Category: XCFeeds

… I just realized… and I’m pretty stoked.

Time to clean my lenses.

Tonight, Caitlin Compton and I skied our way to 2nd place in the team sprint competition.  This was probably the best race of my career so far.  I can not get the photos to upload, so check out Kristina Owen’s website for now.  I will write more tomorrow.

Nine MVNT skiers travelled to Truckee California from March 6-16th, and raced with the other top junior skiers from around the nation. The team stopped for a morning of climbing at Smith Rocks on the way down, and they brought energy and quality to their races. Results can be found at: http://xcjuniorolympics2009.org.br /br /embed type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” src=”http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf” width=”288″ height=”192″ flashvars=”host=picasaweb.google.comRGB=0x000000feed=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2Fmtnmind%2Falbumid%2F5316987262550241121%3Fkind%3Dphoto%26alt%3Drss” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer”/embeddiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/489212310283984495-8518098185343293655?l=methowvalleynordicteam.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

This is a collection of musing on the race that surprisingly didn’t fit into my tome of a race report.
Thank You!
First off, it’s time to finally thank the people that made this race possible for me:
My wife Linda – I know, I’ve thanked her a lot already, but I can’t say enough about all she […]

After an almost drug free season, a particular Russian, Natalia Matveeva had to ruin the party. News

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…

Cologna and Kowalczyk had barely set their new crystal globes down before the doping news started emerging yesterday.In Austria, “an unnamed cyclist and former Austrian Nordic ski coach Walter Mayer, who was involved in the 2006 Turin Olympics doping scandal, have been arrested in connection with new doping allegations.” Though the cyclist is being called “K” rather than being named, that letter

Reminds me of northern Maine about this time of year.  Site of JOs in 2010!

mmmm… warm California sun…

The World Cup season is now over for another year and the athletes get a well deserved break before they resume preparations for Vancouver 2010. Today showed great excitement with the hunter style pursuit as Kowalczyk and Cologna attempted to wrap up the overall titles for the year.br /br /span style=”font-weight:bold;”Women/spanbr /br /Kowalczyk had a substantial lead going out on the 10km race and had no intentions of letting anyone get near to hear. There was a chase group that bunched together at the 2km mark, but it was stretched going up Morderbacken to the 2.8km mark; led by Kalla and Johaug. Majdic attempted to stick into the back of a Steira/Kristoffersen train but was unable to and got stuck in no-man’s land for the majority of the race.br /br /The second lap saw Kowalczyk ski by herself but was able to maintain her lead. Johaug was able to pull away slightly from Kalla, but only slightly. The main chase pack consisted of Nystad, Sachenbacher-Stehle, Steira, Roponen, Muranen, and Olsson. They came to the base of Morderbacken for the second time and the spectators saw Johaug and her incredible tempo put a sizeable gap inbetween her and Kalla while Steira was cutting into the gap between her and Kalla. Johaug took an impressive 21 seconds out of Kowalczyk’s lead between the 2.8km and 7.8km time checks and could actually see her in the far off distance at the top of Morderbacken. In the last 2km, Steira caught Kalla and shadowed her until the final stretch. br /br /The finish saw Kowalczyk predictably cross first and crumple into a heap of tears and joy. Johaug was equally exhuberant crossing in second and Kalla was thrilled to hold of Steira for the last podium spot for the World Cup Finale. br /br /However, it was a Norwegian sweep for the fastest times on the day.br /

World Cup wrap up.  Surprizing numbers.  Far Banks.  Photos.  All ahead.  Click for Preview…

World Cup wrap up.  Surprizing numbers.  Far Banks.  Photos.  All ahead.  Click for Preview…

World Cup wrap up.  Surprizing numbers.  Far Banks.  Photos.  All ahead.  Click for Preview…

img src=”http://10.media.tumblr.com/COiZNt422ld7jlhxN7WhgOA1o1_500.jpg”/br/br/Photos from Downtown: Send along your best captions johnnyklister@gmail.com

img src=”http://8.media.tumblr.com/COiZNt422ld7ilarskwPJJ6Bo1_500.jpg”/br/br/Photos from Downtown: Send along your best captions johnnyklister@gmail.com

img src=”http://16.media.tumblr.com/COiZNt422ld7hirnwdWAqjnco1_500.jpg”/br/br/Photos from Downtown: Send along your best captions johnnyklister@gmail.com