FasterSkier

Category: XCFeeds

A collection of live feeds from cross-country ski blogs around the web.

  • The Wohnwagen adventure

    Being a biathlete has brought me more opportunity then I have ever imagined in my life. I have been able to travel places I never would have imaged and made some great friends from all over the world. This winter a new adventure came to life while looking for races to do mid-season. Myself and a couple good friends of mine were all looking for new opportunity through the month of February. Looking for great competition and some challenging events to help boost my racing level up a notch or two, we decided on traveling to Germany to battle it out in a couple German cups here. While looking to make this trip as economical as possible, we decided upon traveling and living in an RV, wohnwagen, for our duration here. As I stated earlier, biathlon has brought so many different adventures to my life. You never know where you might find yourself year to year or even month to month.
    Our first stop in our Wohnwagen adventure is to Oberhof, a biathlon hotspot. Here is a quick overview of life here in Oberhof.
    Oberhof in a smaller size town about three hours North West of Munich. It seems similar to Lake Placid, NY because it is home to many winter sports including bobsled, alpine skiing, Nordic and of course biathlon. It was actually the first stop on the Tour de ski this year. It was home of the 2004 World Championships for biathlon and hosts a biathlon world cup every year in January. It opened its own ski tunnel a couple summers ago just down the road, so not only do you have skiing all winter long but through the summer now too. The venue is home to one of the largest stadiums, which is packed full through the World Cup with somewhere around 30,000 people for every race. The World cup venue is only one of about five or six different biathlon ranges you can find here. One of which is indoors with huge doors that allow you to rollerski in and out of. This range also provides a video screen of your target next to every point, allowing you to look at your shots with a quick glance after every shot. Home to many German National team athletes, Oberhof is defiantly not a bad place to be a biathlete.
    Nestled in the Thuringer Forest, with Nordic trails headed in every direction, this small German villages has a great Nordic population of all different abilities. The towering pine forests surrounding the area are all heavily weighted down with heavy white snow and makes for beautiful skiing. And it’s often foggy weather has earned this place a nice name of Foghof.
    Our races start this weekend with an individual race. I am new to the German Cup scene, so I am excited to get things underway with Saturday’s individual race. No matter the fog, wind or crazy hilly race course, I am just happy to be here and to have a race bib on.
    More stories still to come…..stop by again soon,

    BethAnn






  • The Wohnwagen adventure

    Being a biathlete has brought me more opportunity then I have ever imagined in my life. I have been able to travel places I never would have imaged and made some great friends from all over the world. This winter a new adventure came to life while looking for races to do mid-season. Myself and a couple good friends of mine were all looking for new opportunity through the month of February. Looking for great competition and some challenging events to help boost my racing level up a notch or two, we decided on traveling to Germany to battle it out in a couple German cups here. While looking to make this trip as economical as possible, we decided upon traveling and living in an RV, wohnwagen, for our duration here. As I stated earlier, biathlon has brought so many different adventures to my life. You never know where you might find yourself year to year or even month to month.
    Our first stop in our Wohnwagen adventure is to Oberhof, a biathlon hotspot. Here is a quick overview of life here in Oberhof.
    Oberhof in a smaller size town about three hours North West of Munich. It seems similar to Lake Placid, NY because it is home to many winter sports including bobsled, alpine skiing, Nordic and of course biathlon. It was actually the first stop on the Tour de ski this year. It was home of the 2004 World Championships for biathlon and hosts a biathlon world cup every year in January. It opened its own ski tunnel a couple summers ago just down the road, so not only do you have skiing all winter long but through the summer now too. The venue is home to one of the largest stadiums, which is packed full through the World Cup with somewhere around 30,000 people for every race. The World cup venue is only one of about five or six different biathlon ranges you can find here. One of which is indoors with huge doors that allow you to rollerski in and out of. This range also provides a video screen of your target next to every point, allowing you to look at your shots with a quick glance after every shot. Home to many German National team athletes, Oberhof is defiantly not a bad place to be a biathlete.
    Nestled in the Thuringer Forest, with Nordic trails headed in every direction, this small German villages has a great Nordic population of all different abilities. The towering pine forests surrounding the area are all heavily weighted down with heavy white snow and makes for beautiful skiing. And it’s often foggy weather has earned this place a nice name of Foghof.
    Our races start this weekend with an individual race. I am new to the German Cup scene, so I am excited to get things underway with Saturday’s individual race. No matter the fog, wind or crazy hilly race course, I am just happy to be here and to have a race bib on.
    More stories still to come…..stop by again soon,

    BethAnn






  • The Wohnwagen adventure

    Being a biathlete has brought me more opportunity then I have ever imagined in my life. I have been able to travel places I never would have imaged and made some great friends from all over the world. This winter a new adventure came to life while looking for races to do mid-season. Myself and a couple good friends of mine were all looking for new opportunity through the month of February. Looking for great competition and some challenging events to help boost my racing level up a notch or two, we decided on traveling to Germany to battle it out in a couple German cups here. While looking to make this trip as economical as possible, we decided upon traveling and living in an RV, wohnwagen, for our duration here. As I stated earlier, biathlon has brought so many different adventures to my life. You never know where you might find yourself year to year or even month to month.
    Our first stop in our Wohnwagen adventure is to Oberhof, a biathlon hotspot. Here is a quick overview of life here in Oberhof.
    Oberhof in a smaller size town about three hours North West of Munich. It seems similar to Lake Placid, NY because it is home to many winter sports including bobsled, alpine skiing, Nordic and of course biathlon. It was actually the first stop on the Tour de ski this year. It was home of the 2004 World Championships for biathlon and hosts a biathlon world cup every year in January. It opened its own ski tunnel a couple summers ago just down the road, so not only do you have skiing all winter long but through the summer now too. The venue is home to one of the largest stadiums, which is packed full through the World Cup with somewhere around 30,000 people for every race. The World cup venue is only one of about five or six different biathlon ranges you can find here. One of which is indoors with huge doors that allow you to rollerski in and out of. This range also provides a video screen of your target next to every point, allowing you to look at your shots with a quick glance after every shot. Home to many German National team athletes, Oberhof is defiantly not a bad place to be a biathlete.
    Nestled in the Thuringer Forest, with Nordic trails headed in every direction, this small German villages has a great Nordic population of all different abilities. The towering pine forests surrounding the area are all heavily weighted down with heavy white snow and makes for beautiful skiing. And it’s often foggy weather has earned this place a nice name of Foghof.
    Our races start this weekend with an individual race. I am new to the German Cup scene, so I am excited to get things underway with Saturday’s individual race. No matter the fog, wind or crazy hilly race course, I am just happy to be here and to have a race bib on.
    More stories still to come…..stop by again soon,

    BethAnn






  • The Wohnwagen adventure

    Being a biathlete has brought me more opportunity then I have ever imagined in my life. I have been able to travel places I never would have imaged and made some great friends from all over the world. This winter a new adventure came to life while looking for races to do mid-season. Myself and a couple good friends of mine were all looking for new opportunity through the month of February. Looking for great competition and some challenging events to help boost my racing level up a notch or two, we decided on traveling to Germany to battle it out in a couple German cups here. While looking to make this trip as economical as possible, we decided upon traveling and living in an RV, wohnwagen, for our duration here. As I stated earlier, biathlon has brought so many different adventures to my life. You never know where you might find yourself year to year or even month to month.
    Our first stop in our Wohnwagen adventure is to Oberhof, a biathlon hotspot. Here is a quick overview of life here in Oberhof.
    Oberhof in a smaller size town about three hours North West of Munich. It seems similar to Lake Placid, NY because it is home to many winter sports including bobsled, alpine skiing, Nordic and of course biathlon. It was actually the first stop on the Tour de ski this year. It was home of the 2004 World Championships for biathlon and hosts a biathlon world cup every year in January. It opened its own ski tunnel a couple summers ago just down the road, so not only do you have skiing all winter long but through the summer now too. The venue is home to one of the largest stadiums, which is packed full through the World Cup with somewhere around 30,000 people for every race. The World cup venue is only one of about five or six different biathlon ranges you can find here. One of which is indoors with huge doors that allow you to rollerski in and out of. This range also provides a video screen of your target next to every point, allowing you to look at your shots with a quick glance after every shot. Home to many German National team athletes, Oberhof is defiantly not a bad place to be a biathlete.
    Nestled in the Thuringer Forest, with Nordic trails headed in every direction, this small German villages has a great Nordic population of all different abilities. The towering pine forests surrounding the area are all heavily weighted down with heavy white snow and makes for beautiful skiing. And it’s often foggy weather has earned this place a nice name of Foghof.
    Our races start this weekend with an individual race. I am new to the German Cup scene, so I am excited to get things underway with Saturday’s individual race. No matter the fog, wind or crazy hilly race course, I am just happy to be here and to have a race bib on.
    More stories still to come…..stop by again soon,

    BethAnn






  • The Wohnwagen adventure

    Being a biathlete has brought me more opportunity then I have ever imagined in my life. I have been able to travel places I never would have imaged and made some great friends from all over the world. This winter a new adventure came to life while looking for races to do mid-season. Myself and a couple good friends of mine were all looking for new opportunity through the month of February. Looking for great competition and some challenging events to help boost my racing level up a notch or two, we decided on traveling to Germany to battle it out in a couple German cups here. While looking to make this trip as economical as possible, we decided upon traveling and living in an RV, wohnwagen, for our duration here. As I stated earlier, biathlon has brought so many different adventures to my life. You never know where you might find yourself year to year or even month to month.
    Our first stop in our Wohnwagen adventure is to Oberhof, a biathlon hotspot. Here is a quick overview of life here in Oberhof.
    Oberhof in a smaller size town about three hours North West of Munich. It seems similar to Lake Placid, NY because it is home to many winter sports including bobsled, alpine skiing, Nordic and of course biathlon. It was actually the first stop on the Tour de ski this year. It was home of the 2004 World Championships for biathlon and hosts a biathlon world cup every year in January. It opened its own ski tunnel a couple summers ago just down the road, so not only do you have skiing all winter long but through the summer now too. The venue is home to one of the largest stadiums, which is packed full through the World Cup with somewhere around 30,000 people for every race. The World cup venue is only one of about five or six different biathlon ranges you can find here. One of which is indoors with huge doors that allow you to rollerski in and out of. This range also provides a video screen of your target next to every point, allowing you to look at your shots with a quick glance after every shot. Home to many German National team athletes, Oberhof is defiantly not a bad place to be a biathlete.
    Nestled in the Thuringer Forest, with Nordic trails headed in every direction, this small German villages has a great Nordic population of all different abilities. The towering pine forests surrounding the area are all heavily weighted down with heavy white snow and makes for beautiful skiing. And it’s often foggy weather has earned this place a nice name of Foghof.
    Our races start this weekend with an individual race. I am new to the German Cup scene, so I am excited to get things underway with Saturday’s individual race. No matter the fog, wind or crazy hilly race course, I am just happy to be here and to have a race bib on.
    More stories still to come…..stop by again soon,

    BethAnn






  • The Wohnwagen adventure

    Being a biathlete has brought me more opportunity then I have ever imagined in my life. I have been able to travel places I never would have imaged and made some great friends from all over the world. This winter a new adventure came to life while looking for races to do mid-season. Myself and a couple good friends of mine were all looking for new opportunity through the month of February. Looking for great competition and some challenging events to help boost my racing level up a notch or two, we decided on traveling to Germany to battle it out in a couple German cups here. While looking to make this trip as economical as possible, we decided upon traveling and living in an RV, wohnwagen, for our duration here. As I stated earlier, biathlon has brought so many different adventures to my life. You never know where you might find yourself year to year or even month to month.
    Our first stop in our Wohnwagen adventure is to Oberhof, a biathlon hotspot. Here is a quick overview of life here in Oberhof.
    Oberhof in a smaller size town about three hours North West of Munich. It seems similar to Lake Placid, NY because it is home to many winter sports including bobsled, alpine skiing, Nordic and of course biathlon. It was actually the first stop on the Tour de ski this year. It was home of the 2004 World Championships for biathlon and hosts a biathlon world cup every year in January. It opened its own ski tunnel a couple summers ago just down the road, so not only do you have skiing all winter long but through the summer now too. The venue is home to one of the largest stadiums, which is packed full through the World Cup with somewhere around 30,000 people for every race. The World cup venue is only one of about five or six different biathlon ranges you can find here. One of which is indoors with huge doors that allow you to rollerski in and out of. This range also provides a video screen of your target next to every point, allowing you to look at your shots with a quick glance after every shot. Home to many German National team athletes, Oberhof is defiantly not a bad place to be a biathlete.
    Nestled in the Thuringer Forest, with Nordic trails headed in every direction, this small German villages has a great Nordic population of all different abilities. The towering pine forests surrounding the area are all heavily weighted down with heavy white snow and makes for beautiful skiing. And it’s often foggy weather has earned this place a nice name of Foghof.
    Our races start this weekend with an individual race. I am new to the German Cup scene, so I am excited to get things underway with Saturday’s individual race. No matter the fog, wind or crazy hilly race course, I am just happy to be here and to have a race bib on.
    More stories still to come…..stop by again soon,

    BethAnn






  • U23 Pursuit Recap: Women

    Just a quick follow up to my earlier post examining some of the North American men in today’s U23 pursuit, this time for the women. I’ll just focus on three ladies: Sadie Bjornsen, Caitlin Patterson and Alysson Marshall.

    Here’s the graph for Bjornsen:

    Difference in % back between Bjornsen and the field.

    Today’s race (blue) seems neither much better nor much worse than she’s performed against this group of skiers this season, although most of the data from earlier this season is comparing her to other North Americans.

    Caitlin Patterson has somewhat less data for me to use, so things here are a little murkier:

    Difference in % back between Patterson and the field.

    This would make it seem like she’s skiing quite a bit worse against this group this season, compared to last season. But the number of athletes here that she’s faced in the past is a little on the small side. So it’s true that she’s a bit further behind several international skiers (Lisa Larsen, Sandra Ringwald, Ingild Oestberg) than she was at WJCs last year, but the head to head matchups with these three skiers are driving a fair bit of the change here.

    Finally, Alysson Marshall:

    Difference in % back between Marshall and the field.

    Again, this seems like a solid race, but not particularly better or worse than how she’s fared against these skiers in the past.

    Related posts:

    1. <Davos Recap: Distance – North Americans
    2. <La Clusaz Recap: North American Women
    3. <U23s: 10/15km Freestyle


  • The Athletes Report- Vol. III

    Another day in paradise. It was again slightly above freezing for the better part of the day with a slight breeze. The trails were recently groomed and quite fast. It was overcast for most of the with a little sun peeking out now and again.

    Today was easily the hardest ski of the trip. Our coaches devised a course for our time trial meant to “shake off the cobwebs”. It was a 2.7 kilometer lap with girls skiing two laps and boys skiing three. Each lap consisted of one major climb that wound up through the woods until it finally leveled off for a flat section and then dropped back into the stadium. Everyone seemed to have benefited from the push, but no one seemed to enjoy it

    Afterward, we ventured back up into the water tower for lunch. We laid low for most of the day to recover and complete homework while the coaches went to pick up waxing supplies and groceries. When they returned we all went back into the city for an hour or so to have one last evening in Ostersund.

    Tomorrow we have a 3 hour drive to Örnsköldsvik where we will be racing! -Forrest

    There’s your athlete report of the day! Kate, Pete, and I just got back from our nightly “coach ski” on the long lit-up out and back around town. Great skiing, and tons of old guys powering past us looking straight out of the 70s. Hopefully all the athletes are packing tonight, we are picking up our third car tomorrow and hitting the road for Ornskoldsvik! Cam and Paddy are hopefully meeting up in the morning with Paddy’s Grandfather’s old friend Ola (e?) which should be a cool adventure for them. Cam really ripped it up in our little time trial this morning, thats her pounding a hill up top here. Its about time for us to start packing too- you’ll hear from us tomorrow on the Baltic. -Matt

    them’s some good lookin’ coaches
    Marion getting focused

    Pmams Grippin’ and Rippin’

  • The Athletes Report- Vol. III

    Another day in paradise. It was again slightly above freezing for the better part of the day with a slight breeze. The trails were recently groomed and quite fast. It was overcast for most of the with a little sun peeking out now and again.

    Today was easily the hardest ski of the trip. Our coaches devised a course for our time trial meant to “shake off the cobwebs”. It was a 2.7 kilometer lap with girls skiing two laps and boys skiing three. Each lap consisted of one major climb that wound up through the woods until it finally leveled off for a flat section and then dropped back into the stadium. Everyone seemed to have benefited from the push, but no one seemed to enjoy it

    Afterward, we ventured back up into the water tower for lunch. We laid low for most of the day to recover and complete homework while the coaches went to pick up waxing supplies and groceries. When they returned we all went back into the city for an hour or so to have one last evening in Ostersund.

    Tomorrow we have a 3 hour drive to Örnsköldsvik where we will be racing! -Forrest

    There’s your athlete report of the day! Kate, Pete, and I just got back from our nightly “coach ski” on the long lit-up out and back around town. Great skiing, and tons of old guys powering past us looking straight out of the 70s. Hopefully all the athletes are packing tonight, we are picking up our third car tomorrow and hitting the road for Ornskoldsvik! Cam and Paddy are hopefully meeting up in the morning with Paddy’s Grandfather’s old friend Ola (e?) which should be a cool adventure for them. Cam really ripped it up in our little time trial this morning, thats her pounding a hill up top here. Its about time for us to start packing too- you’ll hear from us tomorrow on the Baltic. -Matt

    them’s some good lookin’ coaches
    Marion getting focused

    Pmams Grippin’ and Rippin’

  • ORFORD!

     
    Yesterday’s 2nd place in the 20km skate. Academy podium sweep!
    Last Wednesday, Graham, Drew, Jeffries and I jumped on a plane and headed to Montreal for what would be the first of our three week NorAm mini-tour race series. Travel went very smoothly and we arrived at Hotel Cheribourg in Orford with relative ease. 
    The first of the races was a 4km classic prologue. My classic skiing is coming along, and so is my sprinting, but it was apparent after being 7th and 30 seconds back over 4km that there is still lots of work to be done! The course was very flat, and some of the guys were flirting with the idea of double poling it. Everyone ended up using classic skis, but it was a real back burner. My arms and back have never seized up so much in a 10 minute period!
    The following day we raced a 10km classic. It was a single 10km loop, which is pretty uncommon now days. Usually it would be multiple loops of a smaller distance. I quite enjoy the single loop format though, I find there is more variety in the course and it doesn’t get repetitive.  The starts were 15 second intervals, which made for some big advantages the further back you started. Because it was only 15 seconds, you could see the guy ahead of you the whole time, and reeling them in was easier then say, 30 second intervals (out of sight, out of mind). It was pretty apparent in the last 5 starters, it went me first, then Dave Greer, Stef, Drew and Nish. The Nish caught Drew, they caught Stef and Stef caught Dave and they all closed in on me in the finishing straight. So we finished in reverse order, all 15 seconds apart. I think for these types of races, they should stick to the 30 second intervals. Overall I was happy with the day. I felt strong and like I was skiing technically well. It didn’t take a lot out of me, and after the two classic races I had managed to still be within 2 minutes of the lead. (Still a sizable gap, but I could work with it)
    The last race was a 20km (4x5km) skate pursuit start. This meant that your times from the two previous days were added together (plus any time bonuses from the prologue) and the overall leader went out first, and everyone else started based on their total time back from him over the last two days. It means that the first one across the finish like is the overall winner for the weekend. It is one of my favorite formats, because so much can change. You know exactly how much time you need to make up, and exactly where you finish when you cross the line. I ended up starting seventh (1:58 back of Nish, the leader). I had lots of people to catch, and some serious time to make up. I started hard and caught the two guys in front of me fairly quick. Then settled into pace and tried to eat up as many seconds as I could. I got to within 10m of Stef on the third lap, and once he saw me closing in he put on the jets and I was never able to finish the job of reeling him in. The good news is I moved from 7th to 4th, and had the second fastest time of the day behind Nish! This was my first NorAm podium of the year, and one of my better races. It was a great way to end the weekend, and gave me some good experience to put to use over the next two mini-tours.
    I am back in Canmore after a long travel day yesterday. After the race we headed to Montreal to catch our flight, and eventually made it back to Canmore at 2:00am. It was an unpleasant shock to wake up to -35 C this morning…
    I will head out for a ski eventually, and keep it pretty relaxed over the next two days. We head to Kelowna on Wednesday for the next mini-tour.
    Thanks for checking in!
    Pate
    PS- Congrats to Alex on his big win today at U23’s!! Pretty pumped to see all those solid U23 and Junior results over the past week!

  • A good weekend of racing

    Wow the skiing is good in Minnesota right now. I hope I didn’t just jinx things, but considering that we are supposed to get another 6 inches of snow today, I am feeling pretty good about the skiing for the next month (still should probably knock on wood).

    On Saturday I dropped my wife Nichole off at the airport, and found that I had enough time to swing over to Theodore Wirth to jump into the St. Olaf invite. It was a 10k skate race that went twice around the 5k JO course. It is a tough course, but it skis really well. Kudos to all the work that they have put in over there. They have a really nice, championship quality course to show for it. The race had the St. Olaf and Gustavus college teams (minus a couple skiers who were at the Supertour/CCSA races in Michigan) and also some alumni from the two schools facing off for supremacy. My goal was to find the happy medium of not embarrasing myself and to try to keep up with the college kids as best I could, while at the same time not frying my legs for the next day’s Nordic Spirit 25k classic race. I think I accomplished both these goals. I finished 5th, not very far from the top 3, and as the top Alumni. After the race I had a chance to chat with Mark, the St. Olaf coach (who I skied in high school with) about skiing in Northfield (where I now live, as of a week ago). It sounds like Olaf may start grooming some hillier terrain on their campus next winter (which would be great!) and I may try to jump into some skis and rollerskis with the Olaf team in the future.

    Sunday’s race was the Nordic Spirit 25k classic. This was the latest stop for the Minnesota Skinnyski Series, and is the reason that Vakava had 7 skiers up in Duluth on a busy weekend full of good races. I personally have always considered myself a stronger skater than classic skier, and having done this race on skate skis last year (they switched the format to classic this year), and knowing how hilly the course is, I was a bit worried. Fortunately conditions were fantastic. The tracks were deep and firm, and conditions were easy to wax for: 10 degrees = great kick with VR40. I had decided to ski on my 8 year old classic skis, and they were rockets. Fast Wax green was flying again, and I was able to stick on the lead pack for 17k because I was able to make up distance on every downhill. By the 17k mark though I was pretty fried. I had lasted longer with the leaders than I had expected, but lost contact with them after going through a feed station (and not getting a feed), and I couldn’t mentally or physically make up the gap. My goal from then on was to protect the distance we had put on the rest of the field and not get caught. Once I was on my own I also focused on just skiing as smooth and relaxed as I could (on legs and arms that were giving out). About 3k from the finish I did catch a glimpse of a pursuer coming around a corner, and was able to pick up the pace to hold him off. But as I had doubled my number of races done this entire winter in one weekend, my legs were feeling it. I got back to the cities after the race just in time to pick Nichole up from the airport (I had kept myself quite busy during the ~30 hours she was gone!). Overall I felt good about my races, and I considered Sunday to be a good classic result for me considering the amount of striding. I’m one weekend closer to racing myself into shape!

    Other Vakava racers were also skiing well this weekend – highlighted by Kathleen winning the women’s race at Nordic Spirit!

    Vakava Skiers at Nordic Spirit:
    4th Nate (age group win)
    7th Eugene
    11th Mark
    12th Dave C (age group win)
    1st Kathleen (age group win)
    4th Angie (age group win)
    5th Cheryl (age group win)

    By my calculations that should net our team 595 points – just 5 shy of a perfect score, and only because Eugene and I are in the same age group (I finished 1st and he finished 2nd in the 25-29 category). At the time of this post we are still waiting to see how the team scores are stacking up 4 races into the 7 race series.

  • A good weekend of racing

    Wow the skiing is good in Minnesota right now. I hope I didn’t just jinx things, but considering that we are supposed to get another 6 inches of snow today, I am feeling pretty good about the skiing for the next month (still should probably knock on wood).

    On Saturday I dropped my wife Nichole off at the airport, and found that I had enough time to swing over to Theodore Wirth to jump into the St. Olaf invite. It was a 10k skate race that went twice around the 5k JO course. It is a tough course, but it skis really well. Kudos to all the work that they have put in over there. They have a really nice, championship quality course to show for it. The race had the St. Olaf and Gustavus college teams (minus a couple skiers who were at the Supertour/CCSA races in Michigan) and also some alumni from the two schools facing off for supremacy. My goal was to find the happy medium of not embarrasing myself and to try to keep up with the college kids as best I could, while at the same time not frying my legs for the next day’s Nordic Spirit 25k classic race. I think I accomplished both these goals. I finished 5th, not very far from the top 3, and as the top Alumni. After the race I had a chance to chat with Mark, the St. Olaf coach (who I skied in high school with) about skiing in Northfield (where I now live, as of a week ago). It sounds like Olaf may start grooming some hillier terrain on their campus next winter (which would be great!) and I may try to jump into some skis and rollerskis with the Olaf team in the future.

    Sunday’s race was the Nordic Spirit 25k classic. This was the latest stop for the Minnesota Skinnyski Series, and is the reason that Vakava had 7 skiers up in Duluth on a busy weekend full of good races. I personally have always considered myself a stronger skater than classic skier, and having done this race on skate skis last year (they switched the format to classic this year), and knowing how hilly the course is, I was a bit worried. Fortunately conditions were fantastic. The tracks were deep and firm, and conditions were easy to wax for: 10 degrees = great kick with VR40. I had decided to ski on my 8 year old classic skis, and they were rockets. Fast Wax green was flying again, and I was able to stick on the lead pack for 17k because I was able to make up distance on every downhill. By the 17k mark though I was pretty fried. I had lasted longer with the leaders than I had expected, but lost contact with them after going through a feed station (and not getting a feed), and I couldn’t mentally or physically make up the gap. My goal from then on was to protect the distance we had put on the rest of the field and not get caught. Once I was on my own I also focused on just skiing as smooth and relaxed as I could (on legs and arms that were giving out). About 3k from the finish I did catch a glimpse of a pursuer coming around a corner, and was able to pick up the pace to hold him off. But as I had doubled my number of races done this entire winter in one weekend, my legs were feeling it. I got back to the cities after the race just in time to pick Nichole up from the airport (I had kept myself quite busy during the ~30 hours she was gone!). Overall I felt good about my races, and I considered Sunday to be a good classic result for me considering the amount of striding. I’m one weekend closer to racing myself into shape!

    Other Vakava racers were also skiing well this weekend – highlighted by Kathleen winning the women’s race at Nordic Spirit!

    Vakava Skiers at Nordic Spirit:
    4th Nate (age group win)
    7th Eugene
    11th Mark
    12th Dave C (age group win)
    1st Kathleen (age group win)
    4th Angie (age group win)
    5th Cheryl (age group win)

    By my calculations that should net our team 595 points – just 5 shy of a perfect score, and only because Eugene and I are in the same age group (I finished 1st and he finished 2nd in the 25-29 category). At the time of this post we are still waiting to see how the team scores are stacking up 4 races into the 7 race series.

  • A good weekend of racing

    Wow the skiing is good in Minnesota right now. I hope I didn’t just jinx things, but considering that we are supposed to get another 6 inches of snow today, I am feeling pretty good about the skiing for the next month (still should probably knock on wood).

    On Saturday I dropped my wife Nichole off at the airport, and found that I had enough time to swing over to Theodore Wirth to jump into the St. Olaf invite. It was a 10k skate race that went twice around the 5k JO course. It is a tough course, but it skis really well. Kudos to all the work that they have put in over there. They have a really nice, championship quality course to show for it. The race had the St. Olaf and Gustavus college teams (minus a couple skiers who were at the Supertour/CCSA races in Michigan) and also some alumni from the two schools facing off for supremacy. My goal was to find the happy medium of not embarrasing myself and to try to keep up with the college kids as best I could, while at the same time not frying my legs for the next day’s Nordic Spirit 25k classic race. I think I accomplished both these goals. I finished 5th, not very far from the top 3, and as the top Alumni. After the race I had a chance to chat with Mark, the St. Olaf coach (who I skied in high school with) about skiing in Northfield (where I now live, as of a week ago). It sounds like Olaf may start grooming some hillier terrain on their campus next winter (which would be great!) and I may try to jump into some skis and rollerskis with the Olaf team in the future.

    Sunday’s race was the Nordic Spirit 25k classic. This was the latest stop for the Minnesota Skinnyski Series, and is the reason that Vakava had 7 skiers up in Duluth on a busy weekend full of good races. I personally have always considered myself a stronger skater than classic skier, and having done this race on skate skis last year (they switched the format to classic this year), and knowing how hilly the course is, I was a bit worried. Fortunately conditions were fantastic. The tracks were deep and firm, and conditions were easy to wax for: 10 degrees = great kick with VR40. I had decided to ski on my 8 year old classic skis, and they were rockets. Fast Wax green was flying again, and I was able to stick on the lead pack for 17k because I was able to make up distance on every downhill. By the 17k mark though I was pretty fried. I had lasted longer with the leaders than I had expected, but lost contact with them after going through a feed station (and not getting a feed), and I couldn’t mentally or physically make up the gap. My goal from then on was to protect the distance we had put on the rest of the field and not get caught. Once I was on my own I also focused on just skiing as smooth and relaxed as I could (on legs and arms that were giving out). About 3k from the finish I did catch a glimpse of a pursuer coming around a corner, and was able to pick up the pace to hold him off. But as I had doubled my number of races done this entire winter in one weekend, my legs were feeling it. I got back to the cities after the race just in time to pick Nichole up from the airport (I had kept myself quite busy during the ~30 hours she was gone!). Overall I felt good about my races, and I considered Sunday to be a good classic result for me considering the amount of striding. I’m one weekend closer to racing myself into shape!

    Other Vakava racers were also skiing well this weekend – highlighted by Kathleen winning the women’s race at Nordic Spirit!

    Vakava Skiers at Nordic Spirit:
    4th Nate (age group win)
    7th Eugene
    11th Mark
    12th Dave C (age group win)
    1st Kathleen (age group win)
    4th Angie (age group win)
    5th Cheryl (age group win)

    By my calculations that should net our team 595 points – just 5 shy of a perfect score, and only because Eugene and I are in the same age group (I finished 1st and he finished 2nd in the 25-29 category). At the time of this post we are still waiting to see how the team scores are stacking up 4 races into the 7 race series.

  • U23 Pursuit Recap: Men

    As before, with the U23 racers we typically have more data to work with, since these folks have generally been around longer and so are likely to have raced against each other more often. We’ll continue using the percent back difference plots, that examine how a particular skier has fared against each of their competitors in the past. So let’s get a sense for what some of the North American performances mean, starting with Alex Harvey:

    Difference in % back between Harvey and the field.

    Harvey was certainly a favorite to win coming into this race, given his strong results on the World Cup this season, and he didn’t disappoint. Today’s race is in blue, with the median from today’s race in red and a red trend line to give you a sense of how his performance against these particular skiers has changed (or stayed the same) over time. What this graph suggests is that his victory today wasn’t an unusually good or bad performance for him; it also suggests that the folks today that he’s raced against before he’s almost always beaten.

    Moving on to Noah Hoffman:

    Difference in % back between Hoffman and the field.

    This looks like Hoffman had a somewhat off day, but not dramatically so.

    Lastly, I’ve got to include one look at Andrew Musgrave, since the guy kind of fascinates me:

    Difference in % back between Musgrave and the field.

    Like his previous U23 race, this looks fairly average, to slightly above average for him this season.

    Related posts:

    1. <Davos Recap: Distance – North Americans
    2. <Recap: Davos Sprint Con’t
    3. <La Clusaz Recap: North American Men


  • GMVS @ Weston EC. Good Times + Sinclair victory. [PICTURES!!!]

    We had a great day of racing at Weston Ski Track yesterday. Conditions were beautiful, although there was a good breeze during the mass-start races. GMVS had our best day of racing yet this season, with numerous podiums and Personal Bests.

    Our crew, post-race:

    Sinclair (GMVS ’10 grad) en route to his victory:

    Ryley skied strong:

    Hans had 2 podiums:

    Devlin also had a PR:

    Waitsfield-native Brennan Degen skied strong in his first-ever Eastern Cups. It was great to have him along:

    Jackson Rich was the top J1 in the sprint:
    Unfortunately Kaitlin Fitzgerald wasn’t able to take pictures WHILE she was racing, so here is a quick recap of our girls’ results:

    Heidi Halvorsen was 2nd J2 in both races (10th overall sprint, 15th overall 6km).

    Elena Luethi also had two podiums: 2nd overall in the sprint, and 5th overall (2nd J1) in the 6km.

    Kaitlin Fitzgerald also had the best race of her season with a 40th overall in the 6km, as the 16th J1.

  • Antholz in Pictures

    Post-relay. A great start for Team USA women!

    Annelies and I watching the women’s mass start.

    Lowell Bailey in second place in the first leg of the men’s relay.

    Lowell shooting on the big screen!

    Relay exchange 1-yep, that says USA in 2nd place! Great legs from Lowell and Lief…things are coming together!

    Cheering for the men on their way to a 9th place relay finish.

  • Antholz in Pictures

    Post-relay. A great start for Team USA women!

    Annelies and I watching the women’s mass start.

    Lowell Bailey in second place in the first leg of the men’s relay.

    Lowell shooting on the big screen!

    Relay exchange 1-yep, that says USA in 2nd place! Great legs from Lowell and Lief…things are coming together!

    Cheering for the men on their way to a 9th place relay finish.

  • Antholz in Pictures

    Post-relay. A great start for Team USA women!

    Annelies and I watching the women’s mass start.

    Lowell Bailey in second place in the first leg of the men’s relay.

    Lowell shooting on the big screen!

    Relay exchange 1-yep, that says USA in 2nd place! Great legs from Lowell and Lief…things are coming together!

    Cheering for the men on their way to a 9th place relay finish.

  • Antholz in Pictures

    Post-relay. A great start for Team USA women!

    Annelies and I watching the women’s mass start.

    Lowell Bailey in second place in the first leg of the men’s relay.

    Lowell shooting on the big screen!

    Relay exchange 1-yep, that says USA in 2nd place! Great legs from Lowell and Lief…things are coming together!

    Cheering for the men on their way to a 9th place relay finish.

  • Morning Tour

    a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TUcWwzmKmWI/AAAAAAAAGRI/UHNni832vzk/s1600/IMG_0911.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TUcWwzmKmWI/AAAAAAAAGRI/UHNni832vzk/s320/IMG_0911.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568444492006725986″ //aImagine taking a 30 km point to point tour on freshly groomed snowmobile trails with lots of snow, blue sky and no one else around (we saw 1 snowmobile).divHere are a couple of pictures from our Mad Tom Notch to Langrove ski.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TUcWXqVQr_I/AAAAAAAAGRA/nMc7M1wpfvM/s1600/IMG_0918.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TUcWXqVQr_I/AAAAAAAAGRA/nMc7M1wpfvM/s320/IMG_0918.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568444060023173106″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TUcV8lfJ5BI/AAAAAAAAGQ4/mTxTDLF6gig/s1600/IMG_0921.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TUcV8lfJ5BI/AAAAAAAAGQ4/mTxTDLF6gig/s320/IMG_0921.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568443594866025490″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TUcVkzuTXTI/AAAAAAAAGQw/i7JqKIvlgUM/s1600/IMG_0922.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TUcVkzuTXTI/AAAAAAAAGQw/i7JqKIvlgUM/s320/IMG_0922.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568443186370796850″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TUcVBsGKdDI/AAAAAAAAGQo/jIrgViWk9oY/s1600/IMG_0923.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TUcVBsGKdDI/AAAAAAAAGQo/jIrgViWk9oY/s320/IMG_0923.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568442583027971122″ //aTyler checks out our new stadium (hmmmm..actually, it’s Griffith Lake).br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TUcUtNUSyJI/AAAAAAAAGQg/AjNL31CkJtE/s1600/IMG_0929.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/TUcUtNUSyJI/AAAAAAAAGQg/AjNL31CkJtE/s320/IMG_0929.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568442231168354450″ //aWe ended with lunch at the Caldwell house./divdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4680416899705879324-6936962592570375480?l=smsxc.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div