. Still. in the Skinnyski Series, it's never over until the ax swings at the Minnesota Finlandia. The Cheaters were game and topped Vakava by over 100 points, but it was not enough. The skiers in blue came out on top."/divbr /divVakava/Sisu 3525/divdivPeter's Cheaters 3431/divdivMuven Gruven 3167/divdivSkinnyski.com 2578/divdivHoigaard's/Breadsmith 1594/divbr /divNice recap. Couldn't have said it better myself!/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1572647974447867713-2713945607711622565?l=vakavaraceteam.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
The twin cities got a bit of snow last Friday and Saturday, which was very nice. We have had a very mild fall so far, and that has made for some quite enjoyable training conditions (although now that I have a job with an hour commute each way, I am still figuring out how to fit it all in...). Where I live in Red Wing we only got about 3 or 4 inches, but that was still enough to get out to the high school ball fields for some skiing on Saturday and Sunday. It was warm slushy snow, and harries were kicking well on Saturday. Sunday I broke trail on skate skis, which was quite the strength workout. I had to V2 the downhills, and V1 everything else.br /br /This Thursday Vakava had our first practice on snow. We opted to head to the U of MN golfcourse to find some pretty much untouched snow to try our hand at crust skiing. It worked pretty well, although that part of the cities definately got more snow than Red Wing, and the problem was that we would break through pretty often. It was still very enjoyable to be out skiing, and although conditions did not lend themselves to doing intervals, we still got in a good workout chasing each other around the course.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1572647974447867713-8010978091568310319?l=vakavaraceteam.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
So the 2011 schedule for the a href="http://www.minnesotaskinnyskiseries.com/news/171"Minnesota Skinnyski Series/a was announced today. The skinnyski series is a 7 race series that awards overall, age group, team (Vakava is the defending champs), and most improved awards.br /br /The 2 main changes to the series this year are:br /1.) the Mayor's Challange 15k classic race will replace the Pepsi Challange classic race. This takes one of the least attended races in the series (the classic race at Pepsi) and replaces it with a Super Tour and CCSA event. For the team race this will no doubt make it even more important than normal to have older team members racing that weekend - since the under 25yr olds will have the entire college field to fend off, and the under 30yr olds will have the CXC team and other elites to battle to earn good age group points. I can already hear Peter calling up every 80 year old he can think of to try and convince them to ski on his team.br /2.) the Nordic Spirit Race will be classic this year. This means that for the first time in the 7 year series history there will be 2 classic races in the series (along with a 2 day pursuit and a same-day pursuit - meaning 4 chances to put on classic skis). This is putting an increased emphesis on classic technique that makes since, since the prize for winning the series is a trip to Iceland to race in the Fossavatn ski marathon (a classic race). This also only reinforces my desire to buy a new pair of classic skis ASAP.br /br /Anyone else have thoughts on the series?div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1572647974447867713-6650797198888927514?l=vakavaraceteam.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
divDave writes:br /br /We took The Ski up to the Birkie trail recently as part of Vakava’s annual fall training camp – we figured that it deserved a trip to the Holy Land after being liberated from the dark clutches of Peter’s Cheaters. (For those of you who aren’t quite up to date on this, The Ski is the trophy from the team competition of the Minnesota Skinnyski Series – it’s been going back and forth between Vakava and Peter’s collection of mercenaries, and the 2010 competition saw The Ski come back to its rightful owners, namely us.)br //divimg style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 201px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5527355491656614178" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hvZteNu0E40/TLUciNN_QSI/AAAAAAAAAKs/onzSlO2oGYg/s320/2010VakavaFallCamp.JPG" /br /Vakava has been doing a fall camp in the Hayward area since 2004, and we’ve done it in the sun, the rain, and even a dusting of snow, with weather ranging from lousy to beautiful. This one would have to be rated spectacular – gorgeous fall foliage, sunny, no wind, and perfect roller ski temperatures. The cold weather can hold off for another month – I’m still enjoying the Indian summer.br /br /We pole-hiked the Birkie trail Friday afternoon, roller skied (classic intervals and video-recording) near OO Saturday morning, roller skied some more (including a bunch of specific strength and sprints) Saturday afternoon, and then did our 50K skate (with fast pickups) Sunday morning. The 50K in particular was under perfect conditions – roller skiing from Cable to Drummond and back on beautiful, winding, rolling roads through the north woods – kind of like the Birkie trail but on roller skis.br /br /Then after the hard work, it was time to relax, watch ski videos, eat great food (thanks again, Michele), drink great beer (including home-brew from Angie and Kevin), and, of course, enjoy great company with the Vakava Team. All together, a big, excellent weekend, with lots of good training and lots of fun.br /br /Now, we have our next set of roller ski time trials this coming week; we’re gradually bumping up the intensity and specificity of our training; and it won’t be long before the snow flies and we’re out skiing on the real stuff.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1572647974447867713-3168774299430413038?l=vakavaraceteam.blogspot.com' alt='' //div