Tag: ski to sea

Greggs, Boundary Bay Once Again Dominate Ski to Sea

Brian Gregg, Caitlin Gregg, Patrick Johnson, Todd Eastman, and Russell Kennedy — those names sound familiar? The five U.S.-born cross-country skiers started each of their eight-person teams off two weekends ago in the 93-mile Ski to Sea Race on May 25 from Mount Baker to Bellingham, Wash.

A Washington native, Gregg put his Boundary Bay Brewery men’s team in the lead through the first stage of the multi-sport race — the 8-kilometer ski race — then handed off to Greg Ruckman for the downhill portion.

“The course is very challenging and honestly quite similar to the 5km Freestyle loop in Sochi,” Gregg later wrote on his blog. “I competed with the Boundary Bay Brewery competitive open race team. I have been competing with the same group of guys for the past 5 years and it is always a fun event.”

Kennedy, who moved north from Truckee, Calif., to pursue a professional ski career in Canmore, Alberta, raced the NW Sleep Solutions to second in the competitive open category, 1:17 behind Gregg.

Brian Gregg (l) with his Boundary Bay team, which won its fourth-straight Ski to Sea title on May 25. (Photo: Brian Gregg/Facebook)

The powerhouses of the day, Boundary Bay went on to tag third in the downhill, and second in every event thereafter (the run, road bike, two-man canoe, cross-country bike, and kayak, respectively). Gregg teamed up with Ruckman, Justin Ricks, Dan Harm, Brad Bauer and Steve Corlew, Russell Stevenson, and Olympic gold medalist kayaker Greg Barton — in that order — for the win in 5:40:08, beating Team Aeromech (with Johnson racing to third in the nordic portion) by 6 minutes and 32 seconds. It extended their win streak to four years in a row.

“I’m on a team with a bunch of fast guys,” said Stevenson, who gave Boundary Bay a seven-minute lead on Aeromech in the cross-country bike, to the Bellingham Herald. “The guys in the morning just crushed it and demoralized everybody, I think.”

Aeromech (with Johnson, Max Taam, B.J. Christenson, David Kessler, Ivan English and Mike Vincent, Gage Hecht, and Kenny Rice) took second, and the truly local Beavers Tree Service won the Whatcom County Open category and placed third overall (with Eastman, Brent Molsberry, Matt Cummins, Ian Baldwin, Brian Boatman and David Williams, Brian Ecker, and Brandon Nelson), 19 minutes behind Boundary Bay.

Kennedy’s NW Sleep Solutions (with Steve Sellers, Jeff Grassley, Andrew Coe, Mike Norton and Jon Davies, Ian Murray, and Gareth Tudor-Jones) outlasted the masters winners GetSimpleBox.com by 28 seconds for fourth.

Boundary Bay swept the afternoon, winning the women’s division as well in 6:33:29 for their 15th straight victory. Caitlin Gregg gave the team a four-minute lead after the nordic leg, putting them fifth overall while wearing a jersey that read, “You just got chicked” on the back. Thirteenth overall, the Boundary Bay women ended up winning by more than 13 minutes.

Caitlin Gregg in her “You just got chicked” T-shirt. (Photo: Caitlin Gregg/Facebook)

“Psyched to be representing ‘You just got Chicked’ … at Ski to Sea!” Caitlin wrote on Facebook. “Jennifer Martin is an awesome PT AND an incredible ambassador for getting women (young and old) active and into sports of all kinds!”

For the first time, this year organizers awarded both the men’s and women’s winning teams with universal airline ticket to all 16 members. Caitlin Gregg told the Herald she’s going to use hers to get to a training camp at Alaska’s Eagle Glacier.

The day before on May 24, her husband Brian set a personal record in a 10 k running race, winning the Mazama Fun Run in 35:12 in the Methow Valley, where he grew up. He and his father started the race 20 years ago from their driveway to Mazama for the annual Memorial Day Pancake Breakfast.

“I was too young to run so far, so I did it as a bike ride,” Brian wrote on his blog. “A few years later I did it as a relay team with my twin brother. The race has grown beyond the capacity of the bathroom at my parent’s house and now runs a loop from Mazama.”

One day after on Memorial Day, he and his extended family did a 100 k bike ride on San Juan Island in northwest Washington.

“Why stop at a 10km Running Race and 8km Ski Race when you have a 3 day weekend,” Brian wrote. He and his wife Caitlin flew home to Minnesota that Tuesday for a month of training in the Midwest. They celebrated their third anniversary on May 21.

Ski to Sea results

June 3, 2014
Treinen Keeps Competition Season Rolling with Victory in Ski to Sea

Lex Treinen and his brother Nick after placing first and second, respectively, at the Ski to Sea on March 30 in Homer, Alaska. (Courtesy photo)

Note: This article has been updated to reflect the corrected 2013/2014 SuperTour overall standings. Lex Treinen finished fourth behind Reese Hanneman, Erik Bjornsen and Brian Gregg, respectively.

As if four races in seven days weren’t enough, Lex Treinen, of Alaska Pacific University (APU), signed up for the Ski to Ski in Homer, Alaska, two days after the last day of Spring Series — on a whim.

He and his brother Nick decided to do so a few days before.

“I had hardly heard of it, but felt like I needed a little vacation, if you can call it that,” Treinen, 24, explained in an email. “So we jumped in the car after dragging our hottub off the racecourse in the morning, spent a night in Girdwood and finished the drive in the morning.”

The two left Anchorage last Saturday, a day after the 50-kilometer classic mass start at U.S. Distance Nationals, which for most, was the final race of the season. The drive itself was 220 miles south toward the mouth of the Cook Inlet. In Homer, competitors did a 5 k run, followed by a 7 k bike, and ending with a 5 k ski … to the sea.

The start of the 2014 Ski to Sea on Homer Spit at the tip of the Kenai Peninsula in Homer, Alaska. (Photo: Lex Treinen)

Treinen won it in 55:23. His brother Nick took second, 3:03 back, edging third-place finisher Chaz DiMarzid by just four seconds.

“Nick and I came into the bike one and two, but we stupidly used studded bike tires and had to ride the seven kilometer uphill hearing the sound of grinding asphalt beneath us,” wrote Treinen, who placed fifth in the 50 k and fifth in the 15 k freestyle earlier that week at SuperTour Finals. He finished fourth in the overall 2013/2014 SuperTour, behind teammates Reese Hanneman and Erik Bjornsen, respectively, and Brian Gregg (Team Gregg/Madshus) in third.

On Sunday, Treinen started the ski a few seconds ahead of DiMarzid, who rode his way up to second.

“Despite getting on skis and feeling like I forgot how to ski because my legs were so tired, I managed to hold him off,” Treinen wrote. “It felt good to be at a low key race like that after all of the pressure of the season. When we got into town there were signs everywhere since the race went through town, but at the bike drop off there was nobody watching out for bike-thieves, not out of laziness but just because Homer is cool like that.”

Treinen and his brother received medals made of sand dollars. Local businesses donated prizes as well, and Treinen estimated half of the nearly 100 finishers won raffle prizes.

Even after Sunday’s race, he thought he had some more skiing in him.

“Usually at the end of the season I am super excited to go back-country and all that but I woke up the next morning after the race my legs felt like wood so I told my brother I was too tired,” he wrote. “The Sea to Ski was the last hurrah for the season, but I didn’t realize it at the time.”

Pleased with his most successful season yet, including sixth place in the 30 k skate at U.S. nationals in January and top-10 finish in the American Birkebeiner in February, Treinen is looking to build for next winter.

“After being [fourth] in the Supertour, I definitely feel I can move up with some better races early in the season and hopefully some wins,” he wrote. “I have never started a World Cup, so I for sure want to qualify for that. As for World Champs, I really would love to qualify but the way to do that is still unclear to me, so I will just do my best and focus on being sharp in the early season.”

Results

April 4, 2014
Gregg, Brooks Start Strong in Ski to Sea Relay (Updated)

Note: This article has been updated to reflect the correct time between Holly Brooks and Alysson Marshall, and include quotes from Pate Neumann.

One was a native. Another was a ringer.

Both Brian Gregg and Holly Brooks found themselves at the front of the pack in the first of the Ski to Sea seven-leg relay on Sunday in northern Washington.

The U.S. Ski Team's newest member Holly Brooks (Alaska Pacific University) gives her husband, Rob, a birthday shout-out after finishing fourth in the 30 k freestyle mass start at U.S. Distance Nationals on March 30 in Craftsbury, Vt.

Like several cross-country skiers at the U.S. and Canadian team camps in Bend, Ore., last week, Brooks drove more than seven hours to Bellingham, Wash., to take part in the 91-mile race.

For the second straight year, she completed the four-mile nordic leg at the Mt. Baker Ski Area. That race was followed by a 2.5-mile downhill ski/snowboard, 8-mile run, 42-mile road bike, 18.5-mile canoe, 13-mile mountain bike and 3.5-mile kayak (usually around five miles, but shortened this year because of wind).

Last year, Brooks competed in the family division with her husband, father, uncle, two brothers, sister and sister-in-law as team “Aint no big deal.” This time around, the 30-year-old took it a little more seriously.

Awarded the “top gun” after the 2011 Ski to Sea, Brooks said she was recruited back to race for the newly formed Team Fast and Female in an effort to dethrone the 12-time competitive women’s champ: Boundary Bay Brewery. On Sunday, the Boundary Bay females clinched their 13^th straight title, but not without a run from Brooks and a few of her seven teammates.

Brooks was the top woman in the nordic race. Gregg of Winthrop, Wash., was the overall winner. Born about 150 miles east of Bellingham, Gregg estimated this was his 10^th Ski to Sea.

“Who wouldn’t want to do a cross-country ski race in late May?” Gregg wrote in an email. Not long before, he injured his wrist mountain biking and reviewed the X-rays with a trusted orthopedist in a coffee shop on his way to the race.

“It swelled up about the size of a baseball and has been pretty tender,” Gregg wrote. “The x-rays show that nothing is broken and we think it is just a slight ligament tear.”

Brian Gregg racing for CXC on his way to placing 28th in the freestyle sprint at U.S. Cross Country Nationals on Jan. 3 in Rumford, Maine. Photo: Toko.

He wore a brace at the race.

“The pain is pretty minimal,” Gregg wrote. “Skiing with the brace helps protect it.”

Gregg finished the hilly 6.5-kilometer leg in soft conditions in 17:37, one minute and 11 seconds off his winning time last year. His team, Barron Heating, went on to win the overall title.

Another Washington native, 2010 Olympian Torin Koos followed Gregg’s lead and clocked the fastest downhill ski for Barron. The team’s kayaker, Zsolt Szadovski, anchored the victory after its mountain biker, Colin Cares, took a wrong turn and lost the lead.

Team Aeromech Takes Flight, which included nordic skier Matt Liebsch of Minnesota, placed second. Liebsch initially finished fourth and the team climbed to first when its mountain biker, Steve Fisher, capitalized on Cares’ mistake on near the end of the sixth leg.

Szadovski regained control and sealed Barron’s 10^th win since 1996, according to The Bellingham Herald. It was Gregg’s second year on the competitive-open team.

“The other guys on the team are really fast and it is fun to follow their competitive seasons throughout the year and catch up on Ski to Sea weekend,” Gregg wrote. “The team battle is extra exciting because Alaska Airlines puts up a round trip plane ticket for each member of the winning team. I follow the entire race on the radio and with the splits online.”

For him, the race is a family affair that brings him back to the mountains. The night before the relay each year, Gregg and his relatives camp on Mount Baker, giving him a taste of the terrain he misses while living in Minnesota.

“Normally I would prefer not to sleep in a tent before the race but the mountains are so cool at dusk and dawn that it is totally worth it,” Gregg wrote.

Back for More

Two months after last year’s Ski to Sea, Brooks signed up for another at the request of race organizer and supporter, Tony Velasco. According to Brooks, Velasco assembled eight teams and she agreed to join Fast and Female.

After Brooks put the team in first, downhill skier Jessie Young kept the momentum going, finishing 2-½ minutes ahead of the second woman from Boundary Bay.

“I had quite the head start,” Young told the Herald. “My cross-country skier kicked some ass.”

Brooks finished 1 minute and 7 seconds ahead of Boundary Bay’s nordic runner-up Alysson Marshall, a Canadian senior development skier, in 19:59. Fast and Female’s runner fell two minutes off her time from last year while another Canadian, Brooke Gosling, made up three minutes for Boundary Bay, overtaking Fast and Female for good.

Despite remaining close through the transition, Fast and Female’s road biker wasn’t able to catch the draft that Boundary Bay’s did.

“Ours had to do an individual 42 mile [time trial] which is tough!” Brooks wrote in an email. “From there it was a bit downhill and the girls from Boundary Bay spanked us. Maybe next year?!”

Other Nordic Notables

Brent Knight of Alaska Pacific University finished second, 10 seconds behind Gregg in 17:47, and Pate Neumann (Canmore Nordic Ski Club) was third in 17:58.

“The race was really fun,” Neumann wrote in an email after competing in his first Ski to Sea with Team Northwest Sleep Solutions, which finished 10th.

He was recruited by the team in its second year in the relay. Last year, Neumann did the Snow to Surf adventure relay race on Vancouver Island, which he said was similar to the Ski to Sea.

“The course was a challenging … ‘figure 8’ loop with some monster climbs,” Neumann wrote about Sunday’s race. “Conditions were great with tons of snow and a relatively hard track. I think the best part of the race was the atmosphere. The whole town gets involved and everyone is cheering for you. It is fun having some of the top Super Tour and NorAm racers on the start line, it gives the race some serious excitement. It is also great to catch up with racing friends you haven’t seen for a while and hear about their spring adventures”

Ski to Sea nordic leg results

Overall team results

May 29, 2012